The Garden

by Amy Sparling

  I run my hand across the wood and then look up at Declan.

  “This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  He takes a step forward, his silky hair glistening in the sunlight, his eyes sparkling from the water in the fountain. “It’s the second most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he says softly.

  He’s close enough now that I can see the little dots of gold in his eyes.

  “What could be more beautiful than this?” I ask, my breath hitching when he reaches forward and touches my cheek.

  “You.”

  I try to smile, but I’m so nervous that it probably comes out looking weird. It doesn’t matter though, because one breath later, my smile is covered with Declan’s kiss. His lips are soft, but his arms are strong as they wrap around me.

  I relax against him, and kiss him back. And every bad thing that has happened up until now suddenly feels like it was all worth it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Despite overcoming her trip to the hospital, Belle doesn’t want to leave her mom’s house for the next few days. As much as I want her back so I can show her the garden, I’m also enjoying my secret meetings with Declan in the times we can get away. Every day after school, we bring our homework and some snacks to the garden and hang out like a real couple. We take different routes so no one sees us walking together. Declan brings his gardening tools and he teaches me how to prune and tend to the flowers that have overgrown from their planters. Together, we work hard every day, bringing the garden back to its original beauty. I never knew I’d like a hobby like gardening, but it turns out I love it.

  We still don’t know who made this garden, or why, but we figure it was probably one of Declan’s ancestors since the key has the same symbol as his necklace, which was passed down from his dad.

  This garden is our own paradise. After a week of diligent work, we’ve made it into something spectacular. Here, we can be friends. We can be more than friends. We can flirt, and laugh, and even kiss.

  And we definitely kiss.

  But it’s more than that. This garden is my favorite place in the world. And I can’t wait to bring Belle here.

  One day after school, Declan tells me he’ll be late to the garden because he’s going out to dinner with his family for his mom’s birthday. I use the time to walk to Aunt Kate’s apartment and visit Belle.

  “The garden is so beautiful,” I tell her as we share a banana split made from all four of the ice cream flavors in Aunt Kate’s freezer. “You’re going to love it so much.”

  “Are you sure it’s hidden?” Belle says. Her long brown hair is twisted into two French braids, and it looks really cute on her. I want to ask her to braid my hair soon.

  “It’s totally hidden,” I say, scooping a bite of chocolate ice cream. “Only Declan and I know about it.”

  “Wait a minute,” she says, pointing her spoon at me. “Why’d you say it like that?”

  “Say what?”

  Her eyes go wide. “You like Declan!”

  The blush in my cheeks tells her all she needs to know. Her jaw drops. “I can’t believe it! You fell for a Shelfbrooke boy!”

  “Shut up,” I whisper, hoping Aunt Kate doesn’t overhear. I don’t know why the thought of talking about boys with my aunt is embarrassing, but it is. “We’re just friends.”

  “Friends who kiss each other?” Belle asks, wiggling her eyebrows.

  I bite my lip. “Maybe.”

  “Oh. My. God!” Belle slides closer to me on the couch. “Tell me everything.”

  “I’ll tell you in the garden,” I say. “Whenever you want to go.”

  She pouts and then sits up straighter. “Okay. I need to do this. I want to do this.” She glances back at the kitchen, where her mom is washing dishes. “Maybe even tonight.”

  I clap my hands together. “Yay! You are going to love the garden. It’s amazing.”

  Belle’s grin is so genuine, I can’t even see the traces of anxiety that usually linger in her eyes. “I can’t wait.”

  After eating way too much ice cream, I walk back to Shelfbrooke and stop by the gardens. Declan will probably be back from his family dinner soon, so I’ll just wait in the beautiful evening weather until he gets to our secret meeting place.

  I can’t believe how much things have changed since I started at this school back in January. I’m a better person now. I’m not stuck on social media or the Malibu party life. I don’t have fake friends who don’t actually care about me. I’m doing well in school, and although no one talks to me during class, it doesn’t matter, because I have Declan and Belle, and they’re genuine friends.

