Chapter 26
The farmers’ market is already crowded when we get there, filled with families moving to and from different booths. Clara walks a few steps ahead of me, hand in hand with Tommy.
“Try not to buy so much honey this time,” Tommy tells her. “You never eat it.”
“I like it!” she defends, stopping to browse an assortment of jewelry.
Tommy laughs. “You don’t like weird-flavored honey, Clare. You only buy that shit for the fancy jars.”
“I do not—” Clara starts, looking up at him to argue, then stops when her eyes land on something behind him. “Diana! Lily’s here.”
Lily’s booth stands out among the crowd with a pretty sign, pottery lined up on the table, and paintings displayed behind her.
And Lily herself, with her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, her signature overalls, gesturing wildly as she talks to a customer.
Her effortless beauty still takes my breath away.
Tommy’s already set off to talk to her, dragging Clara behind him. “Lil!”
She looks up and grins, her whole face lighting up in a way that makes an unreasonable jealousy churn in my gut. “Hey, you two!”
Clara concentrates on the painted pottery while Tommy and Lily fall into easy conversation, like old friends. I don’t think he ever forgot that Lily was rooting for him back then, when he was in love with Clara, and she had no idea.
I remember her in the garden one afternoon, saying they would get married someday. That she could feel it.
Clara laughs at something she says, nudging Tommy with her elbow. “You hear that? She’s on my side.”
“Always,” Lily says with a wink.
They linger for a minute, talking over each other, and then Clara excuses them. “We’re going to keep walking before I start buying up all this stuff.”
“Alright,” Lily says. “You kids have fun. But not too much fun.” Tommy and Clara both groan, almost like they’re 8 again and Lily’s picking on them.
I can’t help the smile that overtakes my face.
I missed that terribly.
They head off, hand in hand, leaving me standing there alone, fully aware that we haven’t seen each other since that night.
The night she told me she dated women.
The night I couldn’t fight back the feelings that threatened to overwhelm me. Don’t think about that.
Lily turns to me, smiling for once. “Hey, Di.”
“Hey,” I say, trying for casual, ignoring the butterflies fluttering around in my stomach over her saying my name like that.
“Oh! I almost forgot to introduce you!” she says suddenly, turning to grab the other woman inside the booth. The same one from before. “This is Iris. Iris, this is Diana.”
“Hi,” I say, offering a smile. “Nice to meet you.”
The younger woman doesn’t say anything at first. Her hazel eyes are wide, flicking back and forth once between Lily and me. “You too,” she says finally, sounding a little forced. “Wow. Um, Ms. Price has told me a lot about you.”
I open my mouth to respond, searching for Lily for help, but she’s already turned away, reaching for a bowl as an older woman steps up to the booth.
The woman is pretty in that polished, southern way. Dark skin and hair, bright eyes. She leans in close to Lily, touches her arm as they laugh together, and something I don’t like flares up inside of me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Iris follow my gaze, then let out a quiet laugh. “Don’t worry, she’s married.” She tilts her head toward a man a few feet away, checking his watch.
“I wasn’t worried,” I defend, but I can see in her eyes that she doesn’t believe me. Her words ring in my head. Ms. Price has told me a lot about you.
What did Lily tell her?
Iris checks her phone and groans. “I should get going. Wedding stuff.” The way she says it would make you think she would rather be doing anything but plan her wedding.
“Is that not fun?” I ask, more comfortable with her as the day has gone on. She’s a sweet girl and clearly a good friend to Lily, even though I can’t get what she said out of my head.
She makes a face. “I love Nate,” she pulls her phone out and shows me a picture of her with a handsome man. “But trying to plan this whole thing is a lot. Plus, he’s busy with summer football practice, so he can’t come to all of these meetings, and ugh. I’m regretting a summer wedding.”
“Just go to the courthouse, get it over with. Not like you two are waiting for anything.”
That shocks a laugh out of me while Iris gasps. “Ms. Price!”
“If you need any help, let me know.” I don’t know why I say that. I barely know the girl, but I don’t regret it because I can actually see her relax a little.
“You would really help? Because I have no idea where to start and it’s so close…”
“Of course. You know, I planned my wedding in only a couple of weeks. I was pregnant, and I didn’t want to look it in my wedding photos—” Lily rolls her eyes at that, but it makes Iris laugh. “We had it at the community garden, so many flowers and lights, it was wonderful.”
I usually don’t speak of the garden.
I don’t like to think about it.
I don’t like to look at my wedding album.
But somehow, the garden being gone, doesn’t feel so big anymore. It still hurts, it always will, but Lily is here, watching me talk to her friend with soft eyes, and I don’t know.
It doesn’t feel like as much of a loss anymore.
“That sounds beautiful,” Iris says, looking around the town. “Is there still a community garden somewhere? I’ve never come across it.”
I look at Lily.
We haven’t talked about it, that subject feels too big to broach. Lily left me, she took the signatures, she abandoned me, and the garden we spent all summer working on was destroyed because of her.
I forgive her, of course, I would forgive Lily for anything, but it still happened.
She leans against the table, arms crossed, jaw clenched, defensive. “It’s gone,” she answers when I don’t.
