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Hart lay on his stomach and Rose on her side, on a blanket, in the garden. The afternoon sun filtered through the clouds, and Rose’s favorite way to soak it up was through Hart’s skin. Her fingertips grazed his arm, feeling smooth, taut warmth. They’d just come from the Abundance Garden, where Hart had snipped a bouquet of zinnias. Rose remembered when they were just seedlings in the greenhouse, and now, fully grown, they might have been the most magical flowers she’d ever seen. Minty-green fluff balls the size and color of Granny Smith apples, packed with enough petals for an endless game of He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not. Not that she would dream of plucking them. But even the zinnias weren’t enough to shift Rose’s darkening mood.

Dread swirled inside her like venom, poisoning every good feeling and thought. Fall, an aptly named season, was around the corner, and a harbinger of things to come. Rose kept her hand on Hart’s arm less for the simple pleasure of it than for fear of letting him go.

And just as surely as she could feel the sun on his skin, he could feel that something weighed on her mind. He opened his eyes. Half his face was smooshed against the ground, but he locked gazes with Rose. “What’s wrong?”

The blanket swallowed up her shrug. Nothing was actually wrong. She was just prone to overthinking and overanalyzing, even when there was nothing better than this simple moment, on a blanket, in the garden. But Rose’s mind raced with questions. “What happens now?”

“What do you mean?”

School started tomorrow, but Rose couldn’t help jumping ahead, wondering what came afterward. She closed her eyes to Hart, to the sun. “We’re seniors. We have a year together, at most.” What she thought, but didn’t say out loud, was that these things—high school love—always had an expiration date. The start of senior year didn’t feel like a start. It felt like a countdown to the end. “Do you ever think about the future?”

She felt a stirring beside her, Hart propping himself on his elbow. And then she felt the lightest graze on her side. Rose opened her eyes to find Hart skimming a zinnia over her hip. “Do you know why I like flowers so much?”

“Because they’re pretty,” Rose mumbled.

“That, and because they only last a short while.”

Rose frowned. “That’s a terrible reason to like something.”

“But think about it,” Hart said. “The most beautiful things in life—flowers, the seasons, music, snowflakes —they come and go. They begin and end. I love when all the trees turn orange and red in the fall because I know they’ll only look like that for a few weeks, so I try to soak it all in. When you have to soak something in, it’s because you really love it. And because it’ll be gone soon.”

Rose picked up one of the zinnias lying between them, brushing her fingertips along the petals. Hart had spent so much time and effort growing them. Now that they were cut, they’d only last a few days. A week max in a vase. But Rose thought she could understand what Hart was getting at. Even if these flowers only lived for a short time, they were still worthwhile. In the grand scheme of things, these zinnias would be gone in the blink of an eye, but it was enough time to have and hold them. To bear witness to their wonder. Of course they were worth it.

Still, the dread only bloomed in Rose’s chest, spreading, reaching. “Is this your way of gently telling me we have an expiration date?”

Hart laughed, his head dipping low enough for his overgrown hair to tickle Rose’s cheek. “Well, nothing good lasts forever,” he said. “Except us.”

He was obviously only saying things to lift her spirits. Still, she took the bait. She’d hold on to anything he said right now, even if it was only a lie. “Really?”

Hart nodded. “I can tell you exactly how our future’s gonna go.”

“I’m listening,” Rose said.

“Senior year, graduation, then you’ll go to school in New York, and wouldn’t you know it, but that’s just where I’ve always dreamed of going to college, too. I’ll study who-really-cares-what, but you —you’ll ace all your art classes and wow all your professors and you’ll make a ton of connections. It won’t be easy, though. You’ll take your portfolio to all the galleries, but they’re not gonna want to take a chance on you ’cause they’re pretentious art-world snobs.”

“This is very bleak.”

“No, it’s fine because we’ll get side gigs and we’ll support each other. Then one day, a gallery will finally take a chance on you. And guess what? You’re gonna sell out your first solo show. You’ll be a sensation. Reviewed in all the important newspapers. You’ll be on top of the world professionally, but it’ll be nothing compared to your personal life.”

Despite the dread, Hart’s story drew a smirk out of Rose, and she let herself believe it, let herself indulge in it. “Oh yeah?”

“Yep,” Hart said. “Because you’ll be with me.”

“You’re sticking around?” Rose asked. “Despite the fact that I’ll be a pretentious art-world snob?”

Hart’s jaw fell. “You’re one of them?”

“Yes, definitely,” Rose said.

“You don’t have to become an art-world snob, you know.”

“Let me have this.”

Hart chuckled. “Okay, you become an art-world snob. You refuse to sell a painting for less than ten thousand dollars—”

“Fifty thousand dollars.”

“Fifty thousand dollars,” Hart amended. “And yes, obviously I will stick around. We’ll live together, get married…” He paused, tucking the hair behind her ear. “The whole thing.”

As he said these things, Rose scoffed, but only in a poor attempt to hide how warm her cheeks were getting. Hart could be such a cornball. She covered her face with her hands so her next words were muffled. “You’re such a cornball.” But the truth was, his lie had worked, it made her feel better. And now she wished it were true, and that she could skip ahead and live in that world he created.

Hart gently pried her hands away from her face, and though her cheeks were still flushed, Rose did not turn away from him now. Hart could be so earnest. He wore his heart on his sleeve. Raw, beating, exposed. Not the least bit worried what harm might come to it. It was one of the things that made the two of them so different, and one of the things that made them work. Rose, the jaded New Yorker who didn’t allow herself to hope or dream too big. And Hart, the dreamer. An optimist. For just this moment Rose let his optimism rub off on her. She leaned up to kiss him, red-faced and with every last bit of dread seeping out of her.

“In every version of my future,” Hart said, “you’re in it.”