Page 118 of When Wildflowers Bloom

“So you and Mandy, huh?” I ask, wrapping the broken-but-not-broken pieces in plastic bags. “I’ll admit I was surprised…”that you invited me over to see her and kept texting me after.

He jerks around from where he’s standing at the sink. “What?” He grabs a towel to dry his hands, dropping it on the table before walking across the room to me, plucking the toothpick from his mouth. “Is that what you think, Birdie? I’m withMandy?”

He reaches a hand toward me but pauses midair, like he isn’t sure if he should go any farther, before dropping it back by his side.

My cheeks fill with air before deflating with a whoosh. “I mean, she was in your house, next to you at the funeral, and accusing me of sleeping with her husband. So…yes?”

“Birdie, no.No!” He shakes his head, rubbing a hand across his forehead. “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me? Because of Mandy?”

I wring a sponge over a bucket of clean water. “Bo, you told me to come over, and she walked onto your front porch.” I glance at him. “How would you interpret that?”

“She just showed up!” he cries. “I didn’t know she was coming, definitely didn’t invite her bu—”

“You don’t owe me an explanation, Bo,” I say, trying to maintain an air of confidence over what I’m saying. Trying to ignore the fact that him not being with Mandy is making the strangest feelings plant in me like a seed and shoot roots and blooms in a million directions within me. Trying to ignore how everything I’m saying is the exact opposite of what I actually want. “And, you know, you married her, so I wouldn’t blame you if you were with her. It would probably be good for Lucy.”

He nods silently, jaw clenching in the way it does when he’s grinding out words he’s trying not to say.

“And”—I clear my throat, dropping my eyes to the table I’m wiping—“I think it’s best if we’re just friends anyway.” I ignore the way the words burn the entire inside of my mouth like I’ve just filled it with acid. “I have my routines, and Huck will be in the mix next week. And I’m six months into thirty-seven, which means I have six more months to go. I’m not sure what the statistics look like for me if I make it to thirty-eight, but either way, it’s for the best if I figure it out alone, you know. Not drag a bunch of people down with me. Or distract me. Or whatever.”

I reach across the table to give it a final wipe. He leans against the edge, jaw tight, hand scrubbing across his beard.

“And,” I say, the ache in my throat making it hard to say the next words. “My dad said he’d take Huck if I…if you changed your mind.”

His eyes widen. “No, Birdie. I didn’t change my mind. Not about Huck…about any of it.”

I nod; we’re silent. All the words and events of the last weeks and months hanging in the familiar earthy-scented air. He moves first, grabbing the tools we were using and rinsing them in the sink. Music is the only sound other than our movements.

At the rack, I lift the bag slightly off the vase I made with flowers earlier in the week, spinning it carefully to see how it’s drying.

I stop. On the smooth side,Bo loves Birdieis scribbled into the clay.

How?

I look over my shoulder, gaze catching with Bo’s across the room. When his eyebrows lift slightly, mine do the same. It’s all the confirmation I need: he did this.

I look back at the piece, his name and mine, ignoring the confusing knots that my insides are tying with each other, then cover it with the bag.

I glance back at him, not moving from my spot at the rack.

“I like that one,” he says, leaning against the doorway, arms folded over his chest.

I’m quiet, looking back to the bag that now covers his words.

“I need you to know how sorry I am, Birdie,” he says to my back. Neither of us moving. “If you don’t want to be with me, I’ll learn to deal with that, but I need you to know I don’t blame you. If anything, I should be thanking you…for being with her when she couldn’t trust me to be. To see what she needed when I couldn’t.” His voice cracks, just barely but I hear it, and I swipe my tears before they reach my cheek.

I clear my throat and nod, unable to look at him.

Then, a deep breath.

Finally, I face him. “Okay.”

He smirks, familiar. “Okay.”

Turning off the radio and the lights, we walk to the front door together. Close enough to touch but not.

“Did Mandy sign the papers?” I ask, lifting my chin to face him when I step onto the front porch.

“I thought it didn’t matter,” he says, teasing. “But yes. After she spoke to you.” He raises his eyebrows but doesn’t say anything else.

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