Something New Blooms

Chapter 1

If my life went as planned, I'd have walked down the aisle in a white dress. Maybe I'd have even chosen this one, with its fitted satin bodice, spaghetti straps and full skirt plummeting to the ground in a sheet of feathers.

But I've never been a bride, only a lonely woman gazing at a dress she has no need for, pretending it isn't a faceless mannequin in an effortlessly elegant pose staring back at her from the store window but a reflection of herself on her wedding day.

Wisteria Boutique hasn't changed since the day it opened when I was in high school. Gold curlicue letters etch out its name on its storefront. Wisteria flowers climb the trellises on either side of the doorway. Countless seasons have gone by, but I've never seen their periwinkle petals wilt as I have from heat and age and heartbreak.

Wisteria's designs are unmatched in this town. Their seamstresses can bring any vision to reality, no matter how impossible it seems. That's why I ordered the garments for every important occasion from them—my prom dress, the gown I wore for my sister's wedding, and the one I wanted to wear at mine.

Including the maid of honour dress I found my fiancé peeling off my best friend two weeks before the wedding that never happened.

I've always seen Wisteria's designs in my dreams, but since that day, I've seen them in my nightmares too.

Nine years later, the anger and humiliation of being betrayed by the two people I trusted most still tears at my tenuous composure.

I shut my eyes and take a deep breath. Without another glance at Wisteria Boutique, I set off down the sidewalk. Grass grows in a fringe along the edges of the pavement, green like a springtime promise. The scent of a floral medley hangs sweet and heavy in the air, nature's delightful perfume.

I miss everything about my hometown: the neat little houses with their big glass doors and spacious backyards, the crooked street of small stores and restaurants I wander through, the thin cracks in the sidewalk through which dandelions have sprouted.

But I left my past behind for a reason. As much as there is beauty in it, there is also heartbreak.

I fled this town the day my life fell apart. I've been running ever since in the hopes of staying ahead of my memories. My parents and my sister visit me in my apartment out of state, the only overlap of my old life into my new one. Sure, my new place will never feel like home, but neither does my hometown. Not anymore.

Everything here reminds me of my joyful young days and, most importantly, of who I spent them with.

I pass the saloon where Lorraine and I had hot dogs every Saturday. We had carved our names onto one of the booths to claim it as ours, but we hadn't gone there in years, not since she betrayed me. I wonder if it's still there, a memorial to a friendship that has long withered.

'Ice-Cream Dreams' on the main street looks different from how I remember it. The sign outside the ice cream parlour has been reprinted in a brighter, more modern font. The windows are bigger, and old Joe from behind the counter has been replaced by a girl younger than I am. She scrolls on her phone while two teenagers sit with sundaes in front of them. Their hands rest on the table, edging towards each other, emboldened with every word they exchange.

Keanu and I were like that, once. The first time he took my hand, he led me to the park. We hiked the trail up to Starship Point, so named because of a man who claimed to have spotted a UFO from there a few years back. Keanu said he had seen it too. I called him a liar, and while I laughed at his denial, he had leaned in and kissed me.

I smile at the warm fuzziness of the memory. That hasn't changed, even though everything between me and Keanu is different now.

The shadows of our past selves run past me, and I let them take me into their world. Those were better times, peaceful without the painful knowledge of the future.