36. A Sunflower Apocalypse
A SUNFLOWER APOCALYPSE
WILLOW
“I t’s been a month, Wills. Are you seriously going to keep pretending like nothing happened?”
Elodie drops onto the couch beside me, but I keep my gaze firmly on my untouched margarita, swirling the salt on the rim with my finger.
It’s been twenty-nine days and ten hours since I walked out of Ray’s house. Since I ripped myself away from a life that felt too damn good to be mine. Since I packed my things—okay, ran—and moved into Violet’s guest room, where my dog was the only one who didn’t look at me like I’d committed first-degree stupidity.
It was also the day I invoked the secrecy pact with my friends.
One summer, back when we were teenagers sitting on Daisy’s porch, Violet had come up with the bright idea of a secrecy pact. Each of us would get one free pass in our lifetime—one request that the others had to follow, no questions asked. We’d even blown over our linked pinkies and sent our pact to the fairies for authorization.
I’d never thought I’d actually use mine, until…I did.
I asked my friends to not interfere with my decision, and they’ve respected it. But I guess a month is time enough for the statutory limitations of teenage secrecy pacts.
Violet strides onto the porch with another pitcher of margaritas, her face has exasperation written all over it. “She’s still stuck in the denial phase.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not in denial. Ray and I had a business arrangement, and it ended. I don’t understand why that’s so hard for everyone to accept.”
But even as the words leave my mouth, a voice in the back of my mind whispers, Why don’t you start believing it before you preach to the crowd, Wills?
The question curls around my chest like a vise, but I shove it away.
Violet narrows her eyes, unimpressed. “That’s nonsense. You’re scared, and we get it. But I never thought you’d be stupid enough to let go of something this good just because it terrifies you.”
I open my mouth, ready to argue, to say something—anything—but Daisy beats me to it. “I can’t believe you’re ignoring Quill, Willow.”
It feels like someone reached inside my rib cage and squeezed, cutting off my air, making my chest ache in an unbearable way. I would cry if I didn’t know that Quill seemed surprisingly calm about my sudden disappearance from her home.
That first night, I was a wreck. Every second stretched out painfully. I had spent so many evenings after dinner curled up with her, reading from her ever-growing stack of illustrated books. Some nights, we barely got through a page before she launched into some wild tangent, signing and whispering about whatever was on her mind, and like everything else in that house, that routine had become a part of my life without me even realizing it.
I miss it and I miss her so badly.
I almost caved in and called Grandpa Will so I could sneak a few stolen moments with her on a video call, hear her voice, see her little hands flying as she signed, and above everything, made sure that she was okay. But then my phone buzzed.
A voice message. Ray’s number, but Quill’s voice.
She spoke to me as if nothing had changed, her little voice bubbling through the phone. She told me about her day, asked about Captain Lick, and then, toward the end of the call, she said something cryptic, something she has whispered every single evening in her texts since I left.
“Willow, Dad and I are wishing for you, and we’ll keep wishing until you’re less scared. Just know we’re here, waiting for you.”
How does this little girl, with her infinite wisdom and her bright heart, know just how much those words would mean to me?
Every night, I reply to her voice texts, telling her about my day, making sure she knows that I’m still here, that I’m still listening. But I leave out the important parts—the hollow feeling in my chest when I wake up alone, the way my hands reach for something that isn't there, the way I miss her and her dad so much it physically hurts, and yet, I can’t bring myself to ask her about Raymond.
I can’t gather the courage to ask her if her dad listens to my voice texts or if he deletes them the second she’s finished playing them, wiping me from his life as easily as I had walked out of it.
“Did you see her…or him?”
“Yes,” Daisy replies to my question after a beat. “Quill wanted to see Penny, so Charles and I went to Ray’s for dinner last night.” She tilts her head, taking a pointed pause, watching me carefully. “He grilled under the pergola, the place where your footprints are still there, by the way.”
Damn.
I swallow hard, my throat suddenly tight. “How are they?”
What I really mean to ask is “Do they miss me?” But I’m not brave enough to say that out loud.
