Page 51

I looked at him. There was no impatience in his face. No curiosity pushing me forward. He would sit there until Bryce came hunting for his keys if that was what I needed.

Somehow, that made it easier. I didn't deserve him, but that was a worry for another day.

I slid my fingers beneath the cover.

The spine cracked when I opened it.

Something dry whispered between the pages.

Flowers.

They had been pressed between pages forty and forty-one so long ago that they'd become almost part of the paper. A trillium lay flattened against one page, its petals browned at the edges. Beside it was a tiny blue flower I couldn't name, and below that, a slender stem hung with nine little bells that had faded to the color of weak tea.

I stared at them.

My mother had put these here.

I didn't know how I knew.

I simply did.

Carefully, I turned the page.

Then another.

Four pages later, I stopped.

"River."

He was already leaning closer.

The flower pressed there should have looked like the others.

It didn't.

It was white.

Not yellowed. Not gray. Not the brittle cream of something that had once been white and surrendered to time.

White.

Twenty-four years trapped inside a closed book, and the petals still held the impossible purity of fresh snow. For a moment I thought the kitchen light was playing tricks on me.

Then I tilted the book.

The petals moved.

Barely.

Just a tiny shift across the page.

I froze.

Slowly, impossibly, the flower turned toward me.

Not much. Only enough to remind me of a houseplant bending toward a window, searching for light.

Except there was no light coming from me.