Page 47 of Knot Your Sugar Rush
Toiletries next. Toothbrush, travel-sized everything, chapstick. I add the small bottle of lavender linen spray Gram gave me when I moved back. “For sleep,” she’d said, kissing my cheek. I mist a tiny cloud over the open suitcase; the scent settles like twilight.
I tuck my camera into the padded sleeve of my backpack. The strap slides warm under my fingers, smoothed by a thousand pictures that never quite captured what we were trying to hold—sunsets that went redder when we blinked, frosting that shone slicker in person, Zae’s eyes when she laughed. Still, I want photos of the island. Of the flower, if it’s there. Proof that the story is real.
A scarf. The one Zae knit crooked during a winter storm, rows wobbling like a drunk stitch, proud as anything. I remember how we huddled under it on the porch, counting lightning seconds. I lay it across the clothing like a blessing.
The floorboards creak when I cross to the desk. I gather the maps Theo and I photocopied at the library, the highlighted paragraph from the folklore book about Solara Petalis, and the loose-leaf page where I’ve scribbled questions:
— Petal sugar: infused? dusted? candied? — How to crystallize petals without bitterness? — Temperature curve vs. humidity on island? — Bring extra thermometers to test on site. (Do not drop them overboard, Cam.)
I slide the papers into a folder and weigh them with a smooth skipping stone we won on a “who can throw farther” bet. Zae cheated. She always did it playfully—tucking her hair behind her ear like she wasn’t about to trounce me, then howling with triumph and making me promise to buy her taffy.
The room is so quiet I can hear the clock downstairs and the faint distant hum of a lawn mower. In the stillness, grief comesin a soft tide, not the riptide it used to be. It lifts and lowers me. I let it. My hand drifts to the suitcase handle—soft fabric under my palm—and I breathe.
I think about the grave. It sits on the edge of town under a maple tree that goes orange so bright in October it looks like it’s on fire. I imagine driving there now, kneeling in the grass, pressing my fingers to carved letters and telling her about the island, the flower, the way the alphas make the house sound like laughter again.
But the thought turns my ribs to glass.
Not yet.
I need to bring her something first. Not flowers for stone, but the candy we dreamed up on flashlight nights. I want to lay a little wrapped square on the earth and tell her:We did it. You and me.
I zip the left half of the suitcase closed—the sound is a clean, satisfying sweep. The empty half still waits. I add a small first-aid kit (Theo’s voice in my head:Bandages. Always.), a coil of thin rope (Jamie’s:What if we need to MacGyver something fun?), and a compact multitool that Dane left on the kitchen counter once and pretended not to miss.
Thinking of them warms me from the inside, a slow bloom. I never meant to let anyone that close again. Especially so soon after Eric’s betrayal, when I’d vowed to focus on the candy shop.
But they don’t feel like a detour from my life. They feel like it—like the steady thrum under everything, the part that carries me when the rest of me is tired. Jamie’s effortless kindness, bright as morning; Theo’s quiet, thoughtful gravity; Dane’s restless focus that somehow makes me feel safe, even when he’s the one pacing the room. They have this way of taking a task and making it lighter, of taking me and making me braver.
Gram said,Let them carry a little of the load.I’m trying.
I tuck a small thermos between the folded sweaters, imagining steeped tea on a chilly beach. The thermos lid clicks, and the sound is strangely reassuring—like a small promise sealed.
On the nightstand is the photograph I keep turned face-down when the day is too sharp: me and Zae at fifteen, cheeks sticky with powdered sugar, eyes lit with the kind of wild certainty only kids can manage. I flip it over now. We’re wearing aprons we decorated with fabric markers, our names inside wonky hearts. Her hair is a halo of curls she hated and I envied. My mouth tips up without permission.
“Help me out, okay?” I whisper to the paper. “If you’ve got any pull in the realm of magical candy flowers, now’s the time.”
There’s a light rap at the doorframe—two knuckles and a pause—Jamie’s signature courtesy knock. “Permission to enter the zone?” he calls.
“Enter,” I say, wiping the corner of one eye with my wrist.
He steps in with two mason jars of lemonade beaded in condensation. “Brought liquid courage.” He hands me one and tilts his head at the bed. “You’re winning against the suitcase. Proud of you.”
“It’s a close match,” I say, taking a long sip. Tart, sweet, cold. It wakes my mouth.
Theo lingers behind him, leaning a shoulder on the doorframe, eyes flicking gently over the organized chaos. “Need an extra pen? I brought redundant pens.”
“Redundancy is sexy,” I deadpan, and Jamie snorts.
Theo smiles, minute and pleased, and sets a sleek black pen on top of my folder like an offering.
Then Dane appears, taller in the small hallway, the smell of sawdust and clean soap trailing in with him. He doesn’t say anything, just scans the room and nods once, approval tucked at the corner of his mouth. “You remembered a headlamp?” he asks.
I hold it up by its strap. “And spare batteries.”
His mouth twitches. “You’re learning.”
They don’t invade the space. They just… join it. Jamie perches on the window seat, turning the jar in his hands so sunlight makes the lemon slices glow. Theo finds the edge of the dresser and pages through the photocopied folklore politely, careful not to crease them. Dane sets my suitcase upright and checks for tears that might give way during our travels.
“You sure about this?” Dane asks, not challenging, just… checking.
