I sat on my bed in my room the next day gripping my phone. My finger hovered over the button that would instantly connect me to all of Cooper’s online world.
I knew what I’d told my grandpa in the garden was true. We could only control ourselves. No matter how much I loved Cooper, I couldn’t love him enough for the both of us. I had to let go.
And yet, I let my finger fall. Cooper’s profile pic came up—a selfie of him and me making the goofiest face for the camera. My breath caught. The last time I’d looked at his profile, it had been a pic of him and Iris. So did that mean that they really had broken up? I scrolled through the screens, but that was the only update there was. The statuses were from weeks ago. Like my accounts, his were eerily silent.
I put my phone to sleep and tossed it onto my nightstand. A small piece of paper fluttered to the ground with the action. I squinted and retrieved it off the ground. It was a business card. Mr. Wade Barrett. My brain took a couple of seconds to recall why I had this card and who this man was. He was the guy from the art show who’d made an offer on my quad piece—Fearless.
My quad piece. The one I had planned on giving to Cooper. I retrieved my phone and dialed the number.
The voice that answered was loud and boisterous. “This is Wade.”
“Hi, Wade. I mean, Mr. Barrett. This is Abigail Turner. I met you at the art museum. You liked my piece with the quad. You said your grandson liked to ride.”
“Ah. Yes! Hello.”
“Can I ask you a weird question?”
“Uh . . . sure.”
“Do you know my dad?”
“What’s your dad’s name?”
“Paul Turner.”
He hummed as if thinking. “Can’t say that I do.”
“Are you still interested in the piece?”
“Did you paint one similar?”
“No, but I’ve decided to sell the one you saw to you after all, if you’re still interested.”
“I am.”
We talked numbers and settled on a price. I hung up the phone.
I had just made money from my art. It was the first time I’d ever sold any of my work, and a thrill went through me.
“Mail,” Mom called.
“You got the mail, Mom?” I asked, emerging from my room.
“I know it’s not a big deal. . . .” She trailed off.
“It is a big deal.” As little as Mom went out, she went out even less by herself. I was proud of her, but I didn’t want her to push past her breaking point. “You know I love you no matter what, right?”
“I know that, and that would be good enough for me if all of your life could happen in this house. But it can’t. One day you’re going to graduate from college, get married, or have a baby. I’d like to be there.”
“I can only pick one of those?”
“What?”
“You said or.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know what I meant.”
“I do.” I kissed her cheek. “Thanks for doing hard things.”
“I’m surrounded by excellent examples.” She paused, then said, “I saw your painting.”
“You’ll have to narrow that down. I have a lot of paintings.”
“You know which one. I want to be that person for you, the one who can cheer you on.”
“Me too, Mom.”
I squeezed her hand, then turned to leave as she began flipping through the mail. I stopped in my tracks and turned back around, seeing something. “Underground gardens. I’ve been wanting to try this out.” I pulled it out of the stack and held it up. “It even has a coupon. Two for the price of one.”
“You should take a date.” She winked at me.
I walked to the front door and opened it. “Suitors?” I called out the door. “Where are all my suitors?”
“Is Elliot out there?” she asked.
“Funny.” I shut the door. “I told you, I have no feelings for Elliot. Not yet, anyway. We’re just friends right now.”
“Is there a law against going to an underground garden with your friend?”
“Well, in my brain, the underground gardens are the most romantic place in the world, so, you’re right, I should totally take a friend.”
I had been kidding, but I pinned that flyer and coupon to my wall, one of the few things left, and every day for the following three days, I walked by it. On the fourth day, I called Elliot. As a fellow artist, he was sure to appreciate the experience.
“This is beautiful,” I said as we walked down two levels of wooden stairs. Vines dripped from the ceiling like stalactites and the air was thick with the sweet aroma of flowers.
“Isn’t it?” Elliot said. He’d been to the gardens before, but when I called, he had said he would love to see them again.
