My stomach bottomed out as I watched her eyes turn to pure glass. It took me a few seconds to work up the courage to ask, “What is?”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I asked him not to do it—that it wasn’t funny. But apparently, he didn’t listen. It’s just another prank, so you’ll show up to the game wearing it, thinking that he…” She trailed off, sucking in a shaky breath. “He gave out two hoodies. The other one went to Harper. She’s been trying to get back together with him, and he… he’s going to walk past you after the game and kiss her instead. That’s the plan.”
Oh.
Oh… okay.
I opened my mouth, meaning to laugh it off and tell her I wasn’t stupid—that I already knew. But my throat was clogged.
When the first silent tear trailed down my cheek, Rachel’s lower lip wobbled. She started moving, pulling me into a hug. “I’m so sorry. I am so, so sorry…”
The letter slipped from my limp fingers. I couldn’t move or breathe or feel anything except the gut-wrenching ache of my heart being ripped in half. “I… I don’t…”
“I know. It’s okay,” she assured me as I stared blankly down at the scattered pages beside my feet. “It’ll be okay, I promise. I’ll take care of it.”
A single sentence was all I could make out through the blur of my tears, but it was so devastating, so unfathomably cruel, that it made me squeeze my eyes shut and wish I could crawl into the gaping hole in my chest and disappear.
…think I’m in love with you.
15
Don’t do it.Don’t do it. Please, for the love of all self-respect, do not do this.
I stomped on the shovel and tossed the dirt to the side, wishing I’d also asked Amber to pick up a headlamp for me while she was at the hardware store last night.
I could barely see anything.
Exactly. So turn around and go back home. Better yet, go chill at a coffee shop or something for a few hours until he wakes up.
It’s still not too late.
The sun was starting to rise, so my vision wouldn’t be this limited for very long. Plus, digging was fantastic exercise. Less than an hour in and six holes dug, and I’d worked up quite the sweat.
Good thing I hadn’t marked where, exactly, I’d buried the compostable bag. My biceps may have been screaming and cursing me for it right now, but they’d thank me eventually.
You’ll hate yourself if you keep going. I already hate you a little bit, and I—wait, what’s that?
I squinted down at the speck of bright orange peeking out from the dirt. At first glance, it looked like it might be a dead petal. But I didn’t remember killing a flower that color during my massacre.
I squatted, brushing the dirt away to make sure it wasn’t something weird or dangerous before I pulled it out. It was a small, beaded bracelet with the wordsPENNY PEONYprinted onto the central beads.
My pulse did a little leap.
I remembered this thing.
I’dmadethis thing.
For Rosie’s birthday one year when I was… six? Seven? She’d mentioned something about wanting to start using ribbons to mark her flowers because it would be so much easier to communicate their needs with the gardeners. I’d misunderstood what she meant, thinking she only wanted to name them, so she could say things like, “Lydia Lilac needs pruning,” and everyone would know which plant she was talking about.
I’d made more than eighty of these bracelets with Mom’s help. It took us months, and Rosie was so elated with the gift that she’d moved her party outside so she and I could start distributing them among her flowers while my dad fired up the barbecue.
We’d eaten dinner in her garden. Sang a bunch of karaoke. Laughed and gorged ourselves on cake until our stomachs hurt. And before the night ended, she’d hugged me so tightly I thought my ribs were going to break, thanking me profusely for the lovely, lovely gift, claiming she’d cherish it forever.
She was really good at that—acknowledging the effort you’d put into something and making you feel seen, heard, and special.
I swallowed the painful lump gathering in my throat, my thumb brushing over the flimsy bracelet before I slipped it ontomy wrist. She’d left without taking them with her, so I had no idea what this one was doing here or why.
I spent a full hour looking around to see if there was any more, kicking at patches of dirt when I thought I saw a bright color that stuck out. The higher the sun rose, the easier the task became, but it was still futile.
