Page 88 of Truly, Madly, Deeply

“Truly—”

She cut Dad off with a curt shake of her head. She didn’t want to hear it. The excuses, the brush-offs, the handling her with kid gloves and treating her like she was incapable of handling the truth.

She dumped her cereal in the trash and made a beeline for the back door.

“Take your stupid time apart, but ignoring a problem won’t make it go away. It’ll just make it blow up in your faces later.”

As soon as she hit the dock, Truly kicked off her flip-flops. She shoved her jean shorts, already unbuttoned, down her hips, not even pausing when a thread ripped. Clad in her bikini, she took a flying leap off the dock, plunging headfirst into the frigid water.

At some point, lulled by the softly lapping waves, her eyes slipped shut. She wasn’t sleeping, just... drifting. Not really thinking about any one particular thing, because there wasn’t any one particular thing that was safe to think about. The soft, sherbet-colored sun shined mutedly through her eyelids, and she focused on that, on the safe-simplicity of the sun rising and setting each day, inevitable.

“You might want to be careful swimming in that water. I heard some freak’s running around tossing cigarettes in the lake.”

Truly reared forward too fast, balance off-kilter, her head slipping beneath the water. She broke the surface with a gasp and glared. Colin stood on the dock holding a bright bouquet of flowers.

She skimmed her hand against the surface, sending a spray of water at him. “You couldn’t say hello like a normal person?”

She could only imagine how she looked. Like a drowned rat, sputtering and spitting water.

Colin set the bouquet down on the dock and took a seat. He was wearing another pair of obscenely short shorts, this time pastel blue and checkered, thin fabric creeping higher up his thighs when he sat. His feet were bare, and he let them sink beneath the lake’s surface.

Damn him for looking so good all the time. It would be infinitely easier to be upset with him if she didn’t want to kiss his stupid mouth.

“Thought about it. Decided against it.” He shrugged. “Nice bikini, by the way.”

“I could’ve drowned, and you’d have been what? Busy staring at my tits?”

His gaze dipped, eyes unrepentantly focused on her chest. “To be fair, they are nice tits.”

Truly sent another spray of water at him. “How’d you know where to find me?”

“‘Dark green shutters, mailbox shaped like a shark,’” he recited. “It’s not far from my folks’ place.” He gestured behind him to the private riverwalk all the houses on this stretch of the lake could access. “It’s a nice day. I walked.”

She treaded water. “And the flowers?”

Colin picked the bouquet up and if she wasn’t mistaken, blushed. “The flowers are for you.”

She swam a little closer and wiped the lake water from her eyes. An ivory-colored bow held together the bouquet of blush-pink camellias, lavender roses, and delicate lily of the valley, all soft, shaded petals set against a backdrop of lush green leaves.

I adore you, you enchant me, and I wish you a return to happiness, the arrangement said. Lovely and unassuming, giving and demanding nothing in return.

She didn’t know if Colin meant it, if he even knew flowers could mean anything at all. Given his frequent research spirals, his late nights spent on Wikipedia, she wouldn’t put it past him. Regardless, it warmed her all the way to her toes, frigid lake water forgotten.

“What’s the occasion?” she asked.

“I’m sorry,” he said without pretense or preamble.

“What for?” She kicked her legs harder, keeping her head above the water. “You didn’t say anything you didn’t mean.”

He set the flowers aside. “I only said what I said the other night because I didn’t want to see you get hurt. I still don’t.”

Her bottom lip wobbled. Too late for that. “Not that I don’t appreciate the concern, but it’s completely unnecessary. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m not going to.”

“Why?”

“You’re killing me.” He turned his face up to the sky and shut his eyes, baring his throat and those two perfect moles on either side of his clavicle. “You worry about your parents, don’t you?”

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