Nothing more to say.
Nothing that can put these broken pieces back together.
So I slam the door closed, forcing myself to walk away.
I walk through the rain to the office of the train station, leaving Oak sitting in his truck, a boy marred by desire and deceit. Two things so knotted together, I’ll never be able to pick them apart.
FIFTEEN
I throw the flattened tulip into the large trash bin outside the train station, among rancid food wrappers and coffee cups—a place I’m certain no one will try to unearth it.
I purchase my ticket from the tired-looking woman at the window, who tells me that the train is a half hour delayed due to the storm. But I don’t care, I’ll wait as long as it takes. I sit on one of the benches outside, beneath the awning, puddles at my feet. I’m still wearing Oak’s sweatshirt, the one he put over my shoulders when he saved me from the storm. I want to throw it away too, leave it behind—it smells like him, like heartache—but it’s the only dry thing I have. So I zip it up and promise myself that I’ll burn it when I reach my new home. Other passengers stand around me with looks of desperation in their eyes, waiting for the evening train to arrive.
Oak’s truck is gone. And my heart is in pieces.
Archer and I believed we had collected all the stolen tulips—we thought we’d set everything right. But we were wrong. One remained in the hands of the last person I thought possessed one. The person I needed, the person I could never shake from my thoughts.
And now I know why.
My mind carries me back to every moment I spent with him, trying to unravel the way he made me feel, looking for the truth. But the deeper I go, the more I understand: It was only because of the tulip. It was the reason I couldn’t shake him from my thoughts.
The reason I stayed in Cutwater longer than I should have.
Our summer together was a riddle that had only one answer: a tulip he saved inside a book.
The drizzling rain has begun to let up, the sky cracking apart to reveal a ceiling of stars.
I thought Oak would be the one to alter the course of my life. But I broke myself against the fortress of his heart again and again. Overcome by a madness that was so terrible, so beautiful, I might be foolish enough to do it all over again.
Icannot be trusted.
Someone laughs, the sound echoing through the dark, and I lift my eyes to see a group of shadows striding down the road in front of the station. As they step into the overhead lamplight, I see Dale Dawson and Chloe Perez. They’re making their way toward town, and Chloe sways a little like she might be drunk. Maybe they’re on their way to someone’s house or meandering home after the storm. But I see someone else trailing behind: Jude.
The paper chatterbox moves swiftly in his hands as he walks, giving a fortune to a girl who I think is Lulu Yen—it’s hard to tell as they move in and out of the shadows. He peels back a paper corner and reads the words to Lulu. She laughs, throwing her head back, the stud in her nose glinting against the light from the streetlamp, then she hands Jude something small I can’t see—payment for thefortune—before jogging to catch up to Chloe, her eyes shimmering from the secret fortune only she knows.
I haven’t seen Jude since the day at the drive-in, when he touched my palm and told me: “Tears and rain… it’s all the same. Forsaken Creek is the only way to leave.”
I draw in a breath, understanding now—he was right.
Earlier tonight I cried, slumped over in the garden, and my tears bled in with the rain, flooding the banks of Forsaken Creek. Maybe this is only the story I want to believe: where fate has known all along how this tale would end. Maybe it was only a storm, maybe the rain filled the swamp, and it finally took away the house that’s been threatening to collapse for decades.
Or maybe… the Goodes really are witches, sorcerers, conjurors of ill magic. Maybe I am descended from those who carried alchemy across the Atlantic, hidden in our cells. Maybe there is enchantment in Forsaken Creek. Maybe Fern Goode cast a spell into the tulip bulbs that made us weavers of fate, of destiny. Maybe I had the power to destroy the garden all along. I just didn’t believe it.
Whatever the cause, Jude saw what would happen.
The future he told me that day came true.
But he also told me something else. He pointed to my heart and said, “This must break. This must weep, and then you will finally be free.”
This part I wish he had been wrong about.
Across the road, the group is nearly out of sight, but I stand up from the bench and cross the sidewalk. Jude looks up, seeing me—blond hair curling around his small ears, freckles along his cheekbones—and he takes a step back, startled.
“I need another fortune,” I say quickly. “I can pay you.” I need to know that my future has changed; I need to know what comes next.
Jude’s eyes flick to his friends, who have stopped walking and watch us with obvious nervousness. “I don’t take money,” he answers quickly, his eyes now looking anywhere but at me. “Only trades.”
“I’ll trade whatever you want.”
