Chapter 15
Henry
She tries to hide it, but I know she’s crying. She makes no sound, only I feel the slight tremor of her sobs against my chest. I understand, but all I can do is hold her closer. Venus Blake is having big feelings.
So, am I.
Her vulnerability, her body, her beauty, everything about this night has been incredible. Mind-blowing, even. I never knew it could be this good. And she stayed, despite her feelings and the endless tugs by her impulse-prone puppeteer. She fought it all. For me.
That’s how it’s always been with us. She’s the fighter.
And until she left, I was the beneficiary of her wins.
My long-held anger drifts away as I hold her.
As is often the case with anger, it stemmed from a misunderstanding.
I thought I was the blameless victim of her coldness and impulsivity.
But her leaving was my fault, too. I pushed for us to go to UNC-Chapel Hill together.
I believed, for once, that I’d be the hero who would save her at college by being the voice of reason when she needed it and holding her at night.
I arrogantly thought that I’d be enough to turn college into a dream when the rest of her education had been a nightmare.
I held myself in such fucking high esteem for it, too—taking her with me—when really, I just wanted her for myself and needed her to make me brave.
I wasn’t her hero—I was a selfish coward.
God, she must’ve been under so much unbearable pressure. Pressure I caused.
I’m the asshole.
For trying to push her into the life I wanted, like everyone else had.
For failing to understand the real her.
But I want to. Not just what she’s told me or what we’ve done, but all of her. I want to understand Venus Blake the way she understands the inner workings of flowers, to make up for not really knowing her then.
Only, my wants and feelings don’t matter after tonight. She’ll disappear once she’s done with her obligatory summer. I’ll resume my settled existence. And we’ll both get to see if her experiment—and yes, it was an experiment—truly worked.
But I already know it hasn’t. It’s impossible to get her out of my system. Our confusing, frustrating, sad, and intoxicatingly beautiful night has only solidified what I already know—my heart belongs to Venus.
A gentle sob catches in her sigh, like she might be reaching the same conclusion, and my arms tighten. “It’s okay. I’m here. We’re together. Everything’s okay,” I whisper, like we used to when we were young.
But my words feel empty.
I want to roll her over and kiss her tears away. To clamp down on the tiniest bit of hope for us, like a flytrap would a bug. But there’s no happy ending here. Not for the fly. Not for us.
So, maybe it’s best to let the tears flow, I decide as one travels over my nose and into her hair.
She falls asleep—I can almost pinpoint the exact moment by the familiar gentleness in her breathing and the subtle, final release of her tension. It’s like she melts against me. In her quiet, I find mine, slipping into a deep sleep.
When I wake, I feel ridiculously energized, like I’ve slept for days in mere hours.
I think to stir her with soft kisses and engage in another round—I could never have enough of her—but she sleeps so peacefully that I don’t want to disturb her.
So, I slowly ease out from behind her with the same careful precision I use with Olly, and I close the door to the bedroom.
In the open living room and kitchen, I find Uncle Jay’s wooden blue jay on my desk, atop the annotated paper from Mrs. Kwon. She was right—Buttercup’s story isn’t finished.
Or at least, I’m not finished with her.
My desk chair creaks when I fall into it, holding the bird, overrun with emotions, and flooded with our stories—stories that have taken on a whole new perspective after everything she purged last night.
I think of her falling from the tree and wonder, for the first time, if she’d been running from something that day as I had.
I remember her hidden sadness, her stiff upper lip, the distance she kept, how she wouldn’t hold my hand in the halls at school the few times I tried, how she said she was fine when she wasn’t—I wonder, now, if she’s been running this whole time.
Until last night. With me.
I switch on the desk lamp, move all my notes aside, and find a blank composition notebook in my desk drawer.
My fingers slide over the black-and-white cover.
Composition notebooks remind me of Venus.
I set the bird on the edge of my desk, recalling what Uncle Jay said about being there for her as many times as she needed—a mission I failed.
I long to capture everything about her and us into one place.
I couldn’t purge her from my system with sex, but perhaps I can through words, ink, and paper.
To get to the heart of us. The heart of her. And not for some damn book, but for me. To have her exist somewhere other than at the core of me.
To have something to hold on to when she’s gone. Again.
And she will leave. She always leaves.
I reach for my favorite pen and start writing my earliest memories of her—the dirty girl in class, the tree-climber, the hero against bullies—and give every thought a place on the page just as she gives detailed lines to her drawings.
Smiles find me through the stories. So, do tears, dripping onto the page and smearing the ink.
But it’s fitting for us, as if love can’t exist without pain. And I still ache for her. Even with her in my bed right now, with only a few feet and a wall between us.
An hour or so later, I look up to see gentle bands of sunshine creeping over buildings to hit the river outside my window.
I feel satiated in a different way, that parts of our story have made it to paper, even if no one ever reads it but me.
Though some stories are safe with Olly, there’s more to us than childhood adventures, and I want to relive those memories, feel them, and see them from new angles.
To discover our true history. My fingers crack and feel tight from effort. I stand, stretch, and make coffee.
I collect her things—her discarded clothes, scarf, boots, and phone from downstairs.
I shake out her wrinkled dress and bring it to my face, inhaling her scent on it.
She still uses rose-scented lotion. She smells like a botanist. I drape the dress over my leather chair to smooth out the wrinkles, and set her boots and phone beside it.
I resist the urge to rejoin her in bed—it’s still early, and remembering what she said about sleepless nights, I want her to rest.
And I want to keep her here.
I have my coffee on the flat roof outside our apartment, presently cluttered with bikes and outdoor toys. The sun dances across the water, though the world remains dim and quiet. I love this time of morning.
On the Riverwalk below, I spot Derek walking his dog Pepper. I want to thank him for his kindness. However beautiful Venus is, I doubt she receives much positive attention, and DeeDee lavished it on her last night.
The open sign flickers on in the bakery window on the corner, and I imagine introducing Venus to their decadent cinnamon rolls—she loves sweets.
I rush inside, pull on sneakers, and grab my wallet and keys.