Page 88 of Lucy Loves Him Not
As our time was ending and I climbed into his front seat, Adam dropped a fistful of daisies in my lap.
“Adam!” I exclaimed. “We weren’t supposed to pick those flowers, Mr. By the Book.”
He winked as he started the car. He placed his arm around the back of my seat as he reversed out of his parking spot, his warmth and scent now sweetly familiar to me. I’d never have to test if something was his now, I’d know from the first whiff.
Today felt like an unfair taste of something that might remain only ever a taste.
I knew myself. I’d been a little girl who couldn’t just keep the paint on her page, she had to cover herself in it head to toe. And now I was a woman who couldn’t just love kids, but had to teach a room full of them daily. I wasn’t someone who could enjoy something for the moment. I wanted it now, I wanted it all, and I wanted it forever.
“The daisies are a little selfish, too, I’ll admit,” Adam said, interrupting my thoughts. We locked eyes for a second before he looked back to the road. “They remind me of you. It’s why I started putting them everywhere. Like I get a bit of you in my spaces even when I can’t have all of you.”
I grabbed his hand and intertwined his fingers with mine.
“I’d normally be really relieved a big event like the festival was about to be over, but instead, I’m…” his voice trailed off. “Really going to miss this.” He squeezed my hand. “All of it.”
“I think that’s a sign you’re at the right job,” I said softly, looking down at the bundle of daisies, avoiding his gaze. “A sign you’re in the right place, maybe.”
He cleared his throat. “Maybe.”
A beat of silence passed between us before I added, “Thisisthe end of an era.”
After he dropped me off at home, it was endless work, phone calls, and dinner on the go. I walked the festival one last time under gray, misty skies and drove home to the thud of windshield wipers.
Lightning flashed outside my bathroom window as I brushed my teeth before bed. Rain fell against the window as I pulled my comforter under my chin. Likely, the festival was going to be underwater tomorrow.
I tossed and turned with the past few months skipping in my mind like a scrapbook my heart had made against my better judgment: matching with Adam on Love Local, his ocean eyes crashing over me when I stormed into his office…and every tiny little moment since then. Tiny, little moments that felt as insignificant and natural as breathing in and out, but when I started to run out of them, I found myself gasping for more. I wasn’t ready for our story to end. I wanted it to last as long as it possibly could.
I kicked off my blankets and grabbed my phone. I opened my text thread with Adam and typed:Please don’t take the job offer. Please stay.
I stared at the message for a long time. All those Pinterest quotes about setting what you love free swirled in my mind. He didn’t need me texting him at—I looked at the clock— 2:00a.m.,a few hours before he’d be up for work. That would be aboutme, not Adam.
I dropped my phone beside me and fell back onto my bed. I pulled the pillow over my head. The storm outside was no match for the storm inside my own heart and mind.
Thirty-Two
The art display tent was my first stop the morning of the festival. I spent yesterday evening crafting a frame around my canvas painting of Grandma, thanks to a tutorial from Victor. I had sent him a text asking if it was possible to make a last-minute frame out of driftwood I had collected from the lake over the years. He’d called me on FaceTime and walked me through it step-by-step.
A light rain pattered against the tent. Students and their parents were bustling around as they set out their own works of art. I set mine up along with a special hand-painted sign that said
In Memory of Clara “Grandma” Rhodes whose presence is never missing from a Sweet River Summer Festival.
I took a steadying breath, in and out, as I looked at it.
I could still feel Grandma squeezing me in for a hug like she always did. I could still taste her sugary sweet, iced tea evenon a rainy morning like this. I could feel her stubbornness, her strength, her creativity humming in my own DNA.
I’d always worked to keep Grandma’s presence at the festival through her old plans and vision, through my own tangible efforts, and now through paint on canvas. A gesture small, but mighty, just like us Rhodes women.
“Grandma.” Gracie took in a sharp breath beside me, a crutch under each arm. Olivia walked up behind us, immediately slapping a hand to her chest.
“In the summer, if she wasn’t planning the festival, she was at the lake,” Gracie whispered affirmingly.
“Has Mom seen this?” Olivia asked me. I shook my head. Like clockwork, Mom showed up, slipping her arm around me in greeting and squeezing me into a hug.
“You asked us to meet you here at the school arts tent?” Mom asked. She squinted at the big painting before us. “You have a painting…” Her voice trailed off as her eyes settled on it. She stepped closer to it, placing a hand on the frame. “This driftwood is from the lake?”
I nodded. Olivia wiped her glistening cheeks.
“You even have her wearing her favorite old, ratty sweater.” Mom let out a watery chuckle. “It always smelled like the lake when I hugged her.”