“Oh,” Iris says, her mouth tugging down into a frown. “I’m sorry, Diana. That’s really sad.”
“It’s okay.” Lily scoffs and turns away.
It isn’t okay. We both know it.
Iris hesitates, clearly recognizing that she stepped somewhere she shouldn’t have. “Well,” she says, offering me a smile again, “I’d better get to this fitting. But thank you for offering to help. I will definitely take you up on that.”
“Anytime,” I tell her, and I mean it.
There’s a pause after Iris leaves.
The market is busy around us, and music plays from a distant speaker, but none of that matters. Lily and I stand in our own quiet world, full of things we haven’t said.
But I can’t hold it anymore.
“You told her.”
Lily doesn’t look up as she rearranges a stack of mugs, even though they looked fine before. “Told her what?”
I exhale through my nose, irritation building. “You know what.”
She sighs, already tired of this conversation, and we haven’t even had it. “Diana.”
“You told her about us,” I say, keeping my voice low so no one around us hears. “About what we did.”
She finally looks at me, and although she’s annoyed, the darkness from earlier is gone from her face. “I didn’t tell her anything wild, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”
“Somehow, that’s not comforting.”
A corner of her mouth twitches. “We slept together a few times. Forty years ago. I promise the town isn’t gossiping about it.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is?”
I fold my arms across my chest, anger rising quickly because how is Lily this dense? “I guess I didn’t realize my private life was a story you shared with your friends.”
Her expression shifts, the teasing annoyance fading into genuine anger now. “Iris isn’t just a friend, she’s like family.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that you told someone, outside of us, private things about what we did.”
“You’re acting like I put it in the paper.”
Heat creeps up onto my cheeks the longer we discuss it. We’ve never talked about it like this. It wasn’t ever something we acknowledged. “Why are you being so… casual about this?”
Because I’m not ashamed.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“You don’t have to. I know how you feel about it. It’s how you felt back then, too.”
That stings more than it should, considering she’s right. I was so ashamed of myself for how much I craved her, every second of my existence narrowed down to when I would get to see that look on her face when she would…
“I would’ve liked to have known that anyone I meet might know what I do in my personal life,” I argue, in a hushed tone, fighting myself too hard not to think about back then to be properly angry anymore.
“I’m not going to tiptoe around my life to make you more comfortable, Diana. I never thought I would see you again when I told her about you. I didn’t do anything wrong, so you don’t get to be pissed at me.”
I press my lips together, knowing she’s right and hating it.
Hating myself for making her angry when all I want is for us to be close again.
The silence between us stretches for way too long after that. I’m about to excuse myself when Lily exhales and drops her shoulders, finally giving up a fight she didn’t even start.
“I’m sorry, Di,” she says, the anger completely gone from her voice. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
I look up, surprised by her apology.
“It wasn’t like that,” she continues. “I didn’t give her the play-by-play.”
I can’t find my voice to respond, so she keeps going.
“I told her you were important to me. That you were someone I cared for once. What conclusions she came to from that, I don’t know. But I didn’t tell her anything that wasn’t mine to tell. I haven’t told anyone about that time in my life. I didn’t want to think about it, to be honest.”
My chest tightens, the tension from being caught replaced by something else. Sadness, maybe even guilt. Why wouldn’t Lily want to think about us? What did I do that upset her so badly?
“I didn’t mean to accuse you,” I say quietly, fighting the urge to ask. “I just wasn’t expecting her to know so much.”
She nods, then adds with a quirk of her lips, “Iris is perceptive. And nosy. But we can trust her. She knows I like women, and it hasn’t been shouted from the rooftops yet.”
“I’m sorry too,” I add, even though it doesn’t feel like enough.
Clara and Tommy return a few minutes later, arms full of bags and smiles. “Hey guys,” Clara says, eyeing the space between Lily and me. “We were thinking about grabbing lunch. You two hungry?”
“There’s a place down the street, nothing fancy, but it’s good,” Tommy adds.
Lily glances at me first, looking for permission. “You wanna?”
“Sure.”
“Great,” Clara says, clapping her hands once. “Let’s go before I spend more money.”
Lily locks up her cash box and flips the sign on her booth, falling into step beside me as we head toward the shops. My brain can’t help but think that this is like a double date. Tommy and Clara, me and Lily.
I clear my throat to get rid of that insane thought. “So who was that woman earlier?”
Lily looks at me sideways. “Which woman?”
“The one with the yellow sundress.” Iris said she was married, but I can’t help but think back to the women Lily has dated. Was she one of them?
“You two seemed friendly.”
“Oh my god, Di,” Lily says after a long pause, dragging out my name. She slings an arm around my shoulders, like she used to when we were young. “I barely even know her.”
My heart picks up at the contact, my body reacting before my brain can catch up. Her arm is warm and solid, familiar, but it’s been so long since she’s touched me.
“I didn’t mean—”
“You were glaring,” she says. “I could feel it.”
“I was not.”
“You were.”
I huff. “I was curious about her.”
“Mm-hmm,” Lily hums, unconvinced.
“Lily!”
Clara glances back at us, eyebrows raised. “Everything good back there?”
“Ask your sister,” Lily says, with this annoying little smirk that makes me want to kiss her even more.