Page 25 of Trial Run

“Well … I can’t promise that.”

“Why not?” Marco demanded, his voice turning stubborn.

“Today was the last time he planned to come with me. He was only helping deliver the flowers he’d sent to the patients at his clinic. But now we’re all done. Ben is very busy, and so are we, so we might not see him again.”

“But you said he needed help. You said he was shy, and he needed practice with going outside of his house.”

“I did say that.” His memory was too good. She’d always told him as much of the truth as she could. And he always remembered, and brought it up at the worst times.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “W-why can’t we keep helping him? He looked sad when he left.”

“I don’t think he wants any more help right now. He has a lot to think about.”

But Ben had looked sad when he’d said goodbye. She wouldn’t examine too closely the answering emotion that had swelled inside her, watching him walk up his sidewalk alone, because it was pointless to feel anything more for him. They’d connected, helped each other out, and now their time together was over. She’d paid him back for the enormous favor he’d done her, and that was that.

Marco huffed out a loud sigh and looked out the window.

“If we find a geode, we have to show it to him,” he repeated.

“We’ll see. Maybe.”

Marco went silent for the last stretch of the drive, showing her he was mad at her by putting his headphones back on and twisting his whole body in the booster seat to face the side door. He looked about as uncomfortable as she felt. Uncomfortable and off balance.

Something had changed inside her since the first delivery day with Ben. The landscape had shifted and she’d seen her life from a different angle, like an optical illusion concealing an image right in front of her. Now there was no unseeing it.

She’d been putting one foot in front of the other for so long after Kurt left, just trying to survive. But she’d wanted other things before. The eighteen year-old version of herself had been so sure of her path.

Her sketchbooks full of fantastical garden designs lived in boxes in her storage closet, but they also still lived inside her brain. They were still real, even though college was out of reach for her now. The money alone, not to mention the course schedule, made it an impossible dream.

But the fact she was even thinking about it—that was new. Those old desires had been buried deep. And then Ben had come along and cracked her open like an acorn, and now the memories wouldn’t go back to sleep.

That had to be why it had been so difficult to say goodbye to him. For all his formal, reserved exterior, he’d seen inside her, to the secrets she kept hidden even from herself.

And he’d looked sad to leave. Sad and aloof, untouchable as the first day they’d met. But she had touched him. She’d threaded her arm through his, felt the warm muscle under the fine wool of his jacket. Under the formalwear, he was just a man. A man she didn’t need anything else from, because she’d never need a man again.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t start making some changes now.

Back at Tillie’s, she slammed the van door shut with too much force, causing Marco to pull off his headphones and stare at her. She jogged around to his side of the van and opened the door.

“Come on, we’re going inside,” she told him.

His forehead scrunched up. “But I usually wait out here.”

“Not today.”

She’d finished all the deliveries, and she needed to ask Amy about her commission payment. And if Amy found out she’d had Marco along with her in the van again today, so be it. She hadn’t been fired last time.

Let Amy know how hard she had to work to balance everything. This was her real life, and she wouldn’t hide it any more, like it was something to be ashamed of.

She waved at Jackie, who was working the front counter today, grabbed Marco’s hand, and slid behind the front desk into the back hallway. The smell of flowers and damp greenery filled the air. She tapped on the door of Amy’s office, where her boss sat at her desk, working on her computer. Marco stood behind her, half hidden in the doorway.

Nell stuck her head in the door. “Just dropping the van keys off. We’re all done with the deliveries.”

“Great news. Come on in.” Amy swiveled around in her office chair just as Nell opened the door all the way, revealing Marco. Amy’s eyes flicked between her and her son, and her brows raised, but she didn’t say anything.

“He didn’t have school today. Inservice.” Nell squared her shoulders, ready for whatever criticism Amy wanted to throw her way.

“It’s fine,” Amy said, her tone clipped with what could be irritation, or maybe it was just her usual short manners.

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