The wind that cut up over the cliffs was biting now, picking petals off flowers and sending them swirling into the air. From the Willow Grove, I heard people shriek and then laugh. A table probably blew over, or a tablecloth probably caught the breeze.
I turned a corner in the Hedges, and then another, going deeper and deeper.
There was a rattle behind me.
My heart burst with relief as I spun around.
The worn blue door was there, bathed in glorious golden light. Was it the real one? It had to be. It was the door he’d walked through, the one Lilymoor trapped him behind. “Rus,” I whispered.
A gust of wind swirled through the garden, and a cloud covered the sun—
And the door I was reaching for was gone.
41
commovente
I screamed in frustration and sank down into a crouch. I pressed the palms of my hands into my eyes until I saw stars, hot tears prickling.
I’d failed.
I’dfailed.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, wanting to be so small, so insignificant, that I blew away in the next gust of wind.
“Hey! Sunny!” Wykofski startled me as he came over. He’d probably gone to make sure his shed was closed for the coming storm. I raked my palms against my eyes, sniffling, as I got back to my feet. He planted a flower crown on my head. “Gorgeous! Oh . . . hey, that’s not a happy look. Is everything okay?”
“I tried everything,” I mumbled, a sob choking me. “And nothing worked.”
He hesitated. “What do you mean? Hey—hey, it’s okay,” he said, gathering me into a tight bear hug. It was probably meant to comfort me, but all it managed to do was crack the last bit of resolve I had.
I’d failed Rus, and that was most of it.
But really—I cried because today had been so much,between missing Harrie and confronting a man who no longer knew me and trying my hardest only to fail. I had to face the one thing I hated the most: the fact that I was still here. That I carried Harrie with me wherever I went, and how awful that was, and how rending, right to my core. But how lovely that was, too, to have had her as my best friend for as long as I did.
After the funeral, Mom often asked me if I was okay because I hadn’t cried. Notreallycried. Not deep, gasping, howling cries. I hadn’t let myself, because I was afraid that if I let myself come undone, I’d never sew myself back together—I didn’t know how to. Harrie had always helped. She’d always been there to tuck in my stuffing and knit closed the tears.
Without her, if I let myself come undone, I’d just be this woman who didn’t know how to fit herself back together.
But I was tired of keeping myself tied together. I was tired of choking on half sobs. I wanted Harrie. ImissedHarrie. And even though Wykofski was here, rubbing circles onto my back, I just wanted Harrie’s shoulder to cry on. And I could never cry on her shoulder again.
“Come ’ere, Sunny,” Wykofski said gently, patting my back. “Let it out. It’s good for you. It’s been a big summer. We’re almost at the end. It’s hard, friend. It’s hard.”
I sobbed, loud and snotty, into his white button-down shirt. He hadn’t put on his suit yet, probably because he didn’t want to mess it up, and I was afraid I was getting his shirt all gunky with my tears.
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll just say I dribbled,” he said, and I choked on a laugh that was also a sob.
After a few minutes—I wasn’t sure how long—I finally pulled away from him and wiped my eyes. “Th-thank you,Ned.” My eyes were still blurry, and I kept wiping away tears, but I felt better regardless. Even if my chest ached from the sobs.
“Anytime, Sunny,” he replied, and righted the flower crown he’d placed on my head. I finally got a good look at it—full of honeysuckles and baby’s breath. He’d really perfected the art. “Hey, you know those honeysuckles we can’t get rid of? They’re the sweetest ones all year, and most of ’em are right in the middle of ding-dang Central. Strangest thing! They just sprung up all out of nowhere right near the big oak. How did we miss all ofthose?”
“That’s just Lilymoor,” I said, repeating the invocation that was told to me so often these last few months. It was too late to try to trim them back. I wasn’t on the clock anymore, anyway.
And tomorrow I would leave, if I didn’t sign the contract to stay on longer. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
I sniffed and rubbed at my eyes again, until he took a hand-kerchief out of his pocket and handed it to me. He really had cleaned up nicely. Pomaded his hair back into a refined mullet and trimmed his mustache. He looked very handsome, and he would do great tonight. “Hey, you know why I call you Sunny?” he said, watching me wipe away my running mascara.
“Because it’s ironic with my last name?”