  There are only two months until school ends, and then we’ll start on the next adventure. Declan and I haven’t talked about graduation yet. I don’t really want to. I’m afraid he’s going to stay here and I’m going to leave and we’ll never see each other again. But life is unpredictable, life is fun. And life can be changed. Whatever happens, I have to put my all into it and hope that it will work out.

  I’m lying on a blanket that I brought from my dorm when my phone rings. It’s my mom. She hasn’t reached out to me in weeks.

  “Hello?” I say, tilting my head up to the evening sun.

  “Good news,” she says. “You get to leave Shelfbrooke.”

  I sit up. “What?”

  “Your father and I are moving to Africa for the next two years. It’s for some charity thing we agreed to host. The benefits will be huge.”

  I know more than anyone that the charity work my parents do is usually some thinly veiled opportunity to get even richer while sending one or two percent of their funds to the actual charity. “What does that have to do with me?”

  “You’re coming along, dear. We’ll hire the best tutors for you.”

  “But I only have two months left here. It would be easier just to stay.”

  “I thought you hated that school!” Mom says in her typical haughty voice. “All you did was complain and complain and now you want to stay? What’s wrong with you, Sophia?”

  “I made friends. I like living with Belle. And I’m almost done anyway,” I say. “Pulling me out of school now is just stupid.”

  “What’s stupid would be turning down the opportunity to secure a wealthy man as a husband before you’re too old to be wanted anymore.”

  My jaw drops. “What are you smoking, Mom?”

  I’ll be eighteen in a week. It’s not like I’ve reached spinster age yet.

  “You won’t be young and beautiful forever, Sophia. There are many amazing families staying in Africa this summer and I want you to meet them all.”

  “So I’ll visit in the summer,” I say. “I’m not leaving school until I graduate.”

  “You need to go now, honey. You cannot pass up the opportunities to meet these worthy young men before they head off to college.”

  “Worthy. You mean rich? I don’t care about getting a rich boyfriend, Mom.”

  My mom laughs. “Oh, Sophia. You can be funny when you want to.”

  “It’s not a joke. And I’m not going to Africa.”

  I hang up the phone.

  Mom doesn’t call me back.

  I’m still fuming mad when the hidden door opens up a few minutes later. Declan enters into our secret hideaway dressed in dark jeans and a blue button up shirt. He looks good. He looks handsome.

  “Hey,” he says, smiling in that shy but adorable way he smiles when we see each other.

  I get up and walk over to him. “Thank you for being one of the three decent people in my life.”

  He quirks an eyebrow. “Um… you’re welcome?”

  I laugh and throw my arms around his neck. “Kiss me,” I say.

  He grins and pulls me close. “Yes ma’am.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Declan’s kisses are sweet. Full of meaning. Desire. They’re also a little timid, a little scared. Like we’re both teetering on the edge of something real, and we can feel it, but we know it won’t
last. He’s from the east coast, I’m from the west coast. It’s a classic tale of two lovers who just can’t be together.

  But maybe I don’t want that to be our ending. Maybe there’s more to life than accepting the inevitable.

  “Declan?” I pull away, my arms sliding down from his shoulders until my palms press against this chest.

  He reaches up and grabs my wrist, his gaze a little hazy from kissing. “Yes?”

  “Can we talk a minute?”

  “Of course.” He answers too quickly. He doesn’t fully understand what I’m asking.

  I shake my head and take a step back. Take a deep breath. “I want to talk to you, like for real. Not just fun easy stuff. I want to tell you the total crap going on in my life right now.”

  “Okay…” he says, his head tilting to the side. “You can just tell me anything, Sophia. You don’t have to ask first, or like, warn me or whatever.”

  “It’s kind of a big deal, though. I don’t normally share my feelings, and all that stuff.”

