Chapter 17: The Unexpected Blooms
The grass in the university courtyard was a tender green, newborn and cool against the backs of Jennie’ ana s she stretched her legs out, textbook open but forgotten on her lap. Spring had arrived in a single, breathtaking burst. The cherry blossoms were a riot of frothy pink against the clear blue sky, petals detaching in the soft breeze to drift down in a silent, perfumed storm. It was Wednesday. The dinner with her parents and Kai was tomorrow. The knowledge of it sat inside her like a swallowed stone, cold and heavy.
Beside her, Rosé lay on her stomach, chin propped on her hands, scrolling through her phone. “He posted another one,” she murmured, her voice a low hum. “Kai.At the country club. Polo, I think? Or it’s just a very expensive sweater with a popped collar. Hard to tell.”
Jennie didn’t look. She watched a single petal land on the open page of “Cognitive Behavioral Theories,” a perfect pink stain on the dry prose. “I don’t want to see.”
“Good call,” Rosé said, flipping her phone face-down. “It’s depressing. All that money and the smile never reaches his eyes. It’s like watching a very handsome mannequin get rotated.”
A laugh, brittle and unexpected, escaped Jennie’s lips. She pressed her hand over her mouth. It felt like a betrayal of something, though she wasn’t sure what. Her upbringing, maybe. The image of her father, solemn and approving across the dining table.
“You could just not go,” Rosé said quietly, rolling onto her side to look at her. Her blonde hair fanned out on the grass like a halo.
“You know I can’t.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
The question hung in the fragrant air. Jennie plucked the cherry blossom petal from the page, rubbing it between her fingers until it bruised and turned brown. Before she could formulate an answer—one she didn’t have—a long, familiar shadow fell across them.
She knew the shape of that shadow. The broad shoulders, the lean waist, the slight forward slouch of someone constantly ready to move. Her breath caught in her throat before she even looked up.
Leonid stood there, backlit by the sun so his face was in silhouette, his curls a dark, messy crown. He was wearing a faded grey athletic shirt, damp with sweat at the collar and under his arms, and loose shorts. He must have come straight from practice. In one hand, he held his gym bag. In the other, clutched somewhat awkwardly, was a bundle of color.
It wasn’t a bouquet. It was a fistful of wildflowers, roots and all, clumps of dark earth still clinging to them. Tiny white daisies with cheerful yellow centers, spindly purple things she couldn’t name, a few bold yellow buttercups, and a single, stubborn dandelion gone to seed. They were crumpled, already wilting a little from his grip.
He didn’t say anything. He just stepped forward and dropped them unceremoniously into her lap, on top of her neglected textbook.
Pollen dusted the pages. A ladybug scrambled from a daisy leaf onto her white skirt.
Jennie stared down at the tangled mess of roots and petals, her mind blank.
Leonid shifted his weight, his gym bag hitting the grass with a thump. He scratched the back of his neck, his gaze fixed on a point somewhere over her shoulder. “Saw them,” he mumbled, his voice rough. “By the fence near the track. The groundskeeper’s gonna mow ‘em down tomorrow anyway.”
He shrugged, a tight, defensive roll of his shoulders. His ears, Jennie saw, were burning a deep, furious red. It was a tell he’d never been able to control, a stark vulnerability against his otherwise composed, almost insolent demeanor.
Rosé, from her spot on the grass, had gone very still. Jennie could feel her best friend’s eyes on her, watching.
He saw them.He thought of her. He’d stopped, his hands still smelling of chalk and sweat from the gym, and he’d wrestled these common, tenacious weeds from the soil for her. Not because it was a special occasion, but because tomorrow the mower would come. A tiny, urgent preservation of something fleeting and beautiful, done for no one but her.
Her heart didn’t just crack open; it shattered, flooding her chest with a warmth so acute it was painful. Her eyes stung. She looked up at him, her vision blurring the edges of his silhouette.
He finally risked a glance at her face and instantly looked away, the red on his ears deepening.“Whatever. They’re just weeds,” he grunted, shoving his hands into his pockets.
“No,” Jennie whispered. Her fingers closed gently around the stems, feeling the grit of the soil, the fragile life still pulsing in them. “They’re perfect.”
She brought the bundle to her nose. They smelled green and sharp and achingly simple. Of sunlight on uncut grass, of defiance.
Leonid let out a breath she hadn’t realized he was holding. He sank onto the grass beside her, not touching, but close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his body, could smell the lemon-and-smoke scent of his skin overlaid with honest sweat. He grabbed his water bottle from his bag and took a long pull, his throat working.
