Chapter 5 #2
Lila's statement was only too accurate, and she pressed her hand against her chest, feeling her heart kick.
"It's not the same thing."
"Then tell me what it is."
She should. She knew she should. Lila was her best friend—her only real friend, if she was being honest. They'd bonded over their shared status as newcomers to Harmony Glen, both of them trying to build lives in a town full of monsters and humans who'd known each other for generations.
Lila understood what it was like to feel out of place, but Lila was also warm and open and optimistic in a way that Marigold had never been.
Lila had found Torin. She'd found her happy ending. Marigold had a mother who'd chased happy endings her whole life and left wreckage in her wake.
"I'm just tired," she said, which wasn't quite a lie. "It was a long afternoon. And Thallos is…" She struggled to find words that wouldn't give too much away. "He's a lot."
"A lot how?"
"A lot… charming."
Another weighted pause. "And that's bad?"
*Yes,* she thought fiercely. *Yes, that's bad. Charm is a warning sign. Charm is what makes you believe every smile, every promise, every 'you're different, you're special.'*
*Charm is what lands you alone in a flower shop, trying to save a business you never wanted, because your mother danced off to India to find herself.* Even though it had turned out to be a business she did want in a town she was growing to love, it hadn't been her choice.
"Mari?"
"It's not bad," she made herself say. "It's just… I don't know. It's complicated."
"Complicated can be good."
"Or complicated can be a mess waiting to happen."
She heard Lila sigh through the phone. "You know sometimes the thing that scares you is also the thing that saves you."
She closed her eyes.
The problem was, she could picture it. Too easily. Letting Thallos in. Letting herself believe the warmth in his golden-brown eyes and the gentleness in his voice when he'd promised not to touch her. She could picture letting herself fall.
But she could also picture the landing.
"I should go," she said. "Early morning tomorrow. Big delivery from my wholesaler."
"Mari—"
"Thanks for checking on me. I'm fine. Really."
"You keep saying that word."
"Because it's true."
Lila was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice was gentle in a way that made Marigold's throat tight.
"Okay. But you know where I am if you want to talk. Any time."
"I know."
"And if you need me to come over with wine and chocolate and really terrible rom-coms—"
"I'll call."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
She hung up before Lila could ask any more questions.
The apartment felt too quiet after the call ended.
She unfolded herself from the sofa and wandered toward the kitchen, more for something to do than because she was hungry.
The countertop held a bowl of lemons from the farmers' market, their yellow bright against the sage-green tile.
A small herb garden lined the windowsill—basil, rosemary, thyme—all of them thriving under her care.
Growing things had always made sense to her in a way that people didn't. Plants had needs, yes, but those needs were predictable.
Water. Light. Nutrients. The right soil, the right pot, the right amount of attention.
Give a plant what it required, and it would flourish.
Neglect it, and it would wither. Simple cause and effect.
People were never that simple.
She filled a glass with water from the tap and drank it slowly, staring out the window at the darkened street below. From this angle, she could just see the edge of the trellis Thallos had… awakened? Enchanted? Whatever the right word was for making roses bloom with nothing but a touch.
*They wanted to bloom for you,* he'd said. *I just gave them permission.*
Her chest ached at the memory. It would be so easy to believe him.
To believe that he'd done it for her, only for her, and that the magic was a gift rather than a manipulation.
Her mother had always believed that kind of thing.
But it was never real. And she was always the one left to pick up the pieces.
She sighed and retreated to her bedroom.She changed into her softest pajamas, a worn cotton set covered in tiny botanical illustrations, and slid beneath the weight of her grandmother's quilt.
The fabric was soft from decades of washing, the colors faded but still beautiful: a riot of blues and greens and golds that reminded her of summer gardens and peaceful afternoons.
This quilt was one of the few things she had from her grandmother. One of the few things her mother hadn't sold or lost or left behind in whatever town they were fleeing next. She smoothed her hand across the familiar pattern and tried to let its comfort sink into her bones.
Sleep, she told herself. Tomorrow's a new day. Tomorrow you can be practical and focused and forget about gold-brown eyes and wine-warm lips and the way he looked at her like she was someone he wanted to know, not just someone he wanted to charm into bed.
Sleep, when it finally came, was fitful and strange.
She dreamed of vines. Endless rows of them, stretching toward a horizon she couldn't quite see. She was walking between them, searching for something, and the vines kept reaching for her—not threatening, exactly, but insistent. Wanting.
Let us in, they whispered. Let us grow.
And then she was in the wine shop, but it was different somehow. Darker. Warmer. And Thallos was there, standing behind the bar, watching her with those impossible eyes.
I don't trust you, she tried to say back, but the words wouldn't come.
Instead, she was walking toward him. Moving like the vines had moved toward her—slow and inevitable and completely beyond her control. And he was waiting for her, patient as the earth, with his hands open and his expression unguarded, and when she finally reached him—
She woke up with a gasp.
Morning light streamed through the gap in her curtains. The clock on her nightstand blinked 6:47 AM. She lay very still, staring at the ceiling, feeling her heart pound against her ribs.
It was just a dream, she told herself. It doesn’t mean anything.
But even as she thought it, even as she threw back the covers and forced herself towards the shower and the brutal clarity of cold water, she knew it wasn't true.
She was attracted to Thallos. Genuinely, undeniably, bone-deep attracted.
And that was the most dangerous thing that had happened to her in a very long time.