I dug around it.
The weed came free, root and all.
I held it up like a trophy. “I’d like the record to show personal works.”
“Put it in the bucket.”
I dropped it into the orange five-gallon bucket beside me. The hollow thump felt absurdly satisfying.
For the next hour, I weeded.
I did it badly at first, then less badly.
The sun climbed. Sweat gathered along my spine and beneath the edge of my bra. My blouse clung in places I didn’t want a blouse to cling while performing public penance. Dirt streaked my forearms, worked under my borrowed gloves, and dusted the tops of my poor doomed flats.
The pink bows disappeared under a layer of brown grit.
Somewhere around weed number fifty, I stopped trying to crouch gracefully. There was no graceful way to fight a plant. There was only leverage, stubbornness, and the ugly little grunt I made when one root finally gave.
Tyler heard it and glanced over. “That one sounded personal.”
“It knew what it did,” I said.
Gus nodded solemnly. “Some weeds need consequences.”
My hand froze in the soil.
The word consequences hit harder than it should’ve. It was everywhere now: on paperwork, in Nadine Purcell’s office, in the way people lowered their voices when they said community service, and in the way Julian had looked so wounded after I’d done one stupid thing in response to his many polished lies.
I shoved the weed into the bucket.
Nope, I wasn’t doing this here in front of Zane McCrae, Birdie Jenkins, and a city garden full of squash witnesses.
A shadow fell over my section.
“Water,” Zane said.
I looked up. He stood at the edge of the bed with another bottle in his hand.
“I’m okay.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
A tiny spark went through me at his tone. It wasn’t fear or offense. It was something lower and much less helpful.
I sat back on my heels and took the bottle. “Do you always issue hydration like a command?”
“Only when people show up in brunch shoes.”
I twisted the cap open. “They weren’t brunch shoes.”
He checked my feet.
“They were light-errand shoes,” I said. “Possibly farmer’s-market-adjacent.”
“They’re mud now.”
I looked down. He was right. The pink had become a memory.
