I’d recognize her laugh anywhere, even in a world that no longer held it.
“Harrie?” Her name came out as a squeak, too tight and too nervous. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Harriett?”
“Oh good, you’re there.” She sounded so close, just over the garden hedges, but she couldn’t be, she couldn’t be. I knew that if I went out and looked, she wouldn’t be there, because she was somewhere I could no longer reach. “I turned around and you were just gone.”
“Sorry,” I said, my throat tight. I leaned close to the box-woods and closed my eyes. “I lost sight of you.”
“Ha! Slowpoke. I’ll meet you at the end?”
“Yes,” I croaked.
She paused. “Soph? Is everything okay?”
Yes, but I didn’t think I would be for a long time. Yes, but I miss you. Yes, but the sky is a different color blue without you here. Yes, but only because I never really would be okay. Only different. Only changed—changing. Like a garden through the seasons.
Yes, but only because I had to live through all the years you never would.
“Fine! I just—I really like this garden,” I choked out, curling my fingers against the edge of the cool stone bench beneath me, concentrating on its solidness, its dampness, to groundme. The smell of honeysuckle was languid and sweet. “I’m glad I came here with you, Harrie.”
“I’m glad I came here with you, too,” she replied, and I could hear the smile in her voice. That wide, toothy smile that was so bright and infectious, she made everyone else smile with her. I could see it in my memories. “But this maze isridiculous. You sound really close. Just turn the corner and we’ll get out together?”
And ten years ago, I’d find her at the end of the Hedges. Ten years ago, we’d loop arms and walk the rest of the gardens together.
“I,” she had said gallantly, “was talking to the voice of my truest love.”
Ten years, and a lifetime, ago.
I rubbed my eyes. “You go ahead. I’ll catch up. I—I want to wander a little more.”
“Are you sure?”
No, no, I wasn’t sure. “Yes—wait,” I added, and her foot-steps, which had started to retreat, stopped.
“Yeah?”
“What, um”—I pursed my mouth, letting my bottom lip wobble, choking back a sob that I didn’t want her to hear—“what is that word—the one that you told me about, when you wake up early to listen to the birds?”
She laughed. “Gökotta.It’s Swedish.”
I blinked back the tears, unable to keep myself from smiling. I’m sure if I asked, she could tell me the origins, too. “Gökotta.That’s right—and, Harrie?” I added, hearing her footsteps start away again.
“Hmm?”
“I love you.”
She laughed. “Weirdo. I love you, too.”
And then her footsteps faded away from the garden hedge, and the golden light of the sun disappeared below the tree line. I sat there for a long time, until orange bled purple into the sky, as I wiped the tears that just kept coming, and just . . . let them. I let myself cry for the thousandth time since I first recognized the Harrie-shaped hollowness in my chest. A hole that, slowly, began to fill over with wildflowers, like any good plot of soil. I’d kept it barren for so long, plucking out weeds and grass alike, waiting for the perfect thing to fill it, but there was no such thing. Though slowly, as I tended to this garden, I tended less to the immaculate hole in my chest and let a little bit of life in.
It wouldn’t be the same, but it was no longer hollow. Still there but changed. Growing something new in the love that stayed.
Ten years ago, we would promise to come back someday. Even though that’d never happen.
I was glad that, for at least a little while, I had a best friend in Harriett Fisher.
“Thank you,” I whispered to the garden, and found my way back to Rus.
He was sitting on a moss-covered bench in the Central Garden under the lightning-struck oak, in dark jeans and a loose T-shirt. They fit him a little weirdly, since they were Oliver’s, but the sight of this perfect man showing too much indecent ankle made my heart squeeze with adoration. He smiled at me, lopsided and warm, and I returned it, coming tosit down at his side. He folded his fingers through mine as easily as breathing, like it was second nature. We started back toward the parking lot, where my mom and Eddie were still—hopefully—waiting. Mom was over the moon that I had decided to stay at Lilymoor. She said just how happy I looked, and Iwashappy. For the first time in my life, I think. Really andtruly.I just wished Harrie could’ve seen it, but maybe in some ways, she already had.
