Page 34 of The Midnight Garden

Then, we just stayed on the phone. Even as we brushed our teeth. He told me about his life in LA, the celebrities he’d casually brunched with and the ones he’d run into at parties in locales I could barely picture. It made me realize how little I’ve traveled. Traveling had always been on my list of things to do, but then the rug was ripped out from under me and traveling took a back seat to keeping my head above water.

I reread the message:I thought we decided we were taking care of each other from now on.

He’s just joking about taking care of each other, just referencing the night before, but ... there’s something intimate in seeing the words typed out.

I type back:This is me taking care of you.I add a kissy face and press send.

And freeze. Tessa and I use the kissy-face emoji to soften sarcastic, obnoxious comments, mostly as a joke. It’s a habit to use that emoji, which pops up in my favorites, but—

A kissy face? To Will? Seriously?

This is me taking care of you ... kissy face?

Oh, God. I barely know Will. He’s going to think I’m flirting. He’s going to think I’m attracted to him. Which I’m not. I mean, I’m physically attracted to him—but so are half the nurses at the hospital, who can’t stop debating if he looks more like a dark-haired Ryan Gosling or an olive-skinned Ryan Reynolds. And obviously I think he’s easy to talk to and genuine and charming. But I’m not attracted to him like that.

Heat pools in my cheeks as I consider the best message to send next that won’t make it awkward. More awkward.

Just kidding about the kissy face.

My sister and I use the kissy-face emoji all the time, don’t read into it.

Ignore that kissy face. It was meant for someone else.

I scan the shelves and find no solution among the bags of birdseed. I’m screwed. Anything I send will make it worse. There should be an unsend feature for texts that works for all phones, not just the latest ones. Or at least a redo button. It’s frankly barbaric that there isn’t.

“Ugh,” I groan out loud. The only option is to throw my ancient iPhone 8 out the window and change my number.

At least he hasn’t replied. That’s probably a good thing. My best bet is to play it off like it’s no big deal too. Because it’s not a big deal. It’s an emoji, and neither he nor I are tweens who read real adult emotions into emojis.

“Everything okay?” Logan asks, returning to my side. His attention attaches to my phone, and his brow furrows, the way it does when he’s disturbed by something.

Did he see Will’s name on my screen? Did he see the kissy-face emoji?

My pulse ticks up, and I stuff the phone into my back pocket. The heat of it seeps through my jeans, like a smoking gun.

“I have to get back. Cat emergency.” He glances to my now phone-free hand. “Everything good?”

“Yep,” I say, popping myp.

“And you’ll be careful at Maeve’s?”

“Yes, I learned my lesson. I’m just there for the bird. Nothing more.”

Maeve’s lying facedown on a wide branch, etching a new word into the tree, which already bears countless words and names, some that look new, and others that are nearly smoothed over by time.

“A little birdie told me you’d be stopping by,” she says, easing herself into a crouch and hopping to the ground with the grace and strength of a panther. She’s wearing ripped jean shorts, a vintage Nirvana T-shirt, and a small metal stud in her nose that I didn’t notice yesterday. She smiles as I once again try to assemble into a cohesive whole the old-fashioned way she speaks with the punk rock look she presents.

“I wanted to check on him,” I say, gesturing to the bird tucked into a makeshift nest balancing on the porch steps. It doesn’t look any worse. Although, it doesn’t look any better either.

Maybe the bird does need Logan.

“I brought this,” I say, extending the emergency bird kit. “Something in this kit might help.”

“Perhaps,” she says, taking the kit and placing it to the side without another glance. “I’m surprised to see you back here so soon.”

“Well, I feel responsible for the bird.” At least that part’s true.

“Mm,” Maeve says, smiling the way my mom used to when I was a teenager insisting Brandon was just a friend.

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