We’re sitting on a tombstone bench engraved with Beloved surrounded by pine and honeysuckle.
I trace the carved Love. ‘What do you think of that word?’
‘Dad thinks love hurts if it’s real,’ Cade says.
I hold a leaf up to the sun, veins glowing like lightning bolts. ‘And you?’
‘I don’t know,’ he rasps, bruised lip tugging up, ‘but I want to find out.’
A firefly flutters on a honey-pine breeze onto my hand. Something changes inside me. I blow my whisper-wind wish into her. She lands soft as a kiss in Cade’s palm before floating away.
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