Renata Santos doesn't expect her heart to flutter when she catches a boy stealing flowers out of her backyard. But as she unravels his reputation, she realizes puppy-eyed delinquent Isaac Marshall may just be the sunshine she needs to turn her life...
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F O X G L O V E
[digitalis purpurea] ➳ insincerity.
THE SHELTER ONLY TRAINED volunteers on weekends and I was still a few sessions shy of being a fully-fledged dog-walker, so I found myself at the greenhouse with Jackie twice the following week.
I decided to be upfront with her about my schedule, though not without exaggerating my commitment to the shelter to get her off my case.
"Um, I guess if your therapist says so, there's nothing I can do." She pouted, tucking her red hair behind her ear. "So plants aren't even a little therapeutic for you anymore? That's so sad, Ren. All this time, your garden hasn't even been helping you."
"No, it's not like that," I said quickly. "Keeping a garden is helping me. But she thinks I shouldn't over-garden. Just in case it becomes a crutch, or stops being useful altogether."
The truth was that we'd never bothered with counselling services after we moved. My parents and I had spent two weeks in therapy in our hometown, but once we relocated to Newberry, we'd silently agreed just to bottle it up.
Still, Jackie nodded reluctantly, and smiled with her hand on my shoulder. "Well, the most important thing for you is feeling better. So I hope this dog thing works out."
"Thanks," I said. She sighed and whirled away, pushing a steel cart full of gardening supplies through the main aisle of the greenhouse.
Jackie had somehow roped twenty-something elderly women into the program, all from the same nursing home. Half of them were wheelchair-bound, and I spent most of my time here pushing them around wooden benches to wherever Jackie wanted to do her next demonstration.
So far, she'd allowed them each to pick a tiny flower pot of their own and carefully water the plant within. It was cute, but I was getting restless.
I pretended to look deep in thought as I rifled through a box full of seed packets, my phone tucked beneath my sweater's edge and my thumb hitting the only name in the I section of my contacts list.
Isaac and I had stopped talking about flowers ever since I bought him one last week, but we had started talking. I bit down a smile as I scrolled through our last conversation. I had learned his favourite ice cream flavour: butterscotch ripple.
Hey, I typed. Are you at school yet?
Nope, came his almost immediate response. Can I pick you up at the greenhouse?
My smile widened, and I stole a glance to where Jackie was busy helping a woman near the shelves. Only if you stay out of Merritt's sight.
Somehow, our shared intense and inexplicable disdain for all-things-Merritt had become an inside joke. I put my phone away when Jackie pranced over to me.