Sunlight poured through sections of the ceiling that were open to the sky. The temperature was slightly cooler but also more humid, like we were in our own tropical forest. And the plants that lived there, I guessed, were tropical plants—big colorful flowers and broad-leafed shrubbery. Drip lines ran along the wall, bringing even more moisture to the area. I felt like I had been transported to an island somewhere.
“I love this,” I said. The garden was divided into dug-out rooms and we walked slowly through each one.
We weren’t the only ones there. Two little kids kept darting past us, their footsteps echoing off the walls as their feet slapped the ground. Their parents tried to keep up with them. A couple was there as well, holding hands and stopping at each display. They looked at each other more than they did the flowers. I remembered telling Cooper this would be a perfect date. I gave Elliot a sideways glance. It didn’t feel like a date now. It felt more like a research mission with Elliot. It kind of was. We were both soaking in the inspiration.
“Are you ready for school to start?” he asked.
“Not really.” This year would be different. I wouldn’t have Cooper. Would I have Rachel? Justin? I hadn’t talked to them in a while. I’d sent a few texts to Justin but hadn’t wanted to explain anything until they were back. Which they would be in exactly three days. I was both excited to see them and nervous to tell them about the destruction of our friend group. I’d understand if they chose Cooper. I was the one who’d set off the bomb. “You ready?” I asked, trying not to think about it too much.
“It’s senior year . . . so no.”
We continued down the wide corridor toward the next dug-out room. “There are carvings on the walls,” I said, tempted to run my hand along the patterns that manifested between plants and vines.
“I know. They probably took hundreds of hours to complete.”
I heard running water somewhere and I left Elliot behind, examining one of the more intricate patterns, to follow the sound to a water feature that took up the corner of one of the rooms. The couple I had seen holding hands was in the room as well. I skirted around them and to the corner. Water poured over stacked rocks and followed a path carved into the floor ending in a pond. Several large koi fish swam in the pond. Images of that day in Cooper’s bathroom while we had a memorial service for Amelia’s fish came into my brain unbidden. I pushed the side of my fist to my forehead and turned around.
Cooper stood at the roughly carved entrance of the room. At first I thought it was my brain putting his face on someone else’s body, since I had just been thinking about him. But then he spoke.
“Abby, don’t be mad.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t mad. Well, I was kind of mad at my body that no matter how many weeks it had been separated from him, it still reacted to the sight of him. It was like feeling rain after spending days in the desert. He was, like my grandpa might say, a sight for sore eyes. His blond hair fell across his forehead just above his intensely blue eyes. I’d almost forgotten how tall and broad he was as well, his frame seeming to fill the entire doorway.
“I sent that flyer to your house.”
“What? Why?”
“To get you here. You said this was your dream location. And I’ve been watching my phone every day since then, and now finally you’ve come.”
“I knew I should’ve taken that app off my phone.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Well, here I am.”
He walked closer.
I looked around to see that the couple who had been in there before was gone. I crossed my arms over my chest, hoping they would protect me from whatever was about to come out of his mouth. Another speech about how we made the best friends? We did make amazing friends.
“I miss you,” he said. His voice was rough, laced with emotion. Now that he was closer I could see the dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn’t gotten good sleep in a while.
“I miss you too, Cooper, but . . .”
He held up his hand, and I stopped.
“Please don’t say any buts until I finish. Please.”
I nodded.
“It’s been weeks since I’ve seen you, and in that time I figured out my fear.”
“Being alone?” I asked.
He laughed a little. “No. Although that wasn’t fun.” He still had the same amazing smile. The one that lit up his whole face. Why couldn’t that have changed in the last few weeks? I found myself wishing he were missing a tooth or something. What was I going to say at the end of this if he asked to be friends again? I couldn’t do this. My insides were already twisting back up again.
“My fear is being with you.”
“What?”
