Page 10 of Dead Love

But Nyla didn’t drink.

“I’ll call,” she said, right as the next customer walked in, “after I finish with her.”

My stomach buzzed while I waited, and I swear I stripped the same rose six times before I realized it. I moved onto the next stem, staring into space, imagining Nyla dancing in a flashy nightclub. The phone rang, startling me out of my thoughts. I answered it; another vase of white roses for the funeral home. I added the order to the correct day, then went back to stripping roses.

A drop trickled down my finger, like a bead of sweat. Blood. In the storeroom, I put on a bandage, and when I returned, my mother picked up the phone and smiled at me, then began dialing Nyla. Her eyes shifted to the figure eclipsing the sun; my father’s tall frame, in full police uniform, filled the window. He bowed his head. He never came to the shop while he was on duty.

I knew, then.Nyla.

The world went white, a ringing pulsing in my ears. My calves throbbed with dull pain and my stomach dropped to my ankles. My face was hot; the air vacuumed from the store. My mother spoke and my father rubbed my back. But I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t stop myself from feeling.

She had more promise than anyone I knew. It should have beenme.

Why Nyla?

I ran to the back patio and retched my guts onto the cement, the orange juice sour and burning my throat. I wiped the back of my clammy wrist on my forehead, then leaned against the building, slumping down to the ground. The sweet scent from the lot next door, full of wildflowers, blew toward me, but my stomach flipped even more. I covered my nose. Nyla and I had planted those seeds for the lot. And now she was gone, leaving the flowers in her place.

No.I couldn’t think about it.

I swallowed it down: all of those emotions, all of those thoughts. Pain wasn’t useful. It consumed you, making it so that you couldn’t be present. And if Nyla was gone, there was nothing I could do now. This was why no one could dwell on the future; anything could be ripped away from you in an instant. That’s why the present moment mattered, more than anything.

The door to the back patio swung open.

“Kora?” Shea asked. “We can close shop for the day, or I can call one of the seasonal workers. Let’s go home, sweetheart.”

My breath caught in my chest. “No,” I whispered.

“Kora, I think you should—”

“I said, ‘no,’ Mom.”

Shea’s eyes softened. I rarely ever told her ‘no.’ But now, I couldn’t deal with my mother’s smothering need for control.

“Nyla never did drugs,” I said confidently. “Never. Not even weed. She waited until she was twenty-one to have her first alcoholic drink, and she didn’t have any after that.”

My mother laughed politely. “Oh, sweetheart, almost every kid at leasttriesalcohol before they’re of age. Maybe she—”

“Not Nyla,” I interrupted. “Sowhywould she do Echo? After everything Andrew told us?”

Shea’s brows drew together. “Maybe she was drugged.”

That’s what I was afraid of. “We need to tell Dad, then.”

“I’m sure your father already knows, sweetheart. This is his profession, after all.” She stroked my arm. “You need to rest. We can go home; I’ll make you some tea. And we’ll watch old movies…”

I zoned out, not listening to what she was saying. I needed to talk about something else right now. To get my mind off of it. Before I sunk underneath these consuming thoughts.

“Does Vincent still need the Middlemist Red camellia?” I asked.

Her head flinched backward slightly. “From Quiet Meadows? I don’t remember mentioning Mr. Erickson’s name.”

It was for a funeral; I knew that much. And even if she hadn’t explicitly mentioned his name, I knew from eavesdropping on the hushed conversations of our customers, that Vincent Erickson was from the Quiet Meadows Funeral Home.

“If you want any chance of finding it, you’ll have to go to the flower field on Mount Punica,” I said. “The one by Wild Berry Trailhead. I want to come too.”

“You’d be better off sitting out for this one. I can have one of the seasonal workers come in and watch you, and then—”

My eyes burned. The only way I could ever leave Poppies & Wheat was by inserting myself into my mother’s errands.