The One Without Words

❀ chapter forty-nine | forget me not ❀

A/N: If you read the previous chapter, ❀ chapter forty-eight | counting down ❀, more than 3 days ago please be sure to check it out again! I recently added an extra scene to the end of that chapter. 

On the plane back to Seattle, we descended into an ocean of clouds instead of salt. Endless, foggy grays and whites shrouded the sky. I'd miss the sun.

Once we landed, I remembered what Jack said, pulled up his text, and found the translation.

Ich liebe dich, Blume girl.

I love you, flower girl.

Even in English, the words looked foreign. My chest grew heavy. The only thing I wanted to do was fall back asleep against the stiff airplane seat and forget about it.

Because I loved him, too. And just like that, he'd be gone.

For the next month, as the days grew short in the dreary winter, I focused on the flower shop. With Grace gone to Las Vegas, Greta, Talia, and I went back to our old rhythm. At school, I was also back to old rhythms with Eli, Seth, and even Megan the pageant queen. But in some ways, we were different than before. Closer, somehow. More open and mature.

Jack switched over to online classes in preparation for his move, which already gave me a sense of his absence. No more Jack sleeping during English, head laying against crossed arms over his desk.

But then he did something I might've secretly hoped for but didn't expect: he asked to work at the flower shop again. After another awkward dinner with his family, Greta decided to hire him for the month.

Funny—he was only a half-decent employee when he was about to leave.

I finally taught him Flower Arranging 101, but his bouquets looked atrocious despite multiple lessons. Yeah... we were definitely better off leaving him to mop the floors and dust shelves. He updated our website again, though, and he even joined me and my dad on a flower delivery run.

During his shifts at Greta's Flores, we didn't do a lot of talking, but maybe we didn't need to. We were always aware of each other, cracking jokes with nothing but eye-rolls and scowls, communicating with gestures and stares.

I never believed in telepathy or souls, but I couldn't deny there was something linking mine and Jack's energy. But when we got too close, I felt him distance himself from me. Maybe, like me, he knew there was still a lot we hadn't discovered about this weird connection. But maybe, unlike me, it scared him.

Anyway, on to a more pressing matter: Anika still didn't have a solid place to live. Seth ended up offering for her to stay with him for a while. Eli used his family connections to help her get a job at a local grocery store. For two weeks, I didn't hear from her as she was busy working and studying for her GED. Once she passed the test, Seth offered to throw her a huge party at Eli's place to celebrate.

"You and Jack won't graduate with us, bro, we need to party now," he reasoned. And for whatever reason, she—and Jack—agreed. She didn't drink, smoke, dance, or engage in any of the usual teenage shenanigans, but she watched the commotion with curiosity. You'd think she'd feel out of place being fresh out of juvie, but she came into every new situation with a calm confidence. Maybe it was all that meditation she did.

Jack didn't seem too keen on alcohol this time either, and, unlike Anika, I could tell he was nervous being around so many people. We ended up sitting together on Eli's dock, laughing as I recounted the time we drifted away on that boat—a night Jack didn't remember well since he was so wasted.

And Penelope, from what I knew, was still in juvenile jail.

"I really think she should be charged for attempted murder," I told Anika one day after her shift. "But Jack didn't tell the detectives she pushed him off that ledge. And now what? She'll get maybe a few months in prison for car theft? What if she comes after us?"