Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 130275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
I wanted to smile back, to show my appreciation for him even thinking of me, for never quitting on me, but nerves held me back. New people. New places. Unknown lands—it was utterly terrifying. But I had no fight left in me to contest it. And Lord, nothing else had worked for me. Four long years of individual and group therapy hadn’t been able to lift me back up or put me back together again. I was too tired to argue. So I turned my head again and stared back up at the sky. A large cloud rolled in, and I stilled.
It looked exactly like a cello.
* * *
I entered Blossom Grove to the symphonic soundtrack of singing birds. No matter the time of year, there was always something unearthly about this place. A slice of heaven placed down on Earth, a glimpse of the celestial, of peace. Or maybe it was just whose spirit rested here that made it so special. Protecting the place that she adored so much.
The trees were bare, the buds of the blossoms not yet ready to show us their beauty, winter keeping them at bay for just a little while longer. But it didn’t make the grove any less beautiful. I breathed in the fresh air that whistled through the brown branches until my feet led me to the tree that protected my best friend.
The white marble headstone shone like an angel in the lowering sun, dusk blanketing the grave in idyllic golden hues. POPPY LITCHFIELD stood out in golden writing, FOREVER ALWAYS etched underneath.
I wiped some fallen leaves from the top of the headstone and sat down before it. “Hello, Poppy,” I said, already feeling my throat grow tight. I knew that for many, four years after the death of a loved one was enough for them to find their way back to some kind of life. To move on in whatever way they could. Yet for me, four years may have well been four minutes. It felt like only yesterday that Poppy left us—left Ida and me. Left Mama and Daddy and Aunt DeeDee. Left Rune. The fractures that splintered through my heart were still open and unhealed.
Those four years had not changed a thing. A pause button had been pressed that day. And I hadn’t been able to press play since.
I pressed a kiss to my fingers, then placed them on the headstone. It was warm under my hand from the sun that always spotlighted in this grove, letting the world know that someone truly beautiful resided here.
I peered down and saw a photograph stuck to the bottom of the headstone. Tears pricked my eyes as I stared in awe at the stunning scene it boasted. The northern lights were captured perfectly in the picture, greens and blues soaring across a star-spattered black sky.
Rune.
Rune had been here. He always did this. Every time he came home, he would spend hours at Poppy’s grave, under their favorite tree. Spend the day talking to his only love, his soulmate, telling her about his life at NYU. About the apprenticeship he had secured with a Pulitzer Prize–winning photographer. About his travels around the world, visiting far off countries and sights—like the northern lights—that he would always capture on film and then bring home for Poppy to see.
“So she won’t miss out on new adventures,” he would tell me.
Then there were the days when he would visit Poppy, and I would sit behind a nearby tree, unnoticed and hidden, and listen to him speak to her. When tears would cascade from my eyes at the unfairness of the world. At us losing the brightest star in our skies, at Rune losing half of his heart. As far as I knew, he had never dated anyone else. He told me once that he would never feel about anyone else the way he felt about Poppy and that although their time together was short, it had been enough to last him a lifetime.
I had never experienced a love like theirs. I wasn’t sure many did. Where Ida searched and prayed for a Rune-and-Poppy-type love, I feared it would only cause me more pain. What if I lost them too? How would I ever cope? I didn’t know how Rune survived each day. I didn’t know how he opened his eyes every sunrise and simply breathed. I’d never asked him. I’d never found the courage.
“I had another attack today,” I told Poppy, leaning against her headstone. I rested my head against the warm marble. Drank in the soothing birdsong that always kept her company. After several silent minutes, I pulled out the notebook from my bag. The one I had never dared open. I traced the words For Savannah written on the cover in Poppy’s handwritten script.
The notebook she had left to me. The one I had never read or even opened. I didn’t know why. Perhaps it was because I was too scared to read what Poppy had to say, or perhaps it was because it was the final piece I had left of her, and once it was opened, once I’d finished the very last word, then she was truly gone.