Chapter 42
February 15, 2025
I’m quiet for a long stretch as my brain tries to process the impossibility of this moment. Why did it all unfold like this? Why did I wake up a year into the future one day and start living life backward? Why am I living it forward now? Why did any of this happen?
But the answers never come. I don’t know why I expect them to. An experience like this, where my entire reality and sense of time have been turned upside down, can’t possibly have an easy explanation.
I glance out the car window and focus on the soft hum of the engine as we fly across the speedway. The noise is a calming distraction for the endless thoughts and questions tumbling around my brain.
I try to look at the grass alongside the road, but I start to feel dizzy at how I can’t focus on any visual, given how fast we’re going. It’s just swipes of green whizzing by. I press my eyes shut for a moment to steady myself. When I open them, I relax my gaze, focusing on nothing in particular. A minute later I twist my neck to look at the landscape behind us now, and that’s when the scene comes into focus: an emerald-green hill dotted with bright-yellow flowers and fence posts, against a cornflower-blue sky.
I see everything so clearly, looking back at it.
And then something clicks in my brain. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe I had to live my life backward to truly see everything and everyone for what they really were.
I saw Tristan’s true colors. Milo’s too.
For a few minutes I reflect on the thought.
Is it really that simple?
Maybe.
It’s enough to calm the swirl of thoughts and questions. In this moment it feels like enough.
When Milo pulls off into the Kent countryside, just over an hour outside London, I gaze at the endless rolling green hills and winding country roads. He slows down and turns left onto a side road. We get to an open wooden gate that leads to a lush green hillside. I squint at the massive wooden sign off to the side.
“Beautiful Blossoms Farm,” I say. Next to the pretty cursive writing is an illustration of pink and white flowers.
It takes a second before it registers. “Peonies?”
When I whip my head around at him, he’s smiling.
“You guessed it.” He eases the car to a stop in the dirt parking lot, next to a massive hillside with endless rows of tilled dirt.
He kills the engine and turns to me. “We’re a couple months early from when the flowers bloom. We’ll come back for that.” He nods toward the dirt rows. Those must be where the flower bulbs are planted. “But there’s something I want to show you now.”
We get out of the car and walk toward a small wooden building near the fields. When he scoops my hand in his, my skin goes warm instantly. I glance around us, taking in the view of the farmland, which glows with shades of bright green and rich brown in the golden sunlight.
My heart thuds at the thoughtfulness in the day trip that Milo has planned for me. A day that was supposed to be a remembrance of my heartbreak is something different. Something better.
When we walk inside the little wooden shop, a small older woman with a lovely warm smile greets us.
“You must be Milo and Riley?” she asks.
“That’s us,” Milo says while I nod.
“Greta. Good to meet you.”
We shake hands with her.
She grabs a coat and slides it on before focusing on me. “Well, my dear. Let’s head out and take advantage of this sunny February day. Don’t get many of those in England.”
She chuckles and bends down to grab a small wooden square with wire attached to it.
I look up at Milo. “What is all this?”
He grins. “You’ll see.”
We follow Greta out the back door and head along the fields. Milo chats with her while we walk. She tells us that her family has run this farm for three generations.
A small gust of cold wind breezes around us, but the sunlight above counters it with warmth so that the combination feels pleasant.
Greta stops at the head of one of the tilled rows and opens her arms, like she’s presenting the entire field to us.
She looks at me. “Your bloke called and said he’d like to reserve a row of peonies for his special lady. So you, my dear, get to choose your row.”
I make a soft gasping noise as I look at Milo.
“Are you serious?” I ask.
His smile is warm and giddy all at once. “Completely serious.”
I rest my palm against my chest as I catch my breath, blown away at the sweetness of this surprise Milo’s arranged for me. That wave of emotion crashes through me once more.
I lean up and press a kiss to his mouth, careful to keep it quick and PG since Greta is here. “I love you,” I murmur to him.
I take in the dazed look in his eyes, how he looks like he could topple over, he’s so shocked at what I’ve said.
And that’s when I realize this is the first time I’ve said this to him.
The first time we’ve said this to each other.
I remember the first times I said “I love you” to past partners. I always felt rattled, like my nerves were crackling inside me.
But I don’t feel any of that right now. All I feel is warmth and calm as I gaze up at Milo.
He blinks, revealing a brightness I haven’t seen before in his rich brown eyes.
“I love you too,” he whispers before kissing my forehead.
Greta gazes adoringly at us before looking back out at the field. I glance down at the row right next to my feet.
“This one,” I say.
Greta beams at me. “You’ve got it, my dear.” She pulls a black marker from her coat pocket and scribbles something on the black wooden square in her other hand. When she sticks the wire legs into the ground, I read what she’s written.
“Riley’s Row,” I say through a smile.
“I like the sound of that,” Milo says, sliding his arm around me.
Greta says she’ll leave us to explore the property.
“I’ll put on the kettle,” she says. “You two can come in and have some tea when you’re done.”
She walks back to the building. Milo and I stroll along the edge of the field.
“This is the most thoughtful gift, Milo. Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure.” He squeezes my hand in his. “We’ll come back in June and pick a bouquet for you to take home. We could invite Poppy and Desmond. And Nesta and Roland too. Molly will be running by then, I think. It’ll be fun to see her explore this place.”
He smiles out at the farmland. Something inside me swells, intensifies.
It feels like a mix of hope and hesitation.
After living life backward for so many months, I’ve gotten used to not thinking about the future. But I can’t help the excitement that simmers within me. I think of coming back here to Beautiful Blossoms Farm when it’s sunny and thousands of peonies in every color are in full bloom.
I think of warm weather. I think of the days getting longer and longer.
I think of outings with Poppy and Desmond, and Nesta and Roland. I gaze at the emerald-green hills surrounding us in every direction and picture Molly running around.
I think of living this life with Milo. Forward or backward, it doesn’t matter. It’s perfect as long as it’s with him.
My heart swells in my chest. “I can’t wait.”