“They seemed…okay. Except that when we got there, Ray and Quill were both knee-deep in mud, helping Grandpa Will plant sunflowers in the garden.”
I blink. “Sunflowers?”
She nods. “And not just in the garden. Every vase in the house had them too, like they were stocking up for some future sunflower apocalypse.”
A strange pressure builds in my chest, so tight it steals my breath. Quill’s words echo in my head. Dad and I are wishing for you. Were they literally wishing…?
No. That doesn’t make sense.
But the thought won’t leave my head. The sunflowers, the way Quill keeps sending me those voice messages, the way Ray hasn’t told her to stop.
“Don’t you go to the Ferris wheel with sunflowers?” Elodie looks at me carefully.
My friends know that the Ferris wheel is my thinking spot. But I’ve never told them about the wishes. At first, it had seemed too silly to say out loud, like something a child clings to when the world feels too big. And then over time, it became a personal, sacred thing, something I’ve only shared with Quill.
“I wish upon them.”
“The sunflowers?” Vi’s eyes rise to a concerning degree.
I nod. “Dandelions seemed too fragile to carry the weight of my wishes and too dull to gift to the fairies.” My lips press together as I shake my head. “Sunflowers seemed…right.”
For a moment, there’s silence, and then, before I can brace for impact, Violet launches herself at me, wrapping me in a tight hug.
“I knew it! I knew you were more like me than you cared to admit, Wills.” She sounds like she’s won some long-standing argument.
An unexpected laugh bubbles up in my throat, and against everything, I find myself smiling.
“So, what is Raymond doing with the sunflowers?” Elodie’s question lands like a pebble dropped in still water, sending ripples of tension through me.
Every pair of eyes at the table shifts to Daisy, who hesitates, biting her bottom lip. “I overheard Ray telling his cousins that he’s been late for his morning calls because he has to be at the town center first.”
Elodie’s sharp inhale is the first crack in the silence. “You don’t think”—she pauses, her eyes wide with realization—“that he’s going to the Ferris wheel, is he?”
A hundred things race through my mind, but I can’t hold on to a single one. My grip tightens around my untouched margarita glass, my fingers cold and damp against the condensation.
Why would he be there?
I had convinced myself that, over time, Ray and Quill would move on. That Quill’s voice messages would become less frequent. That eventually, her bright little world would adjust to my absence. I feared that day, dreaded it with every fiber of my being, but I believed it would come.
Yet here they are—holding on, wishing for me .
Violet places her hand on my shoulder. “Wills, I know I was the one who came up with the secrecy pact, but I can’t do this. I won’t do this. We can’t sit here and watch you walk away from the love of a lifetime. That man—heck, he goes to the Ferris wheel to make a wish that you’ll go back to him.” Her grip tightens, her nails pressing into my skin. “Do you know how many people spend their whole lives searching for something like that?”
My breath hitches. “We don’t know that for certain,” I mumble, hardly convincing even myself.
“Wills.” Daisy leans forward. “You have never been happier than you were with Ray and Quill. We all saw it. We thought you would too—eventually.”
I want to tell her that she’s wrong. That my life, my heart, doesn’t revolve around the two of them. That walking away was the right choice. The safe choice. That I did what I had to do.
But the words never make it out of my mouth, because the truth is, my friends are right.
I am happy when I’m with them.
But a happiness like that…it’s terrifying.
My voice cracks when I finally speak. “I’m scared,” I admit. “I’m scared of losing it all—him, Quill, the things I feel with the two of them. What if I let myself have this, and then one day, I lose it…lose them?”
Elodie squeezes my hand. “But…what if you don’t? It doesn’t look like Raymond’s going anywhere, Willow, not without you.”
Vi lifts her margarita in a silent toast. “Life is about taking risks, Wills. The day you stop taking risks, you stop living.” Her eyes lock on to mine, serious and unwavering. “So, are you going to go talk to him?”
My lungs forget how to function for a second. The air around me feels charged, thick with the gravity of the choice ahead. One second. Two. Three. And then, with a shaky inhale, I give the slowest, most terrifying nod of my life.
A collective cheer erupts around me.
“I knew you’d come to your senses.” Elodie grins, nudging my knee with hers.
