I wake up in Jackson’s bed, feeling better than I should, given how much I drank last night. I groan and sink deeper into the sheets. They’re navy blue, this soft T-shirt type of material that feels like I’m curled against someone’s chest, and the sheets still smell like Jackson. I take a deep breath and get a whiff of him, all spice and man, and it hits me in the stomach like longing. The memories of last night sit under my skin like a bruise. Me and Jackson and the kiss that almost happened in his blurry-crisp bathroom. The way my wild, irrational heart had wanted more.

Jesus. I need to get out of here.

I listen for signs of life but the apartment is quiet so I hurry into my jeans from last night. I fold Jackson’s T-shirt and boxers and lay them neatly at the foot of his bed even though I’m sure he’ll just toss them in the wash.

I creep down the hall and pause at the threshold of the darkened living room. Jackson’s sleeping form sprawls on the couch under a utilitarian fleece blanket.

Hmm. The urge to flee is so strong in me, but I’m tempted to stop and look around at the evidence of Jackson Wirth as a grown-up. Better safe than sorry. I settle for a quick scan of the room.

In the years I’ve been gone, the baseball gloves have been replaced, the general happy chaos of his teenage room swapped for tidy, minimalist furniture. He’s different, I remind myself, but some parts of him still feel so much like the same.

A desk sits in the corner of the room and a flash of paper hanging above it catches my eye. I suck in a breath, glancing at the couch before I creep closer.

Don’t be such a stalker, I tell myself. But there—the card is exactly like I remember from when I picked it out. My heart goes tight in my chest and I have the distinct sensation that I can’t breathe. That maybe I’ll never be able to breathe again.

I found the card in Boston after I heard the news about Mr. Wirth last year. The day felt too bright, too fragile, and I wandered around the cold aimlessly until I spotted a quiet bookstore and a small sympathy card that said on the front, There is no good card for this.

Inside I wrote, “What a shitty thing, to have him gone. I’ll be the first to punch the next person who tells you everything happens for a reason. Because this sucks and there is no reason for it.”

For months after that kiss and my escape to Boston, Jackson had tried to reach out to me—sending funny text messages or long emails, depending on the day. But I’d ignored every one of them. By the time I sent that card, it had been years and Jackson had stopped trying. Still, I signed it “Love Natalie.” There are some times you need to tell the truth, and sympathy cards are one of them. I hope he was able to read between the lines and know the other things I hadn’t written: I miss you. I miss us. I’m sorry.

I guess some little part of me wanted to see if things could change, if they could be different. But he was done by then. I never heard back from Jackson, and I have to admit it stung.

“You were the first one who didn’t try to make it better,” Jackson says from over my shoulder.

I jump, guilty, but Jackson doesn’t look mad. Just vulnerable. He stands in his living room in a threadbare shirt and low-slung sweats, a little more human than he was in the glow of the bar lights. That being said, just-rolled-out-of-bed hair is undeniably a good look for him.

“I miss him,” I tell Jackson in the silence after his words, but it doesn’t seem to be enough. I miss the afternoons when Jackson and I would tag along to Wirth & Sons to do inventory or ring up orders for old ladies. I miss the way Mr. Wirth would slip us a twenty after our visits to the store so we could grab a pizza. I miss sitting in Jackson’s kitchen, tucked between the four Wirths, their easy, happy noise a contrast to my quiet life.

Once, the summer before college, Mr. Wirth called me down from the tree house to help him fill the bird feeder and squirrel feeder. Everyone else was gone and it was just the two of us, pouring seeds into the feeders and waiting for the wildlife to parade through.

“One day he’ll see what’s in front of him,” Jackson’s dad said, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized he wasn’t talking about the store or college, but about me.

I don’t know why he rooted for me when it was so obvious that Jackson would never see me that way. Sixteen months later, I dropped out of college and a few more years after that Mr. Wirth was dead.

Jackson rubs a hand over his neck. “I miss him too,” he admits.