  Declan smiles, this cute grin that makes my knees weak. “I guess I believe that. You are a little stone cold sometimes.”

  “Yeah. I have to be. It’s how I was raised. And well… you’re not just some trust fund kid at a party that I’ll never see again.”

  “I’m not a trust fund kid at all,” he says.

  “No, you’re not. You’re real. You’re kind. I like you, Declan.”

  “I like you, too.”

  I grin. And then all the problems in my life come slamming back into my subconscious, only momentarily blotted out by Declan’s adorable smile. I can’t get rid of them forever. My problems are too big for that.

  I heave a sigh and sit on the bench, patting the place next to me for Declan to sit. “My mom called. She wants to pull me from school.”

  “This close to graduating?” he says, sounding incredulous. Like he thinks that maybe I’m playing a stupid joke on him.

  “Yep,” I say, my voice dry of any emotion. “She and my dad are moving to Africa for a while and she wants me there, too. I told her I’m not going, but… my mom always gets her way.”

  “Wow… that’s… that’s not good.”

  “I know.” I reach over and put my hand on top of his. “I don’t want to leave Shelfbrooke. Well… maybe I can leave Shelfbrooke,” I say with a chuckle. “But I don’t want to leave you. Or Belle. Or even my Aunt Kate. I like it here. I like being around you guys. And even if I go with my parents for a year or two, how will I find you again? You and Belle will have moved on to college and have all new lives.”

  “You would have a new life too,” he says, staring at the ground. “I guess we just weren’t meant to be.”

  “No… don’t say that.”

  “It’s true, though.”

  My fingers close over his. My teeth dig into my bottom lip. “I hate this. I don’t want to go.”

  “When are you leaving?”

  “I don’t know. I hung up on her.”

  “Well, let’s make the most of the time we do have,” he says softly. His fingertips are rough, calloused from hours spent tending to this very garden, but I love the feel of them on my cheek. He tips my head up until my eyes lock on his, and then he presses his lips to my forehead.

  “Come here.”

  I slide over closer to him, and he wraps his arms around me. I fit so perfectly against his chest, and it’s hard to imagine my life going on without having Declan next to me. I hate my parents for doing this to me. I shouldn’t be hauled around to wherever they want me to go, looking pretty like their perfect daughter. I am far from perfect. I arrived here as a spoiled brat who took everything for granted. Now the only thing I care about is right here at this stupid school.

  And I’ll have to leave it.

  We sit like this for a long time. Until the sun dips below the garden walls and blankets the sky in shades of gold and amber. Then my phone rings.

  I reach for it, seeing Belle’s number on the screen.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m ready to come home.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yeah. Is that okay with you?”

  “Of course,” I say, turning to look at Declan. He smiles at me. I smile back. “How are we going to do this?”

  “I’m thinking midnight. Mom will take me to the garden’s gate entrance across from her apartment. You meet me there, and we’ll slip into the gardens again.”

  “That sounds great. I’ll meet you at midnight.”

  “Sophia?” Belle asks just before we hang up. “Do you think you could take me to your hidden garden too?”

  “You want to see the garden tonight?” I say, glancing up at Declan. I look around at the beauty that surrounds us. “I don’t think it’ll be as breathtaking if it’s at night. It’ll be too dark.”

  “I just… I’m afraid I’ll get back to my dorm and be too scared to leave it again.”

  “Then we’ll go tonight,” I say.

  I can hear Belle’s smile through her voice. “You’re the best.”

  “That was my cousin,” I say to Declan after getting off the phone.

  “I figured,” he says. “Is she coming back home tonight?”

  I nod.

  “And she wants to see this garden?”

  I nod again. “I promised I would take her one day but going at night just doesn’t seem worth it.”

  “I’m sure it’ll still be great.” Declan looks up at the sky. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and it’ll be a full moon. It’ll light up the area better.”

