My dad has been tending these alone.
Every morning.
By himself.
While I’ve been wrapped up in Cassian, forgetting, and he’s been out here with her.
Alone.
I always pick Cassian.
Even now.
Even over the people who have never once let me down.
That thought goes through me like something breaking at the root.
The tears come hard and fast and don’t stop.
The gasping kind.
The kind that hurt on the way out.
Cassian gathers me in.
His hand on the back of my head.
His voice low against my hair —it’s okay, you’re okay, I’ve got you, your dad is okay, you’re not alone, I’m not going anywhere—
Over and over.
Like he knows the loop I’m in and is trying to interrupt it.
• • •
I cry until I can’t.
Until I’m dry and hollow and the garden is just a garden again.
He takes me back to my room.
Tucks me in the way my mom used to.
The thing we keep passing between us.
I stare at the wall.
I thought I was better.
I thought having him would fix the parts of me that broke.
I thought love was the missing piece and I’d finally found it and that would be enough.
• • •
But the daisies are still there.
And she isn’t.
