Epilogue
CLOVER
One Year Later
The Happiness town fair has always been my favorite event of the year, but after last year’s explosive ending, I can’t erase the sense of dread following me like a raincloud.
It’s chaos, even if it’s in the best possible way—cotton candy and carnival games and the entire town crammed into the park like sardines in a very festive can.
Agnes does tarot readings in a purple tent that glitters with moons and stars.
Betty runs a pie-eating contest that Chief wins every year, despite his doctor’s increasingly desperate warnings to actually chew his food.
Pops operates a dunk tank that has a suspiciously high success rate, and I’m willing to bet that the target is rigged—though no one has ever been able to prove it.
But even with the trauma of last year, this one feels…different.
I drove here.
I drove here.
In Valen’s truck, with the windows down and the radio playing too loud, and I only white-knuckled the steering wheel twice.
Last month, I left the bathroom light off when I got up in the middle of the night. Last week, I forgot to check the locks before bed—forgot, not chose to skip, but forgot—and when I woke up the next morning, I didn’t spiral. I just shrugged and made coffee.
These small victories don’t erase the past, but they’re proof that I’m no longer trapped in it.
But today…something is just…off.
For one thing, Valen disappeared three hours ago with a flimsy excuse about checking on Agnes, who is sitting right in front of me, yet he still hasn’t returned.
For another, every single person I’ve talked to has given me the same strange smile—the one that says I have a secret and you’re not in on it.
“You’re being paranoid,” Savvy says as Braxton joins us.
I don’t think I am.
“Grant’s finally ready to transfer your inheritance into a trust and other accounts for Clover Danforth. That’s what you want, right?” Braxton asks.
“Oh, I guess,” I say absently.
After weighing the pros and cons of outing myself as the O’Connell heir and the media circus that would stir up, not to mention the questions it would unearth that would likely lead back to Terra, remaining Clover Danforth was the best-case scenario for us all.
“Okay, then. I’ll let him know to finish this with the attorneys. You’ll have access to your portfolio by Monday.”
“My…portfolio.”
“Don’t worry, Grant will help you figure out what to do with it all. He’s good at that.”
I frown because I’m still not convinced that Grant is just a banker.
“I’ll see you at dinner,” he says before heading in the opposite direction.
I watch him walk away, and almost immediately that strange sensation washes over me again. This time, I find Sage staring at me from the football team’s booth while speaking into a walkie-talkie.
Savvy links her arm through mine and guides us around the ring toss. “As for Valen? He probably just got roped into helping set something up. You know how this town is.”
“Madi won’t make eye contact with me,” I say as she drags me farther into the fair.
“Madi’s got baby brain again, we all know this.”
“Elle keeps giggling and touching up my makeup every time I cross paths with her.”
“Elle giggles at everything. She’s a giggler.”
“Agnes hugged me for forty-five seconds this morning and whispered, ‘today is the first day of the rest of your life.’”
It’s almost imperceptible, but Savvy’s step falters. “That’s…Agnes being Agnes. She’s…dramatic.”
I stop walking and turn to face her. “Savannah Monroe Reyes.”
She winces at her full name. “Okay, look. I’m under strict instructions not to say anything. But…” She bites her lip, clearly wrestling with herself. “Just…go with it. Whatever happens today. Trust him.”
“Trust him to do what?”
“Go. With. It.” She physically turns me toward the center of the fair and gives me a gentle push. “Start at the welcome sign. You’ll understand.”
“The welcome sign? Why would I—”
But she’s already gone, melting into the crowd with suspicious speed for someone who claims her leg still bothers her.
I stand there for a moment, heart hammering against my ribs while everyone I love openly stares at me with so much hope and love in their eyes that my pits start to sweat.
The welcome sign.
Where you bee-long. After living here for six months, the town adopted Valen’s hand-drawn honeybee as its official mascot. A month after that, Agnes’s slogan was voted in unanimously, much to Valen’s chagrin.
Here goes nothing…
He…decorated the sign?
Snow globes—at least a hundred of them—are positioned around the wooden frame, twinkling in the late afternoon sun. The familiar honeybee logo seems to glow, and beneath it, someone has hung a banner that reads Follow the Bees.
