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I swallow. Zack always made it seem like I was making some epic sacrifice in canceling all my plans for Sasha. When it’s done out of love, it’s not a sacrifice. The animal clinic, and the small scholarships I’ve won, will still be there next year. Sasha won’t.
“Zack.” I take a deep breath. “I appreciate that you came here to see me, but … you’re not even acting sad. You just want things to go back to normal, but I’m grieving. Can’t you just —” Every breath I take is a fight to hold back tears. Not only am I missing her, I want everyone else to miss her, too. “Aren’t you even a little sad?”
“I mean, yeah.” He shrugs. I focus on the pool water that reflects in his eyes since he won’t actually look at me.
“Why didn’t you like her?” My voice feels raw, and each word hurts. “Everyone liked Sasha.”
“I liked her,” he says too quickly, too defensively. “She didn’t like me. She always looked at me like —” He blows out a heavy breath of air, and if I didn’t know any better I might have said he’s ashamed. “Like I wasn’t good enough for you.”
The truth in his words hits me hard, and despite being pissed off at my sort-of boyfriend, here I am crying again.
“Babe,” he says, drawing out the word with his southern accent. He bumps me with his shoulder. “Don’t cry. Sasha wouldn’t want you to.”
I love how he suddenly thinks he can channel her spirit or something.
“It’s just hard.” I wish a hug from him was as comforting as one from my mom. “It hurts so much.”
“I know, babe, but think of it this way,” he says, wrapping a heavy arm around my shoulders. “You’re free now.”
The splashing of our feet in the pool, the hum of the pool cleaner — every single sound is drowned out by the pounding of my own heart. “What the hell did you just say?”
He holds up his hands, an innocent look on his face. “Rocki, you know what I meant. Your life has been halted lately because of Sasha, but now that she’s gone, you’re free. Free to be yourself and live your life.”
I scramble and stand up fast, water flopping off my feet and onto his dry clothes. “You need to leave.”
Zack frowns. “Stop being like this.”
I point toward the gate in the fence. My jaw clenches. “Please go.”
“Rocki, please.”
I shake my head and march into my house, slamming the back door behind me and twisting the dead bolt into place. I head into my room and open my backpack, pulling out the white binder that’s been adorned with a glitter pen and decorative duct tape. The time for moping is over. I have a funeral to plan.
Chapter Three
There’s only one flower shop that can get the insane volume of wildflowers Sasha wanted for her funeral. Izzy’s Flowers is a narrow storefront located at the end of the Peyton Colony Strip, a historic shopping center on the north side of Lake Peyton. The weathered wooden sign above the door has big bubbly lettering and peace signs painted on, a relic from the seventies with no intention of being updated.
Izzy’s thin lips fall into a frown when I step into the shop. The fragrance of hundreds of bouquets permeates the air, and a Sublime song plays from some hidden speaker. Izzy, the owner and sole employee — an older hippie wearing a patchwork dress — goes totally still, her hands wrapped around some daisies.
“Oh, child,” she says. “It’s far too soon. I thought she had more time.”
Sasha and I had visited Izzy’s Flowers on more than one occasion. This is the only place to get an affordable bouquet of Mother’s Day flowers each year, and although Sasha’s parents are filthy rich, she always refused to use their money to buy them gifts. Last May, Izzy comped both of our Mother’s Day bouquets after we walked in with shaved heads. Sasha called it a benefit of dying young.
I swallow the lump in my throat and approach the front counter, laying the binder down between us and opening it up to the flower page. Izzy helped us choose flowers just a few months ago. On the first visit, Mr. and Mrs. Cade came with us, but Sasha’s mom spent the entire time crying and Sasha banned her from any further funeral planning. She said planning your own funeral is something a girl should do with her best friend — that way, her parents wouldn’t be burdened with yet another task. Sasha’s death had rules like this, things we made up as we went along. Most people don’t get an advance warning of their demise, but Sasha did, and she didn’t want to waste it.
My voice comes out in a croak. “So … do you have all of these?”
Izzy puts a weathered hand on mine, her messy auburn hair falling in front of her shoulders. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Raquel.”
“Thanks.” Another raspy croak. I blink quickly to keep the tears at bay and get back to business. I promised to keep it together for Sasha’s parents so they don’t have to lift a finger. “So, the flowers?”
“I’ve got ’em,” she says, motioning for me to follow her around the counter. I follow the scent of flowers and the faint stench of pot until we get into the back part of the store. Though narrow, it stretches pretty far back, the shelves packed with vases, tools and wire spools.
From a high shelf, she retrieves a binder of her own, all withered and cracking at the corners. She opens it to the first page. “Here’s what I was thinking for the casket spray,” she says, passing me a hand-sketched, watercolor painting. Long-stemmed sunflowers with white wildflowers fan out, tied together with a white sparkly ribbon. I know the ribbon will be sparkly because she wrote “sparkly ribbon” and drew an arrow to it.
A floaty feeling rises in my stomach and I reach up to cover my mouth. “This is amazing,” I murmur, handing back the painting. I wish I could tell Sasha.
Izzy smiles, her eyes a dark blue that makes her seem both wise and a little off her rocker. “She wanted wildflowers everywhere, but they don’t do well off the stem.” She turns the page and hands me another painting
