Page 46 of Knot Your Sugar Rush
The question lands with more weight than I expect. I rub the back of my neck.
“She complicates it,” I admit. “In the best way. But this... I was thinking about it before she came along.”
Theo watches me, his expression unreadable. “So why suggest the island trip?”
I shrug. “Because it sounded like fun. Because I wanted one last adventure before I decide. Maybe the last one we take together.”
The words hang there, heavy and bitter.
Jamie picks up a rolled pair of socks and throws them at me. They bounce off my chest.
“Ass,” he says lightly. But there's emotion in it.
I grin, just a little. “Still packing though, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m not missing out on mysterious flowers and candy witches.”
Theo finally smiles. “I packed extra bandages. Someone always gets scraped up.”
Their teasing starts again, easy and warm, but I can feel the shift underneath it. They don’t want me to go.
And some part of me—the part that still believes in that big shared dream of ours—doesn’t either.
But I can’t ignore what this new offer means. What it could lead to.
So I pack my things.
And I tell myself there’s still time to figure it all out.
After the island. After the flower.
After Cam.
Chapter twenty-nine
Cam
The suitcase yawns open on my bed like a patient, waiting mouth. One half filled with neat rolls of shirts and soft sweaters; the other half a shallow ocean of nothing, polished zipper teeth glinting in the late-afternoon light. A faint breeze slips through the cracked window and lifts the edge of the curtain, and with it comes the familiar scent of lilacs from the bush below. The room smells like laundry soap and dust and the tiniest ghost of vanilla that never quite leaves the fibers of my childhood quilt.
I lay Zae’s notebooks beside the suitcase—stacked like a small, uneven tower. Their covers are scuffed, corners frayed, pages soft from use. When I fan them, the air fills with a papery sweetness tinged with cinnamon. She always ate cinnamon hearts when she wrote. I used to tease her that her ideas smelled like Valentine’s Day.
“Okay,” I tell the suitcase, because apparently I’m talking to luggage now. “Shirts. Socks. Practical things.”
I pull open the dresser. The top drawer sticks, like it always did, a stubborn little hitch that used to send us both intogiggles. Zae would pound the corner with the heel of her hand, triumphant when it slid. I do it now and on the second try, the drawer glides.
Rolling socks into tidy spirals, I tuck them into the far corner. One pair is a ridiculous pink with tiny sugar candies on them—Zae bought them for me for a birthday I tried to skip. “For sweet feet,” she’d said, deadpan, then broke into laughter at my groan. When I press the cotton to my face, I swear I can still hear it.
Next: jeans. I pick the pair with the softened knees, the ones I wore the day we mapped a pretend candy route across town, hopscotching from bakery to bakery with cheap coffees in hand, rating cupcakes with a made-up scoring system. Texture: 7.5. Frosting swirl: chaotic good.
I add a weatherproof jacket—blue like the lake on a moody day—and my fingers pause on the zipper pull. It’s a tiny brass charm shaped like a star. Zae brought it home from a summer fair when we were thirteen. “For luck,” she’d said, tying it on my backpack. It’s followed me ever since. I press the star flat against my palm until it warms.
The notebooks call to me. I sit on the edge of the bed and open the smallest one, the pocket journal with a smear of raspberry jam across page three. Her handwriting leans brave and impatient across the paper—ink raised just enough that I can feel it with my fingertip.
Try this!she wrote in the upper left corner. Below that, the list that changed everything: sugar, water, citrus zest, salt, “petal sugar.” I mouth the words like they might dissolve on my tongue.
I can almost hear her:You’re overthinking it, Cam. Candy is chemistry, sure, but it’s also guts. You need both. Take the leap.
I close the notebook and nestle it into a zip pouch with a pen and a stack of sticky notes. The pouch smells faintly of lemonoil and something floral—maybe from the time we spilled rose syrup in Mom’s car and swore it would never fade. (It hasn’t.)