“All this time, Abby, that’s what I’ve feared. On the beach that night a year ago, you told me you loved me and I was scared. Terrified actually. I knew how much I cared about you as a friend. But I knew that if I let myself fall in love with you, that it would be like handing you my heart to hold. I’d be so exposed. So I held on to it tight. Kept it to myself. And I thought I’d succeeded. I thought that I didn’t feel the same way about you as you did about me. But that’s just because I didn’t realize until now what love really felt like. I thought love was that first-meeting emotion. You know, the one that always fades over time. I kept trying to find my happiness there in that emotion. I’d date girls and think, yes, this is what love feels like. But I was never happy. It always felt empty. It wasn’t until you left, until you took what my happiness really was away, that I realized love was this.” His put his hand on his chest. “This deep, intense caring about someone’s well-being. About wanting that person to be okay no matter what happens to yourself. The realization that you, Abby, are already holding my heart and I’m perfectly okay with that. I love you.”
I knew Cooper really well. We’d been best friends for nearly four years. So I looked for the signs that he might be lying—avoiding my gaze, fidgeting, biting his lip. But they weren’t there. His gaze was steady, as was his stance. “I think you’re confusing love with missing me,” I said.
His head started shaking back and forth before I’d even finished my sentence. “I knew you’d think that. I knew you’d think I was saying all this because I miss you. Or because I just want you back in my life any way I can have you.”
“Yes. That’s what I think.” My arms were still crossed over my chest and my heart was crashing into them, asking me why I was making him question his declaration.
“I do miss you, Abby. Ugh. I miss you with everything in me.” He grabbed hold of the front of his shirt in his fist. “And I do want you back in my life, but I do love you, with my entire soul, and I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to realize that.”
I swallowed hard. My whole face felt tingly and numb.
And then I heard Elliot’s voice before I saw him. “Abby, did you see the huge tree growing up through the roof in the . . .” He trailed off when he turned the corner and saw Cooper. “Oh. Hey, Cooper.” Then Elliot’s eyes met mine and seemed to ask if I was okay.
I wasn’t sure what I was, but it was definitely not okay. Cooper had just told me he loved me and my heart was racing and my mind was racing and I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t know if I should grab hold of him and never let go or run the other way because he might change his mind and destroy me for good.
Cooper’s smile fell as he looked between Elliot and me. “I’m too late?” he asked. “I’m too late.” His face was painted with pain. “What can I do? A duel?” He met my eyes with a sad smirk, sharing our inside joke.
“No, Cooper,” I said.
“I have to walk away, don’t I? Let you go this time?”
I didn’t speak, and I wasn’t sure why. Maybe I wanted him to feel the torture of that thought for just a moment. Cooper took the three remaining steps between us and crushed me into a hug that eradicated the rest of my anger. “I’ll wait as long as it takes,” he whispered. Then he left.
“He finally figured it out?” Elliot asked.
I nodded. “I’m sorry. I need to go.”
“I know.”
I ran.
I ran through the maze of the underground garden and up the stairs. The sun blinded me for a moment when I made it outside, breathless. When my vision cleared, I saw Cooper’s car in the parking lot. I ran to it, but he wasn’t inside. I turned a full circle, but he wasn’t anywhere, not up the street walking it off, not at the small gift shop where the admission tickets were sold. Nowhere.
I turned and practically slid back down the stairs underground again. When I reached the bottom, Cooper came stumbling out of one of the side rooms. I skidded to a halt.
“This place is like a maze. It doesn’t let a guy trying to save a little dignity just leave.” Tears were in his eyes, and my heart couldn’t handle the sight of that.
I pointed over my shoulder up the stairs. “I made it all the way to the parking lot, but you weren’t there. Just your car.”
“It needs to be washed.”
I laughed a little. “Your car?”
“Yeah, I was thinking about that earlier today. How it needed to be washed.”
“Are we really talking about your car?”
“I’m trying to hold it together here, Abby.”
I nodded toward where I’d left Elliot. “I’m not. We’re not.”
“What?” he asked, using his palm to wipe at his eyes.
My eyes stung in sympathy. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry. Well, there was that one time you accidentally ate that really hot pepper.”
He choked out a laugh. “Accidentally? You put it in my burger.”
“I know. It was funny.”