  “Maybe I’ll just bring a flashlight? I don’t think the light would get through these thick walls.”

  Declan considers this for a moment. “True.”

  He stands and reaches for my hand. “Let’s get you home.”

  “What? Why! It’s only eight,” I protest, sticking out my tongue.

  “Yeah, but you should get a little sleep before your midnight excursion.”

  That reminds me of the last time I was out here in the middle of the night. “Declan?” I say as we walk back out of the hidden door, locking it behind us. He hands me the key. “What were you doing out here that time I was taking Belle to her mom’s and I saw you in the middle of the night?”

  He shrugs. “The gardens are my favorite place. I come out here a lot.”

  “But in the middle of the night?”

  He squints at a rose bush and then kneels down and plucks off a few bad leaves. Then he shrugs again. “Sometimes I can’t sleep. I come out here and think about girls.”

  “Girls,” I say, feeling my chest tighten.

  His arm slides around my back. “Well… if I’m being honest, it was one girl.”

  “One girl?”

  He grins and squeezes me close. “The only girl that matters.”

  Aunt Kate stares intently at me as she and my cousin quickly cross over the street and meet me at the garden gate. Her brow is furrowed and little worry lines crease her face. Belle is carrying two backpacks full of the stuff I had brought her from our dorm while she was staying at her mom’s house. Now it’s time to bring it all back to Shelfbrooke.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask because my aunt looks like she’s about to crumble into little pieces of anxiety.

  “Nothing, nothing,” she says, plastering on a fake smile. “Belle, honey, are you okay?”

  “Yes, Mom,” Belle says, and it’s too dark to see her eyes but I’ll bet she rolls them. “I feel okay. My pulse is fine and my breathing is fine. I’m okay.”

  Aunt Kate squeezes her into a tight hug and then releases her to me. I stand here, holding open the gate, because I’m pretty sure it’s one of those fancy security gates that lock once you step out of them and keeps all the people on the non-campus side of the garden out.

  “Be careful,” Aunt Kate says, waving at us as we retreat into the garden.

  The gate clicks closed, and Belle walks quickly away. “My mom can be so annoying,” she says after we’re out of earshot.
“She treats me like a baby.”

  “She’s just looking out for you,” I say, leading the way through the mostly dark garden paths. “Sometimes I don’t know how your mom and my mom are sisters. They are so completely different.”

  “Your mom is glamorous, and mine is plain,” Belle says.

  We turn a corner and cut through a little section of daisies that I’ve recently discovered is a short cut. “Your mom is nice, and my mom is also a huge B.”

  “Oh no. What happened?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it right now. This is a good night because you’re out and you don’t have anxiety and things are good. Let’s not ruin that with talk of my mother.”

  “Wow, it must be really bad,” Belle says.

  “You have no idea,” I mutter under my breath.

  “New subject.” Belle’s voice is chirpy and I know who she’s about to mention before she says it. “Anything new with Declan?”

  I draw in a breath. “Yep.”

  “Ooh! Yay!” Belle skips ahead of me a few steps, then turns around, walking backward, her eyes radiant under the moonlight. “Tell me!”

  “I will in a minute,” I say, feeling ten kinds of embarrassed. But I don’t know why I feel that way, because liking Declan isn’t embarrassing. It’s the greatest thing ever. I guess it just feels weird talking about a boy I like, who likes me back, who isn’t some jerk deep down. I’m not used to it.

  Belle groans. “Why in a minute? Why not now?”

  “Because,” I say, running my hand along the vine-covered wall. “We’re here.”

  Belle stands in reverent silence as I retrieve the key from the pocket of my hoody. I put it in the lock and twist, then just before I open the door, I turn to my cousin. “I just have to warn you, this won’t be as beautiful as it is in the daytime…”

  “That’s okay,” she says, bouncing on her toes. “I want to see the magic garden.”

  “It’s not magic,” I say with a laugh. “It’s just beautiful and secret.”