Page 40 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

“Here,” she says. “You have to anchor the stems first or they'll splay out when you add water.”

She lays a careful grid across the mouth of the vase before handing it back.

“See?”

“I believe I've just learned something.”

“You'd be amazed what florists know.”

Her fingers brush mine as she reaches for another strip of tape.

The contact is brief.

Entirely accidental.

I feel it anyway.

She glances at me, her smile fading into something quieter.

“If you're going to disappear again..." she says softly, “…at least tell me goodbye this time."

The words catch somewhere behind my ribs.

I almost tell her then.

What I am.

Why none of this can end the way either of us wants it to.

Instead, I hear myself ask, “Do you ever regret it?”

She frowns.

“Regret what?”

“Living here. Doing this.” I gesture toward the flowers surrounding us. "Growing beautiful things only to cut them down."

She considers the question for a moment before gently straightening a tulip.

“Flowers don't die in here,” she says. “They go to weddings. Birthday parties. Hospital rooms. They sit on kitchen tables and remind people they're loved. They make someone smile on a day they really needed it.”

She looks up at me.

“That's a much better ending than rotting in the mud.”

Something inside me shifts.

Perhaps she isn't talking about flowers at all.

When I finish the last arrangement, she gives me a mock-serious round of applause.

“Impressive.”

She tilts her head.

“I honestly thought you'd lop the heads off everything and call it modern art.”

“We all contain surprises.”