“We’re strong,” he says. “We have to be.”
Right now I don’t feel strong. Right now I’m certain I’ll never be free of the scent of Oak on my skin.
“I know what it’s like….” Archer releases my hand, eyes dipping to the plate in front of him. “Last summer, I…” He pauses, tapping his foot against the floor, looking uncomfortable. “It was Stella Lu, she bumped into me outside of Lone Pine Coffee—actually no, that’s not right. I bumped into her.” He stops tapping his foot, a smile catching at the edge of his mouth. “I saw her walking by outside, and something struck me—she just seemed… I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “We’ve gone to school with her since we were kids, but I saw her that day and I just wanted to talk to her,reallytalk to her. I walked her home, and when she smiled at me, it was like switching on an overhead light. Like I had been in the dark for years, fumbling around, and then suddenly she was there, a flashlight in a basement.” His eyes find the window, and he smiles out at the morning sunlight. “We spent every day together for nearly a month.”
I think back to last summer, and I remember seeing Archer with Stella a handful of times but didn’t think much of it—it seemed like every other temporary fling my brother finds himself in, brief and over all too soon. But the way he’s describing it now, it was something else entirely.
“We went camping one weekend, took her dad’s truck, drove all the way up to Jackjaw Lake. It was warm, and we slept under the stars. I was careful, kept my distance as much as I could, because I knew… I felt myself…” His voice breaks, and he looks away.
“You were falling in love with her.”
He nods, still staring through the window. “It was different with her,Ifelt different. She made me want to be someone who… I don’t know. Who was just better, I guess. I know that sounds dumb.”
I shake my head. “It’s not dumb.”
He nods to himself, then settles back into the chair. “That night… I kissed her and I felt it happen. I felt my chest almost widen, like I was becoming something else. More awake somehow. I felt…” My brother’s eyes start to water. “I fell in love with her. And I thought it would be okay; I thought she would still love me when tulip season ended.” He scrapes a hand across his eyes. “But that night, I didn’t know it, but the tulips wilted in the garden, and when the sun rose, she was already packing her things outside the tent. She woke up, looked at me, and felt nothing. She probably couldn’t even remember why she liked me in the first place.”
I feel a tightness in my chest, knowing all too well how this story ends.
His shoulders drop. “After that night it hurt too much to see her. That empty look in her eyes—like we’d never spent all that time together. Like it meant nothing to her. I was a mistake she made, nothing more.”
I realize suddenly thatthisis why he skips school, why he hates going to class. It’s because of her. The one he dared to fall in love with. “You never told me any of this,” I say. “You never even mentioned her. I just assumed she was…” I catch myself. “I’m sorry, Archer. I’m sorry I didn’t see how heartbroken you were.”
My brother is silent for a long time, and I feel my own heart twist inside my chest, knowing that he held this in and never said a thing. The creek rushes beneath the floorboards, carving away the soil, generations of pain and loss buried in the walls of this house. Fate inescapable.
“No,” he says, drawing in a deep breath. “It’s okay. I sure as shit won’t let myself feel that way again. I keep my heart stuffed downdeep. I let them love me, but never the other way around.” I watch my brother’s face change, the hardness settle behind his eyes. “Safer this way.”
I want to tell him he’s wrong… but I’m beginning to wonder if this is the only way. Better never to love at all than to feel the pain of losing it an instant later. This is the way of Goodes—nothing lasts, love is deep and dizzying for everyone around us, yet we don’t get to feel a thing.
And I allowed myself to feel something I never should have.
I push myself up from the table, my appetite gone.
Archer gives me a quiet look, like he understands what I’m feeling more than I know. “It won’t always hurt this bad,” he offers. “But I’m not gonna lie, for a while it’s going to hurt like hell.”
I look to the back window, at the garden, where the remaining tulips bend in the wind, tall and swaying. Unnatural.We’ll never be free of this place,I think. Even if I leave Cutwater, will the curse follow me? Will love always be a lie?
Even if I travel far away from this town, where no one has heard the Goode name, where the rumors and lore cannot find me, it may not be enough to rid the scent of pollen from my flesh.
How far will be far enough?
I shiver, the cold finding its way back in.
I start toward my room, needing the silence and the dark beneath my blankets… when there’s a knock at the front door.
My eyes flash to Archer, but his cut to the shotgun leaning against the wall.
I’m certain Oak is not standing on our front porch, but it could be someone desperate for a tulip, someone drunk on the feeling of love. Iwatch my brother stand, then move to the front door and open it slowly.
The morning wind slides through the open doorway, but Archer is motionless.
I ease toward him, trying to peer past his shoulder—trying to see who it is.
But Archer’s eyes fall to the ground, blinking, before he bends down to pick something up.
He turns, and in his hands he holds a newspaper.
TheCutwater Gazette.
