“Archer told me where to find you.” He breathes, and every exhale is like the wind. “I knocked on the cottage door, but when no one answered, I started to leave. Then I saw someone standing out here.”
There is a hum in the air, a numbing silence, as if the sound of the ocean fades from my periphery, fades from the world, and we are standing in a glass house, soft rain against the roof, the sea roaring silently behind us.
“I’m sorry,” he begins. “I shouldn’t have let you get out of my truck that day. I shouldn’t have watched you go. I never should have said goodbye.”
He shakes his head, and every part of my skin is vibrating. Every inch of my mind is crumbling.
“I didn’t mean to keep that tulip—I mean, I wasn’t trying to… I didn’t believe in it, I didn’t know what any of it really meant. I just knew I wanted to be near you.”
He risks a step closer to me. But I hold up my hand.
“Stop, Oak,” I say, because I’m afraid of what will happen if he touches of me. I’m afraid of everything that happens next.
His mouth looks unsteady, and I wonder if there’s a paperback book in his pocket, I wonder if he drove here or took the train, I wonder about all the little details, because I want to hold on to this moment before it’s all ripped away. “We can’t trust this,” I tell him, my voice broken and blistered.
“But the garden is gone.”
I nod, agreeing. “But I don’t know if it fixed anything.”
His eyes sway over me, like they’re lost at sea. A sailor searching for a harbor. “I don’t understand most of this—the history of your family, those tulips—but I know why I came to find you. I know that I lost something once, and maybe it’s too late, maybe there’s no second chances. But I had to try.”
I look to the windows, watching the rain streak the glass, trying to catch my breath. Trying to catch the past. Make sense of everything that’s happened. “How can we ever know if what we feel is real?” I shake my head. “How can we be sure that our thoughts are our own? How can we trust anything?” The air feels heavy in my chest. “I’m afraid we’ll just keep losing each other again and again. That we’ll keep making the same mistakes. That fate will always push us apart. And we’ll keep hurting each other, until there’s nothing left of us.”
He nods, sinking his hands into his jean pockets. “I’m afraid too,” he admits. “But I’m more afraid of what it will feel like if I walk away. I’m afraid that if I go back home, every second in that cold house will feel like a lifetime spent wondering what would have happened if I’d risked something with you.” His eyes fall to the floor, and he looks uncertain of his own words, his own thoughts. “But I’ll go. I’ll turn around and never come looking for you again, if that’s what you want.” Tears well at the edges of his eyes, and I swear I can almost see the pulse of his heartbeat thumping at his throat. “Tell me what you want, Lark. And I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever you ask me to.”
The rain falls harder, thundering against the greenhouse, blurring out the sky. Blurring my memory of the past. My eyes flick to the door, the path back to the cottage.My escape.I could tell him to leave; I could stuff my heart back down deep. I could pretend I don’t think of him every day. I could lie and tell myself I’m better off without him—better off not knowing if it was tulips all along, or if the curse was broken the instant the flood carried the garden away. Convince myself that what we had is over, gone with the shifting seasons. That we both hurt each other too much to ever go back.
“Lark,” he says softly—and each time he says my name, it rips me open a little more. It wedges itself between my ribs and reminds me how much I’ve missed hearing his voice against my skin.
He pulls his hands from his pockets, shoulders dropping, like he wants nothing more than to reach for me, to sever the space between us. “It wasn’t a summer thing for me….” His eyes are shivering, hands trembling at his sides. His mouth a broken line. “It never was. I didn’t mean that when I said it, in the truck. I was just tryingto convince myself. Make it true. And it wasn’t the tulips; it wasn’t because you’re a Goode. It was none of those things. We were like Peter and Wendy, tangled up in a fairy tale—in a town with too many lies. But we’re not in Cutwater anymore.” He glances around us, at the rain, the walls of the greenhouse, the sea beyond. “There are no cursed tulips growing nearby, no rumors about your family. We’re just two people… without a past. Without parents to warn us oftheirmistakes. We can make our own….”
He swallows, and I allow my eyes to tip into his.
“We could take a risk, Lark.” He smiles a little, the tiniest shift of his mouth. “We could start over. From the beginning. No more secrets, no more tulips, no more curses. No memory of who we used to be. Only this… right now. We get to decide what we believe, what we want to leave behind. I don’t care about anything before this moment.” I can see the tears breaking against his eyelids. “I don’t want anything from that old life, that town, that past. It’s meaningless. We write our own story, not what anyone else tells us it should be.You and me, Lark… this is all I want. All I’ve ever wanted. And I let it slip away, I let you walk away, and I’ve regretted it every hour, every minute, since. You’re the only thing I’ve ever really cared about. The only thing I want to protect.” He wipes at his eyes. “I’d do anything to take back everything that happened. To do it differently. I know I screwed up so many times. I kept things from you, I lied, I was an idiot. But I’ll gladly spend the rest of my life apologizing. I’ll spend the rest of my life telling you that I’m sorry and that you are the only thing that matters. The only thing I don’t want to lose. You, Lark… you’re all I want.”
My chest barely draws in a breath, tears dripping from my chin.I’ve spent too many nights awake, pretending I would eventually forget him—my heart drowning in every memory.
I’ve betrayed myself, fooled myself into thinking I could start again, in a new town, and leave him behind.
Curse or not, I can’t shake him from my mind, my flesh, my lungs with every inhale, and now he’s so close, I could touch him. All the words choke in my throat, all the fear breaking apart inside me, leaving only one thing, only one thought:I love him.Undeniably. Stupidly.
The wind changes direction outside, blowing open the door behind Oak, swelling against my thoughts, pulling me free of myself—a girl shedding her old, useless flesh. Scales and curses and all.
Only one word finds its way to my tongue.
“Oak.” I step forward, the wind gusting through the greenhouse, and I slide my fingers through his, touching his palm, which feels like the river behind his house, like it belongs to a boy who I’ve spent too many nights, too many hours, trying to forget.
But I don’t kiss him.
I lead him through the open door, closing it behind us, and we step out into the rain.
We follow the stone path up to the cottage and duck inside.
Rain falls against the roof; the moon rises over the sea. And I let myself forget who I used to be.
In the tiny, square living room, Oak’s eyes don’t sweep around the cottage, they don’t survey the place I’ve made my home, they are settled roughly on me. Like he’ll never look away again.
I pull my sweater over my head and let it fall to the floor. A puddle of rain at my feet.