“I’m so happy for you, Wills.” Vi pulls me into a hug so tight the drink sloshes in my hand.
For the first time in a month, my chest feels a little lighter as I let myself soak in the warmth of my friends, of their unwavering support. Just when I think I might actually be able to breathe, Vi pulls back, eyes shining.
“Okay, now I have some big news.”
“What’s that?” I ask, still trying to process my own emotional roller coaster.
She glances at Daisy, then at El before returning her gaze back to me. “You remember sometime back I invited a tarot reader? Nori?” Vi waits until we three nod in confirmation. “Then you must also remember that she said I’d meet my soulmate soon.”
This time my nod is slow, dread and curiosity battling for control. “Um…yeah…”
“Well, I found him.”
“What? Where?”
Daisy, Elodie, and I ask the questions at the same time.
A slow, mischievous curve tugs at the corners of her mouth. “Through a website.”
“Vi!” I sputter. “I thought you said dating websites were a load of crap and extremely dangerous.”
She has the audacity to smirk. “They are. But this isn’t any dating website. It’s an app called Find Your Soulmate . It uses some crazy sophisticated algorithm and makes participants fill out an extensive questionnaire to determine their perfect match. And I mean perfect —like, a one-hundred-percent-guaranteed compatibility level.”
I blink. “That sounds like exactly what a dating website would say before stealing your identity.”
Vi shakes her head, unfazed. “No, this is different! You don’t even know the other person’s name for most of the process. You just…talk…or in my case, write. You build a connection through letters, messages, emails—whatever you choose. And at any point, if you’re uncomfortable, you can opt out. But if you stay, the final steps are meeting, getting married, and starting your happily ever after.”
Silence crashes over the porch. I glance at Daisy, hoping she’ll inject some much-needed logic into this madness. Instead, she tilts her head, brows furrowed. “Isn’t that Vincent Belmont’s company?”
Vi’s eyes widen like we handed her the juiciest piece of gossip. “Yes! He’s the owner. Wait—do you guys know him?”
“He does…business with Elixir,” Daisy replies slowly.
“I don’t like this. I didn’t trust it when he first talked about it at Quill’s birthday party,” I add.
Daisy nods profusely, looking between me and Vi. “I’m completely with Wills. When Vincent first mentioned it, I thought it was a bunch of BS.”
Elodie gasps, looking horrified, possibly more than either of us. “Vi, if you don’t even know his name, how can you be sure he’s not some fraud?”
“Or,” I add, narrowing my eyes, “a middle-aged predator catfishing you from his mother’s basement?”
Vi groans, throwing up her hands. “You guys, that’s not possible! The background check they did on me was more intense than any job screening I’ve ever gone through. For a second, I thought I was being vetted for some undercover government operation.”
Before I can ask the million questions crashing around in my head, Violet leans forward, her eyes alight. “Listen, I know you’re worried.” Her voice is steady, like she’s already had this argument with us in her head a hundred times. “But believe me, it’s legit. I’m not allowed to share our chats, but he’s… it for me.”
Daisy watches her carefully. “So he’s like you?”
Violet laughs, shaking her head. “No. He’s the complete opposite of me.”
Elodie shifts beside me, her skepticism practically radiating off her. “Vi?—”
“I know you’re worried, El,” Violet cuts in before she can protest. “But I feel it. He’s the one. My happily ever after. My one true love. Just like Nori said.”
My stomach twists at the mention of Nori’s predictions. “But do you not remember,” I remind her, “that she also said you’d have to go through a lot of pain to finally find him?”
For the first time, Vi hesitates. She glances away, chewing her lip. “That’s the part I’m waiting for, and the reason I haven’t rushed to meet him.”
“I don’t know, Vi,” I say slowly. “But something doesn’t feel right here.”
“You guys are paranoid.” She waves a dismissive hand. “Everything is exactly as it should be.” Then she turns back to me, leveling me with a look. “And currently, Willow’s thing is way more urgent than mine. So can we please get back to reminding her of what she’s missing?”
I know she’s deflecting, but she’s also right, today I need to confront my own fears.