I’ve always been so caught up in the idea of staying away from Jackson, so sure that I was right, that I never reconsidered my position. For the first time since hearing about Jackson’s dad, I feel like I did the wrong thing. I should have come back for Jackson, for his family, for the funeral in the tiny cemetery next door to the church. Even my mom came back from Florida for the Wirths. I should have been here.

Regret hurts, a flinty little stab in the spot just above my stomach, and I feel even worse knowing how much bigger Jackson’s loss was. Is.

I push my features into a smile I don’t feel. “Good thing we’re on our way to getting you some money for the general store.”

“Sure,” he says. “Yeah. Speaking of which, did you want to get some work done? I’ve got some errands to run but I can move them around.”

He doesn’t say anything about last night and I don’t either. I don’t even know what the right thing to say would be. I still don’t know how I feel. Only that we’d been on the brink of something and I stopped it before it went too far.

I can’t stay. I need to get out of this room and remember how to breathe again.

I give Jackson a tight smile. “Let’s take a rain check and I’ll brainstorm later. I’ve gotta go.”

“Wait.” He throws his arm across the doorway. “You don’t have your car. Can I drive you?”

I brandish my phone like a shield. “I’m going to walk,” I say. “GPS. I’ll be fine.”

He drops his arms and lets me pass.

I make my way back to Hooligans without needing to check my GPS after all, and point my car in the direction of home. This town is ingrained in me, all the streets that I know by heart, the air that always smells like plants, even in winter when it’s all sap and pine instead of flowers and grass.

I make a last-minute detour, letting memory guide me through town until I find myself parking in the dusty lot in front of Wirth & Sons. I grip the steering wheel and look through the front window of the store. Should I really go inside? At last I climb out of the car and make my way into the store, jumping a little when a bell rings over the front door.

I step over the threshold and it feels like stepping back into another world—one filled with the sound of my laughter, me and Jackson and Conor and their dad and a hundred inside jokes.

Being here without Jackson, though, feels something like trespassing, and the store feels different, too. The building pumps out an overly air-conditioned breeze and there’s less whimsy than before. The crazy unnecessary things have been condensed to a small section near the register: a rack of postcards, a book about New England bird watching.

I browse the aisles, not really knowing what I’m looking for until I hit the home maintenance section and a yellow-and-green bottle catches my eye. I skim the directions on the back, then haul it to the front register where a middle-aged man sits browsing through a plant seed catalog.

This must be Mr. Wirth’s business partner—Jim Boyle, I think his name was. He looks normal enough—a few fine lines creasing around his eyes, the small balding spot at the back of his head touched with sunburn. I hold my breath and realize I’m waiting for him to make one wrong move, to cackle like the bad guy in an action movie, or something.

“Uh oh.” Jim Boyle looks up at me. “Who’s in trouble?”

For a second I think he means me or Jackson and I freeze, guilty. But he doesn’t know that I know Jackson.

My confusion must register on my face because he holds up the bottle he’s just scanned. “Sick plant?”

Relief washes over me and I relax my fingers. “Yes. A fiddle leaf fig tree.”

“Ah,” he says with recognition. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s got some droopy brown leaves. It just looks pretty miserable. I’ve been trying to move it to get good sun but…” I shrug. “No luck.”

“That’s your first problem. Fiddle leafs do like indirect sunlight but they’re creatures of habit. Don’t move the tree, but you can rotate it.”

I think of Precious’s happy window in Boston, the one overlooking the Chinese restaurant where I’d eat crab rangoons whenever I didn’t want to cook. Is it weird that my plant is suffering post-breakup as much as I am? I feel guilty for having taken a good thing away from my plant and that’s when I realize last night with Jackson affected me more than I thought.

Mr. Boyle bags the plant vitamins and slides the bottle across the counter to me. “You’re on the right track with this. Add a capful and some water directly to the soil.”

“Will do,” I promise, taking a last glance around the store before I head home. Wirth & Sons doesn’t look bad, but it doesn’t feel right either. Jackson should be here. And if he wants his store back, I need to do everything I can to help him.