And there, attached to the signpost, is an envelope with my name on it.
It takes three tries to open it because my hands are dancing to their own beat.
Honeybee,
I’ve memorized all the letters you’ve written me over the years. Some I’ve read so often I had to ask Madi to help me laminate them before I lost them forever. You put your heart on paper and sent it into the void, hoping somehow that I’d hear you.
I hear you, Honeybee.
And today I’m writing back.
Today, I’m reclaiming our story.
Follow the bees. Follow our story. Follow your heart home.
—V
I press the letter to my chest and look around. Sure enough, there’s a trail of small wooden honeybees—hand-painted, slightly lopsided in a way that’s achingly familiar—leading away from the sign and into the fair.
How many of our friends and family painted these three-inch bumblebees? There must be hundreds of them.
With tears in my eyes and hope in my heart, I follow the bees.
The first stop is a booth I don’t recognize.
It’s draped in golden fabric, and inside, arranged on velvet-covered tables, are books. My books. Every single one I’ve ever written, displayed like precious artifacts.
But they’re not new copies.
They’re his copies. The ones from his old apartment in Charlotte. Well-loved and covered in well-meaning damage.
Roman stands beside the booth holding Wrecks by the collar, looking deeply uncomfortable in a way that suggests he was assigned this post against his will.
“He wanted you to see them,” Roman says, gesturing at the display.
“All the parts he underlined. All the words that felt like home before he knew why, but no one else is to touch them. Do you know how hard it is to keep Agnes’s grabby hands off something like this?
Every time I turn around, she has a new plot to swipe one. ”
I offer him a placating smile before picking up Forgotten Scars—our story, even though I didn’t know I was writing it—and flip to a page now marked with a small honeybee sticker.
Seriously? We really need to discuss his proclivity for defacing literature.
But the underlined passage makes my throat close up.
She was the home he’d been searching for. Not a place. A person. A heartbeat that matched his own.
“Here’s the next letter,” Roman says, shoving an envelope into my hands. “I’m told the next stop is Betty’s booth.”
I take the envelope with trembling fingers.
Honeybee,
I devoured your stories without knowing why they felt like pieces of my own soul. Your books were breadcrumbs leading me back to you, even when I was too lost to know I was following a trail.
You saved me with your words long before I remembered your face.
Keep following.
—V
Betty’s booth is overflowing with people, which isn’t unusual. What’s unusual is the banner above it.
The Casserole That Started It All.
Betty herself is beaming at me, tears making her eyes shimmer. If she’s not careful, she’s going to infect her tuna mac casserole with her salty emotions.
“He came to us first, you know,” she says, dabbing at her eyes with a napkin. “The night you fainted. He was all sharp edges and suspicion, but I could tell. I could tell he was looking for something.” She presses a hand to her heart. “He was searching for you.”
Moose is standing beside her, stoic as ever, but he nods once in confirmation.
“He asked me once what makes someone belong,” Moose says quietly. “I told him it’s not about where you’re from. It’s about where you’re willing to stay.”
Betty hands me another envelope, a small container of honey, and a new letter. “From the apiaries outside town. Valen helped harvest it himself. Said something about honeybees and homecomings.” She pulls me into a hug so tight I can barely breathe. “Go on now. Pops is up next.”
Honeybee,
This town fed me before they trusted me. They handed me casseroles and suspicion in equal measure, and somehow the casseroles won.
They taught me that family isn’t only by blood. Family can be the people who show up at three a.m. with food and opinions and absolutely no respect for personal boundaries.
They taught me what it means to belong.
Keep following.
—V
Pops is at the dunk tank, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a grin that suggests he’s been in on the secret for too long and he doesn’t know if he can keep it in much longer but he’s loving every second of it.
“Took you long enough!” he calls out. “I’ve been standing here so long my britches are itching. Do you know how many people have tried to dunk Greyson? Zero. Because they’re all too busy watching you wander around crying. But trust me, everyone wants to dunk Greyson.”
“Not as much as they want to dunk you,” Greyson calls back. These two may never see eye to eye, but there’s no denying the amount of love they have for one another buried under all that frustration.
“Play nice,” Savvy hisses at them. “You’re making her cry.”
“I’m not crying,” I say, wiping my face.