He’s different tonight.
His flannel’s new, not stiff like his others.
He’s swinging his keys on his left finger because his right hand’s behind his back.
He’s not leaning against his motorcycle, but standing, shifting his weight from right to left to right.
He’s not picking his scabbed knuckles.
He smells of soap and not gasoline.
The mint toothpick in his lips twitches with his faltering smirk.
He hands me what was hiding.
‘No plants were harmed,’ he rasps.
The petals are nuts.
The stem’s a bolt.
Leaves are bent washers.
And I am pure goo.
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.
