Page 42 of This Love
Tucker followed me inside. “Have you watched any videos since last time?”
“I said no more videos. Besides, I’ve been working.”
Tucker nodded. “Do you have any questions for me?”
Would our date be the same as all the hours we spent going over my old life? I set the camera on the table everyone called a coffee table, which was weird because nobody ever drank coffee there.
But I did have a question for him. “I don’t understand the paper flowers.” I sat as far from him as possible on the sofa and opened a box I had found.
In it were tons of random things. A coaster from Big Harry’s. A pin from Shelfmart that had my name on it. But also, lots and lots of faded colored paper cut in the shape of flowers.
I hadn’t read the entire book yet. Focusing on words and figuring out their meaning gave me a headache if I did it for too long. I’d seen references to the paper flowers there and hints that they held all my secrets.
But I couldn’t figure out why these old cutouts were important, or where the secrets were.
I pulled out a handful and set them on the table.
Tucker picked one up. “Do you recognize the flower shapes anymore?”
“I think this is a tulip.” I pointed to a pink one with points along the top.
“It is.” He flattened the one he held in his hand. “This is a rose.”
“That’s not what the roses on our bushes look like.”
He laughed lightly. “Roses look a lot of ways. The tight buds are different from the fully open blooms.”
“That’s true.” I picked up a yellow flower with a long front section. “I have no idea what this is.”
This made his smile go away. “That’s a daffodil.” He swallowed in a way that made his throat bulge for a moment. “We, uh, wow. Okay.”
My chest squeezed. I’d said something wrong. “We don’t have to talk about it,” I said, reaching to gather up the flowers.
He stopped me with a hand resting lightly on mine.
My skin buzzed. I looked at him, wondering what was happening. It was like I was holding the electric toothbrush in my bathroom.
Tucker pulled back. Had he felt it, too? “When we first met at the children’s hospital, I told you about my mom. She died with my dad and brother when I was twelve.”
“What?” Now it was hard for me to swallow. I pressed my hand to my neck. “Your whole family?”
“Yes, that’s why you’ve never met them. They’re not here anymore. We had a car accident, and during that accident, they died, and I got a head injury that caused me to have seizures, like you do.”
I moved my hand from my throat to my chest. My heart was thumping so hard, I could feel it in my ears. “I didn’t know that.”
“We have a lot of ground to cover.”
What? “You mean in the yard?”
“No, no. Sorry. It’s an expression. I mean there are a lot of things we haven’t talked about yet.”
This was almost as hard as reading. Understanding random phrases was still difficult. I could see no connection between covering up some ground and talking about his family.
I pointed at the table. “We were talking about the paper flowers.”
“Right, right. So, in the hospital, I told you my mother’s favorite flowers were daffodils. We painted pictures of them in art therapy, and it kind of became our thing. I brought you a potted daffodil at the duplex where you lived. You started making paper versions for your flower wall. These used to hang in your bedroom.”
“But how did they keep my secrets?”
