"How are the tulips?" she asks, setting the flat down on the back counter.
I should say something. I should tell her. But my mouth isn't cooperating with my brain, and instead I just pick up my phone and hold it out to her.
Erin sets the peonies down and takes the phone from me and reads the screen, and I watch her face go through it. Understanding first, then joy, then a flicker of something else. Loss, maybe. Or fear. She catches it and smooths it over before she thinks I can see it, but I do. I've gotten good at reading the people I love. Too good, maybe.
"Lily." Her eyes are bright when she raises her head. "You got in."
I try to smile. It comes out sadder than I mean it to.
"I got in."
She comes around the counter and pulls me into a hug. She smells like soil and peonies and the lavender hand cream she uses lately, and I press my face into her shoulder and feel my eyes start to burn.
I blink fast. I'm not going to cry over good news. Goodnews is supposed to feel like a door opening, not like standing in a doorway and looking back at everything you're about to leave behind.
"I'm so proud of you," Erin says into my hair. "Rome is going to lose his mind."
Rome does indeed lose his mind. I call him from the back of the shop, sitting on an overturned crate next to the extra vases. He goes quiet for a few seconds and I press the phone hard against my ear because I need to keep whatever comes next close to me.
"I had no doubt, Lil." His voice is thick in a way I've only heard a handful of times, and my heart breaks a little. "I knew they'd see it."
"Rome…"
"We're celebrating tonight," he says, and I hear him shifting into planning mode, the version of my brother who solves problems by organizing them into submission. "All of us. I'll make the reservation."
"You don't have to do that."
"I'm making the reservation, Lily."
He makes the reservation. And before I know it, the calls start coming.
Poppy screams into the phone loud enough that Erin hears it from across the shop and chuckles, shaking her head. Ruth finds out through the town's information network, which operates faster than any cell tower, and by noon she's sent over a plate of cookies with a note that saysDoctor Lily. Has a ring to it. Don't forget us little people.
Everyone is happy. Everyone says the right things. Proud. Excited. You deserve this. We always knew.
The words stack up around me like a wall of good intentions, and I stand inside them and smile and thank everyone and feel the hollow center of it all expand with each congratulation.
I text Cal.
Me
I got into Chicago.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again. The pause stretches long enough that I feel it in my throat, a tightness that has nothing to do with joy.
Callahan
I knew you would.
I am happy for you.
And very proud.
Every word is careful and measured and right. Every single one slices at my heart like a paper cut, small and precise and more painful than it should be.
I stare at my phone for a long time, waiting for something else. The thing he's not saying. The thing I can feel pressing against the edges of every interaction we've had for weeks, ever since I started getting interview invitations and we both realized this was actually going to happen.
Nothing else comes. I put my phone in my pocket and go back to the tulips.
