“We should go,” Jo says, grabbing her swatches with the speed of a woman who senses drama and is exercising Olympic-level restraint in walking away from it. “Let you two…catch up. Or whatever.” She points at Dean. “You and I are having a conversation later.”
“Looking forward to it.”
“That’s sarcasm.”
“Yes.”
“I love you, but you’re in so much trouble.”
“I know.”
Jo hustles Dean toward the door, Mads trailing behind with a look that sayswe will be discussing this at book club.The door chimes as they leave, and then it’s just me and Levi, standing in my mother’s flower shop with a lifetime of history between us like humidity before a storm.
The shop is so quiet I can hear the cooler cycling. The drip of water from a loose faucet in the back room. My own breathing, too fast, too shallow. The space that felt cozy with Jo and Mads in it now feels cavernous, like all the air left with them and what’s remaining isn’t enough for two people carrying this much unsaid.
He takes off his cap. Runs a hand through his hair—longer now, curling at the ends. I used to twist those curls around my fingers while we sat on the pier, feet dangling over the water, talking about nothing and everything. I remember the exact texture. Which is a problem.
The silence between us is thick enough to arrange flowers in.
“I came back for the wedding,” he says. “Dean asked me to help with stuff. I’ll be here for a couple months.”
A couple months. He’s going to be here, in my town, for a couple months. My hands find the edge of the counter again. I grip it like it’s the only solid thing in the room.
“I’m doing the flowers,” I hear myself say. “For the wedding.”
“I know. Jo mentioned it.” His mouth twitches—a different movement than before, more wry than wistful. “She’s not subtle either.”
“Must be a Twin Waves thing.”
“Must be.”
The light shifts through the front window as a cloud passes. For a second, shadows move across his face, and he looks exactly like the boy I remember—young and uncertain and trying so hard to be brave. Then the sun returns and he’s the man again, the famous one, the stranger wearing a familiar face.
We stare at each other. Two people who used to fit together like puzzle pieces, now standing five feet apart with no idea how to bridge the gap. The counter between us feels like an ocean. My fingers itch to reach across it, which is ridiculous and inconvenient and exactly the kind of impulse that got me in trouble the last two times.
I should say something normal. Something that doesn’t reveal that I’ve listened to every album he’sever made, or that I know the bridge of “Petals” by heart.
Instead, I say nothing. Because apparently my mouth has decided to go on strike at the worst possible moment.
“I should go,” he says. “I just wanted to—” He stops. Swallows. “See you. Make sure you were real.”
The words land like a fist to the sternum.
Make sure you were real.Like I’m a song he wrote that he’s not sure actually happened. Like he’s spent years replaying me in his head and couldn’t trust his own memory anymore. I know that feeling. I know it because I’ve done the same thing—lying awake in apartments in cities that weren’t this one, wondering if the boy on the pier was ever as good as I remembered or if I’d turned him into a story I told myself to feel less alone.
And now he’s standing in front of me, flesh and blood and tired eyes, telling me he came here to make sure I wasn’t a ghost.
I don’t know whether to cry or throw a peony at his head.
“I’m real.”
“Yeah.” His eyes trace my face like he’s memorizing it. Like he’s afraid I’ll disappearbetween blinks, which is fair, because historically, that’s exactly what I do. “You are.”
He puts his cap back on, pulls it low, and turns for the door. His hand is on the handle when he stops.
“The shop looks good,” he says without turning around. “Your mom would be proud.”
My throat tightens. Of all the things he could have said, he chose that. The one thing guaranteed to crack me open.
