Page 76 of Late Bloomer
I finally pull my eyes away, looking at Opal as panic mounts in my chest. I hate the pain. I hate the memories. I hate the sudden hook of a reminder pulling my chest apart. I search for words, but they’re stilted and sharp, too many clogging my throat as I continue to stare at her.
“Sometimes it just hits me,” I whisper, voice scratchy and raw.
Then something shifts in those light blue eyes, expression morphing from question to understanding. “Oh, Pepper,” she says, reaching out, pulling me close.
I’m not a crier—I swear I’m not—but something about Opal’s softness turns me into one. I let her hold me as quiet tears fall from my eyes. She doesn’t say anything, just presses even closer, her cheek against my heartbeat, hand rubbing comforting circles along my back.
When I finally feel like I can breathe without crumbling to pieces, I untangle from Opal, turning to the plot. Heart thrumming and hands shaky, I step off the grass and into the foliage, fingertips grazing against the bustling life of this spot.
A few steps bring me to the center, and I push aside the exuberant puffs of a hydrangea to see the small stone marking Lou’s final resting spot. As if she knew how much I needed her, Opal appears at my side, taking my hand in hers, letting me lean against her.
“This was the spot Grandma Lou taught me how to grow things. How to nurture them,” I whisper. “I think it’s the spot we first really connected.”
I don’t know why I’m telling Opal this, but it feels like something someone other than me should know.
These sweet little seedlings are what make all the hard work worth it,she’d said all those years ago, swinging a pickaxe to dislodge a rock with a radiant smile.
I had stared in wide-eyed observation at the woman I’d only known a few weeks. I couldn’t wrap my head around how a person who could break up the hard earth with sturdy swings could also look tender and caring. But that was Grandma Lou, strength wrapped in gentleness.
We give them a home. Their resting place,she’d continued, swiping sweat from her brow with her forearm before getting to her knees. Lou unpacked one of the lily of the valley seedlings from its container, carefully untangling its riot of roots. With something close to reverence, she placed it in the hole she’d dug.We let them spread their roots. Put down a foundation thatmakes them strong and glorious. Give them water and TLC when they need it, but, for the most part, we give them space to grow.
And then cut them down?I’d asked, watching Lou pat the soil around the base of the delicate green stem. It was hard to believe something so fragile could survive.
Grandma Lou had given me a radiant smile.That’s a slightly more morbid way than I tend to look at it, but you’re right. She’d laughed, the sound an echoing whoop that made my perpetually frowning teenage mouth kick up at the sides.I prefer to think of it as we harvest their beauty. Share it with others. Spread their magic and joy. Then, we do what we can to see them again next season.
“When she passed,” I tell Opal, still leaning against her, “it seemed like the right place to put her to rest.”
“It’s beautiful,” Opal whispers, giving my hand a squeeze.
I snort. “It’s an overgrown mess. But I think she would like that.” My vision blurs as more tears prick my eyes. “I went a bit rogue and planted one of everything here. But I couldn’t decide what would be best.”
“From what you’ve told me about her, it seems perfect.”
“She saved me, in a lot of ways,” I say, feeling wrung out from all the feelings. I pull away, wrapping my arms around my middle as I carefully step out of the patch and back to the grass.
Opal shoots me a mildly questioning look, but doesn’t push for more.
“I didn’t stand a chance to be anything but a flower farmer once Grandma Lou taught me,” I say, walking back towardthe barn, Opal keeping stride, our buckets of flowers sloshing with us.
“These flowers are wrapped around my bones. They’re pieces of me… The beautiful pieces, at least,” I say with a self-deprecating laugh. Opal, always so ready to giggle, doesn’t make a sound. I shoot her a sidelong glance.
She stops, staring straight at me. My heart ricochets down to my stomach, then up to my throat with that look.
She sets down one of her buckets, plucking a pale purple anemone from the water. She steps forward and, for a moment, I think—I hope—she’s going to kiss me. We haven’t touched each other like that since that kiss in the car, the space between us getting wider and wider as each day passes. It’s not for lack of want on my part, but all of this is so new, so foreign, I’m following her lead, dancing around the magnetism I feel tugging me toward her.
And I’m scared. Fucking terrified. Because agreeing not to have feelings apparently doesn’t stop them from trying to take root. I shouldn’t be allowed to like her; even if it weren’t against our rules. There’s no way in the world anything good can come from it. Trish infused so much rottenness in my DNA, there’s no way I can like something without destroying it. Or it will destroy me first. It’s the way of life. Break or be broken.
Opal stops an arm’s length away, teeth pressed into her lip, the air charged from more than the approaching storm.
In a slow movement, she reaches out, placing the flower into my braid close to my ear, brushing wisps of hair off mytemple and dragging the tips of her fingers down my jaw. Her touch lingers at my rioting pulse as she stares at me.
“Every piece of you is beautiful,” she whispers, then picks up her bucket and walks away.
Chapter 26PEPPER
“Absolutely not,” I say, scowling at Opal over the rim of my hot toddy before taking a sip. A clash of thunder rumbles through the cabin to emphasize my point. It’s been raining for hours now, preventing our evening harvest. I can’t say I mind, though. It’s been rather… nice, spending the night in front of the fireplace with Opal.
“Okay, maybe you aren’t getting the vision,” she says, sitting forward on the couch to put her mug of tea down on the coffee table. “Let me walk you through it again. It’ll be made of lilies, right? And we’ll have them forming letters that we’ll mount on a wall, following?”
