Page 52 of Five Summer Wishes

I didn’t try to make it perfect.

I made itauthentic.

And when I finished, I sat back and cried. Quietly. Without drama.

Because for the first time in a long time, I’d made something that didn’t need to be loud to matter.

The next morning,I walked the finished piece down to Sawyer’s shop.

It was wrapped in an old quilt Iris used to keep in her trunk. I hadn’t planned that part—it was just the nearest soft thing Icould find. But as I carried it, I realized it felt exactly right. Like she was part of it too.

The bell over the door chimed as I stepped inside. Sawyer looked up from behind the counter, and for a second, everything in me went still.

Not nervous.

Not uncertain.

Just still.

Like a breath I hadn’t known I was holding finally let itself go.

He met me halfway.

“This is for you,” I said, carefully unwrapping the quilt.

The second he saw it, he stopped moving.

The wildflowers. The gold-veined cracks. The faded, preserved lettering that still whisperedthis mattered.

He reached out slowly, fingers brushing the edge. “Willa…”

“I didn’t want to cover it,” I said. “I wanted to keep the story. Just make space for a new one.”

He looked at me. Really looked.

“That’s the most honest thing anyone’s ever made for me,” he finally said.

I smiled, even though my eyes were burning. “I think it’s the most honest thing I’ve ever made.”

He stepped closer. And when he wrapped his arms around me, I didn’t tense.

I melted.

Right into the space I’d spent years avoiding.

Right into the center of a life I never thought I could want.

That night,I sat on the porch with Harper.

She was drinking wine out of a mason jar and sketching the new layout for the potting shed like it was a blue-ribbon renovation project. I brought her a slice of pie and curled up beside her on the swing.

“I’m scared,” I said.

She didn’t look up. “Of what?”

“Of finally wanting something that I don’t know how to keep.”

She set the sketchbook down.

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