The space back here was large, a corner of plot backed against the Reservoir and the Rose Court. Skimmers raced across the surface of the water cluttered with duckweed, and a lone frog croaked somewhere in the reedy grass on the other side. The space was overrun with weeds and brambles and wildflowers, reclaiming the bones of where a greenhouse still stood. I could imagine how lovely it had been as I picked my way toward its skeleton. There were broken pots and jabs of burnt lattice, glass crackling beneath my feet as I crept inside.
The large trees creaked in the gentle breeze coming off the cliffs, sunlight playing through the leaves, looking like stained glass.
If the garden that Rus was stuck in looked like a thought half-finished, this looked like a thought you wanted to bury.
Oliver had become very quiet the closer we came to the greenhouse, and he’d yet to actually set foot inside. His mouth was drawn tight, eyes narrow as he looked around at the burnt foundation. The sun caught in his dirty-blond hair, glimmering in strings of gold as he carded his fingers through it.
I asked, glancing back at him, “Is everything all right?”
He motioned to the area. “I just . . . haven’t been back here since . . . you know.”
“At all?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry I brought you back here—”
“I wanted to bring you. Besides, the past can’t hurt us, right? It can only haunt us. Though I think it haunts Rus a bit more than it does me.”
I went out on a limb and said, “You were best friends.”
He tried to deny it, but in the end he just shoved his hands into his pockets and forced out, “Yeah. We were. And you know how best friends are.”
More than he knew. “They’re awful.”
“Theworst. They know you more intimately than your situationshipandthey bully you like a sibling? Talk about rude,” he lamented, though by the look on his face he didn’t mean it. He seemed . . .wistfulabout it, honestly.
I asked, “What happened between you two?”
“You’re standing in it,” he replied.
Oh.I looked back at the overgrown greenhouse, the charred bones of the building, the scars of the fire on the brick wall.
He kicked a bit of glass on the ground. It was skittering into the tall grass. “The summer after Uncle Henry died, Eula was out of town for the weekend and Rus and I wanted to throw a party. You know, a realrager.” He said it with the kind of wry sarcasm of someone who very much knew the word was ironically outdated. “So we made a bonfire in the Grove. Invited everyone we knew in town. There was a girl Rus wanted toimpress, you know.”
“And you?”
“I was dating a guy back in Portland. And anyway, we were dumbass teenagers trying to act cool. It’d been a dry summer, and we didn’t take any precautions. A spark got away from us and immediately torched the greenhouse. It would have been fine, but Uncle Henry had a workshop in the back, too, and it caught fire with everything else. All his journals, his sketches for the gardens, his someday plans …” He rubbed at the back of his neck, looking more and more uncomfortable standing here. “And it all went up in flames.
“Rus tried to save the greenhouse. He was burned pretty badly but could’ve gotten himself killed. He took the blame for it all, too. Heinsistedon it. And it wasn’t fair. He’d tried to do something while I just stood there looking dumbfounded. I could’ve done something. I should have done something. But I didn’t, and then he left and hasn’t been back to Lilymoor since.”
From everything I knew about Rus, that surprised me. He didn’t seem like the kind of person to give up on this place, especially after that moment in the garden yesterday, when he talked about his time with Henry. He really loved Lilymoor.
“But Eula doesn’t seem like the kind of person to hold a grudge . . .”
He shook his head. “No, but the rest of our family did. His grandmahatedthat he’d torched Uncle Henry’s greenhouse. I don’t think she ever learned the truth, and his parents don’t know, and mine certainly don’t. They think hecorralledme into it.” He rolled his eyes. “I think I hate that the most. That I let him take the blame, and I promised not to tell, so even if I wanted to set the record straight, he’d hate me anyway. So what would it matter if I set everyone straight or not?”
“You were kids. It doesn’t make the fire okay but you were young and learning and trying to figure out the world and dealing with grief even if you didn’t know the right outlet—it’s human. We all make mistakes.” I returned to where Oliver still stood and gently took his hands. It was forward, and bold, but whenever I felt lost in my own feelings, it was nice to have something that grounded me—a hand, perhaps. In response, he threaded his fingers through mine, too. I squeezed them tightly. “That’s how we grow.”
He looked down at our conjoined hands and rubbed his thumb over my thumb knuckle. “You’re pretty wise for a gardener.”
“Mmh, gardeners are pretty wise,” I replied.
He huffed a laugh. “You know what the worst part is?”
“Weeding?”
He laughed. “I miss him. Rus and I were friends for a few years after the fire. We kept in touch. But then we had a fight, and by the time I realized that I missed him, we’d changed. People don’t tell you that when you miss your best friend, it’slike …” He let go, and waved his hands, searching for the right words.
