“I’ve tried to stay away…,” he says, voice rough, like the words are a burden he’s carried too long, and I think I see his lipstrembling. Pain tucked into every crevice. “I thought I could fight it, but…” His chest swells. And my heart starts to crash against my ribs: fearful of what he’s going to say next but needing to hear it, needing to know what thoughts have tormented him. Needing to know why I shouldn’t just leave and hate him forever. “I went to the abandoned train car, the place you took me that night. I stood on the roof and tried to think of all the reasons why I needed to forget you. But they were all the wrong reasons… because it’s not… because I…” He shakes his head, exhaling like it’s the last breath he’ll ever take. “I told myself I would never see you again and that eventually it wouldn’t hurt so bad. But I don’t think that’s true either, because seeing you now…” I try to look away from him but can’t. My eyes are buried in his. “I don’t think a girl like you can be forgotten. Not really. Not ever.”
His words peel back old scabs, breaking my bones all over again. “You only think about me because I’m a Goode, because you can’t help it. What you feel isn’t real.” It hurts to say this, I wish it weren’t true, but I know he can’t trust his own heart. Every unshakable thought he’s had about me…is a lie. What he feels when he sees me is a lie.
I am the monster. The daughter of the woman who took his father away.
“No,” he says, jaw tensing, eyes flashing to the fireplace. “I don’t believe that. It’s… it’s not your last name. It’s not this town or anything that could grow from the ground behind your house.” He scrapes a hand through his dark hair, like he’s not getting the words out quite right. His eyes click back to mine, the dark centers of his pupils cut through with pain. “Lark, tell me you don’t feelanything… and I’ll believe you. If it’s only me, then it must be the tulips, then I’ve been stupid this whole time. I’ve imagined this whole thing. But if you feel something… then it’s not your family, or those flowers….”
My lungs have stopped inhaling, and it feels like a broken knife is cutting apart every inch of my swollen heart, leaving it in shreds on the floor of his beautiful home. And he won’t take his dangerous, savage, painful eyes off me. “I can’t…”I can’t let myself…. I can’t admit how he makes me feel.
Because he’s lied. And I feel betrayed—not just by him, but by my own mother. By everything that’s happened. My family has brokenhisin ways that I can’t make right.
There are too many hurts between us for there to be room left for anything good.
Still, he moves closer. I tell my legs to walk away, I tell my body to run, but my muscles are useless—as if there’s a gravity in him I can’t pull away from.
“Tell me something, Lark, anything,” he presses. “Tell me you hate me. Tell me you never felt a thing for me. Tell me you never want to see me again.”
I want to be angry. I want to tell him I’ll never forgive him for what he’s done, the secret he kept, but it’s not what I feel at all. I feel my whole body spinning into dust, into nothing; I feel everyneedinside me growing out of control. My heart is a drum in my ears. “I—I,” I stammer, my lungs caving in. “I don’t feel anything for you,” I lie.Because I feel everything.Because I have to keep my distance, because he doesn’t understand what will happen if I allow myself to tip too far into something we can’t return from. We can’t trust.
He exhales, but his eyes stay on me, unflinching.
“I’ve seen the lives those flowers have ruined, just like they ruined yours,” I tell him instead, trying to make him understand. The truth I can’t escape. “You once said that the people in this town want the tulips because they’re afraid they won’t be loved without them. But I never told you whatI’mafraid of.” My head pulses, words pressing against my teeth. “I’m afraid the tulips are theonlyreason anyone will ever love me.”
I’m afraid I am a girl who will only ever know false love.Conjured by a flower that blooms each spring outside my bedroom window. I’m afraid I’m a girl who is unlovable otherwise. But mostly… I’m afraid of what will happen if I let myself fall for him.
I’ll end up losing him.
Like my mother lost my father once tulip season was over.
Heartache is always waiting on the other side of summer. Once the tulips wilt and die, so does the delirium of love they cause.
Oak’s eyebrows pull together. “So you’d live your life afraid to let anyone love you?”
“If it keeps me safe, keeps my heart from breaking a hundred times, then yes.”
He takes a brave step toward me, and I can see all the pain crashing against the shore of his eyelids. “You’re not afraid of being loved…,” he says, defiant, cavernous. “You’re afraid that you’ll fall in love, and everything you’ve ever believed was wrong. You’re afraid that love is the only thing that will save you. That love is the only thing you really want.”
I breathe, anger and pain bleeding into something that feels like truth. “You were afraid too,” I point out. “You were afraid ofme.And you lied,” I remind him. “You only came to my window that night, on my birthday, to see how close you could get to Lark Goode without falling in love. But you failed. You’re just as weak as the rest of them.” The words sting; they slice against my tongue.
I am the monster,I remind myself.
“I’m not like the rest of them, and neither are you,” he says, moving even closer, unfazed by my words, and I want to yell at him, tell him to keep his distance or we will destroy each other. It’s the way of Goodes. It’s how it’s always been. “I don’t believe in the curse, Lark. I spent so much time blaming your family, your mother, for what happened. But it wasmyfather who chose to leave, who decided thatshewas more important than staying here with me.” He exhales, his chest deflating. “Maybe your familywantedto blame the tulips for everything that’s ever happened to them, and maybe the town wanted a reason to explain what they felt for the Goodes, because they couldn’t accept that they might be drawn to a family like yours. The tulips are just an excuse. A story we tell ourselves to make sense of what we feel.” My breathing slows, and a strange quiet settles over me—his voice makes every knot inside me slip apart, my heart easing into a rhythm it knows only with him. “This thing I feel when I’m with you has nothing to do with the garden behind your house. And I don’t want to wake up one day and regret not telling you this. I don’t want to wake up and wonder where you are, wonder what might have happened if I had.”
The warm air from the fire suddenly feels too warm.
“I never should have lied to you,” he says, temples tightening all the way down to his jawline. “I know I hurt you, I know I pushed you away, and I’m sorry.” I can see the tears breaking against hiseyelids. Watery edges of regret. “I should have told you all of this sooner. I should have stood at your window and told you that it’s my fault. And I know… it might already be too late.”
Confusion rips at me.I want to believe him.Maybe it was never the tulips. Maybe we wanted to believe in a curse so badly to make sense ofthis—this fever that weaves tight around our throats and makes it hard to breathe. Maybe there is nothing to fear in the garden behind our house. It was only ever a story we told to make sense of the heartbreak and misfortune that has always followed us. We wanted to believe it, and so we did. And the town did too. The only real sickness is our belief. A fable, a folklore we can’t shake.
Maybe the only thing I can actually trust is what I feel right now.
Here.
With him.
“Lark…,” he says softly, so close that I can smell the rainwater on his skin. “If you never want to see me again, just tell me.”
He’s giving me another chance, and my mouth falls open.I hate you,I should say.I hate you for this secret you kept from me.But the lie no longer has weight. Meaning.