“For you,” he said.
“I love you too. I’ve never stopped,” I finally spit out.
“What?”
“I love you, Cooper. I never stopped.”
He wiped at his eyes again. “You’re not just saying that because you feel bad for me, right?”
I laughed. “You do look pretty pathetic.”
He nodded to the side. “Come here, I want to show you something.”
He walked ahead of me, back the way we’d come from, and reached back for my hand. I placed mine in his like I had so many times before and, like I’d thought so many times before, it felt perfect there.
“I found it while I was trying to flee,” he said.
He led me to a portion of the garden I hadn’t seen yet. The room was darker than the others. Small holes had been drilled into the ceiling, letting in pinpricks of light like a blanket of stars. When my gaze left the ceiling I found Cooper staring at me.
“I’ve always thought you were amazing,” he said. Our hands were still linked and he tugged, pulling me closer to him. His eyes still shone with emotion. “And smart and funny and beautiful.”
My heart jumped to my throat. After months of anticipation, now I was the one who was terrified. His free hand ran a path down my jaw. He kissed my cheek, lingering there. He smelled like Cooper—cherry ChapStick and mint gum and oranges and vanilla. His arm slowly wrapped around my waist, like he thought I might break. Then he hugged me close. His heart beat against my chest, fast and hard. “Is it weird yet?” he asked.
I smiled. “The only weird thing is that I don’t know what you like. I thought about putting my fingers in your hair, but then I wondered if that would bother you.”
“I feel the same. I wasn’t sure if you’d like my arm here.”
“I like your arm there.”
“It’s weird not knowing everything about each other.”
“Are we stalling the actual kiss?” I asked.
He chuckled. “You’ve been anticipating this for months, and I’m worried it will disappoint.”
“I know. What if we suck at this? Also, let me borrow your ChapStick.”
He dropped his arm, laughing. “Best friends can’t kiss. Even if they do love each other.”
I laughed too. “Give me your ChapStick and then you’re going to kiss me.” I reached into the pocket of his cargo shorts where I knew he kept it and pulled it out myself. “We should make our first kiss purposely bad so that it can only get better from there,” I said while applying the lip balm.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, pucker our lips really tight or move our heads a lot. Or slobber a lot.”
He couldn’t control his laughter, and it took him a while before he could say, “I missed you so much. And you are not making this easy.”
“No, I’m serious. Come here.” I pulled him toward me by the pockets of his shorts and puckered my lips as tight as possible, then nodded for him to do the same.
“You are the biggest goofball,” he said.
When I didn’t stop he sighed and said, “Fine. I guess our first kiss is going to be awful.”
I had to purse my lips even harder to control my smile. I put my hands on his shoulders and stretched up on my tiptoes. He rolled his eyes and pressed his tightly puckered lips to mine. It was just as bad as I knew it would be. I smiled and pulled away.
“See, it can only get—”
He slid his hand to the back of my neck and pulled me to him. His lips were soft this time as they found mine. He kissed me once, then twice, then ran his lips along mine. “Better,” he whispered, finishing my sentence.
I started to nod but we were kissing again, and I didn’t have to think about where to put my hands this time, they just dug into his hair. His hands went to my hips, his thumbs applying the perfect amount of pressure there to hold me up. He deepened the kiss, his tongue finding mine. He tasted even better than he smelled, like mint and sugar. He backed me up to the closest wall and leaned into me. I couldn’t get enough air, but I didn’t want to stop. Cooper was pressed against me, breathing my breath and setting my skin on fire. He was warm and familiar and amazing. When it felt like I would burst, I finally pushed him away and gulped down several mouthfuls of air.
“We don’t suck at that,” he said.
I shook my head, still catching my breath.
“I love you so much.”
I smiled and tipped my head back, looking at the starred ceiling. “I’m so happy.”
“Me too.”
I closed my eyes and he brushed a soft kiss to my lips again.
“Now,” he said, “you have to tell me everything that’s happened in the last several weeks. Starting with what you were doing in that abandoned church building.”