Page 82 of Pieces of Me

I’d picked her flight specifically so she would get here right at this time, just before the sun sets, giving the garden the perfect lighting and golden backdrop.

“Holden?” Jamie whispers.

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

Not really. This is my all-or-nothing moment. My make it or break it. If this doesn’t win her over completely, I have nothing else to show. “I’m fine. Why?”

“Your hand’s shaking.” She reaches up, covers my hand with both of hers. “You’retrembling.”

“I’m just nervous, is all,” I admit, my mouth right to her ear.

“Why?”

Because I love you, Jamie, and I want this to mean as much to you as it does to me.I could say all those words out loud, but they wouldn’t come close to how I felt. So, instead, I stand beside her, slowly lower my hand, and I watch with bated breath as her eyes flutter open, then widen, then take in everything all at once.

Jamie

When I was a kid, I’d draw the things I wish I could see while imagining a life I wish I could live. I never went too extreme in my fantasies because I had already come to fear disappointment, even at that age.

In all the pictures I’d drawn, all the whispered wishes I’d share only to myself, and all the endless dreams I prayed for, I could never have come up withthis.

It’s the daisies I notice first—hundreds, if not thousands, of them. They cover every inch of the ground and somehow climb the hedged walls—white petals with yellow centers—each one acting like little pops of sunshine. There are dozens of flower boxes in a row on either side of me, stretching from the garden entrance and flanking a path over fifty yards long, leading directly to awater fountain. Each flower bed contains dark leaves and high stems and flowers. So many of them. All different sizes and colors—pink, purple, yellow, red—but the flowers are all the same, and even through my blurred vision, I know what the flowers are because Holden was the one to plant them. He knew what they meant to me, and so he made them mean something to him,here, inhishome.

Dahlias.

Goosebumps prick along my flesh, sending a shiver up my spine.

I can feel her here... my mother, Dahlia, watching me, and just like the thousands of daisies surrounding me, she coats me in her warmth.

It doesn’t take long for the tears to build, and I can’t for the life of memove, not even enough to wipe them away so I can see it all again.

I can’t speak.

I can barely breathe.

All I can do is stand still, blinking, blinking, letting tear after tear flow down my cheeks.

Next to me, Holden makes a sound, and I can hardly hear him over the pulse pounding in my ears. “I planted the seeds the summer after you left,” he says, and I choke on a gasp, my mind spinning, my heart beating against my ribcage. “I figured one day, you’d be back, and I wanted to have it ready for you when you did. That day when I took you out to the daisy field, I could see in your face how much you loved it, and I remember thinking thatIcould give you an entire field full of daisies. It’s not a field, but I thought…” he trails off, and I finally face him, my breaths loud, harsh against the stillness around us.

I wish I could say something,dosomething. But I can’t.

Looking toward the fountain, he adds, “I made sure my dad took care of it while I was gone.” His gaze trails to mine before he reaches up, wiping the endless tears away. “We used to host weddings here. My parents got married here.” His voice cracks with his own emotion, and then he takes my hand, unfurling my fingers from around the pendant. He slips the key beside it, saying, “I made it for you, Jamie. It’s yours.”

I shudder an inhale—the first sound I’ve made since opening my eyes—eyes that are now right on his.

He steps toward me, his handsstillshaking as he slips them around my waist, holding me to him. “I guess it’s my way of saying that I never gave up on us either.”

I don’t even know what to say, how to act. “I…”

“You what?” he asks.

“I need to sit down.”

He doesn’t let go of me as he guides me to the flower boxes and sits on the edge. He pulls me down until I’m sitting sideways on his lap, my arm going around his neck to keep me steady. Brushing the loose hair from my eyes, Holden asks, almostbegging, “Please say something… I’m kind of freaking out here.”

My exhale is long, drawn-out, and audible, and when my tear-filled eyes finally meet his again, the only thing I can think to say is, “Consider mewooed.”

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