Rosé, with a tact Jennie would forever be grateful for, picked up her phone and stood, brushing grass from her jeans. “I’m gonna go hunt for iced coffee,” she announced to no one in particular. “You two… enjoy the botany.” She gave Jennie’s shoulder a quick, reassuring squeeze as she passed, her message clear: I see him. I see this. It’s real.
Then they were alone under the cherry tree, in a world of drifting pink snow.
For a long time, neither spoke. The silence wasn’t empty; it was dense, layered with everything unsaid. The violet scale on the dragon’s chest. The cold pearl waiting in its box. The tomorrow that hung over them like a blade. Jennie laid the flowers carefully beside her, arranging the stems as best she could. Her fingers were stained green.
She felt his gaze on her profile. She kept her eyes on the flowers, on the brave little dandelion clock.
“You ready for tomorrow?” he asked finally. His voice was low, stripped of its usual sardonic edge.
“No.”
“What’s the game plan? Silent protest? Spill wine on his suit? Fake a sudden, contagious illness?”
She smiled faintly. “My mother would detect a fake illness from a mile away. Probably just… smile and nod. Get through it.”
“Smile and nod,” he repeated softly. He plucked a blade of grass and twisted it around his finger. “Sounds awful.”
“It is.”
Another silence, thicker this time. The laughter of other students drifted over from the quad, a world away.
His hand moved. It came to rest on the grass between them, palm up, fingers slightly curled. An echo of yesterday’s connection in his sunlit room. An invitation repeated in the open air, under the watchful sky.
Jennie’s breath hitched. She glanced around, a habit so ingrained it was a reflex. No one seemed to be looking their way. They were just two students sitting under a tree. She let her own hand fall from where it rested on her knee. Her pinky finger, tentatively, linked with his.
A current, sharp and sweet, jolted up her arm. His finger tightened around hers, a swift, grateful pressure.
They sat like that for an hour, maybe more. Time lost meaning in the gentle shower of petals. He didn’t try to hold her whole hand, just kept that one small point of contact, a secret anchor in the soft, green sea of grass. His thumb would sometimes stroke the side of her finger, a slow, absent-minded rhythm that synced with her heartbeat.
She told him, in fits and starts, about the reading she was supposed to be doing. He listened, adding dry, surprisingly insightful comments about human irrationality that made her laugh. He told her about a stupid drill his coach had made them run, his teammates’ complaining, the satisfying burn in his muscles.Normal things. Precious things.
As the sun began its slow descent, painting the sky in apricot and lavender, he shifted. His hand turned, his palm meeting hers properly now, their fingers sliding together. It was a deliberate, intimate clasp, hidden between their two bodies in the long, late-afternoon shadow of the tree.
His shoulder pressed fully against hers.Solid.Warm. Real.
“Jen,” he said, his voice a low rumble she felt through her bones.
“Hmm?”
He was quiet for so long she thought he might not finish. He watched a flock of birds scatter from a nearby branch.
“However you get through tomorrow,” he said finally, each word chosen with care, “just come back after. Even if you smell like his cologne. Even if you’re wearing those pearls. Just come back.”
The words were not a demand. They were a plea, laid bare without a trace of his protective irony. They acknowledged the ugliness ahead and offered a singular, unwavering sanctuary: himself.
Tears, hot and insistent, welled in her eyes. She couldn’t speak. She just nodded, a sharp, desperate movement, and squeezed his hand with all the strength she had.
He brought their joined hands up, just for a moment, and pressed his lips to her knuckles. A kiss that was a promise, a brand, a blessing. Then he let go, the loss of his touch immediate and chilling.
He stood up in one fluid motion, grabbing his gym bag. He looked down at her, sitting amidst the scattered petals and her wilting wildflowers, his expression unreadable in the gathering dusk.
“Don’t let the bastards win,” he said, and the old, familiar smirk was back, but his eyes were deadly serious.
Then he turned and walked away, his figure dissolving into the shadows lengthening across the courtyard.
Jennie sat until the last of the sun’s warmth faded from the grass. She gathered the flowers carefully, cradling their ragged, earthy beauty. The ladybug had found its way to the dandelion. She lifted the stem and blew gently. The seeded parachutes detached, swirling up into the violet twilight, carrying their possibilities away on the breeze.
She stood, her body stiff, and walked back towards her parents’ house, the flowers clutched to her chest. Their scent was on her hands, on her skirt. A secret carried through the darkening streets. However she got through tomorrow, she had his words. She had the memory of his hand in hers, and the feel of his lips on her skin.
And she had the single, resolute directive that pounded in time with her footsteps: Just come back.