The Enchanted Greenhouse(77)
Or maybe she was overthinking things. In time, they’d get to know one another, and then they’d either like each other or they wouldn’t. That didn’t mean they couldn’t kiss right now. Surely, she possessed enough emotional maturity to separate work from whatever happened or didn’t happen between them, especially vital work such as preserving the greenhouses. “Sorry,” she said. “I overthink things.”
Yarrow shook his head. “I’ve never known anyone like you.”
Terlu wasn’t certain if that was a compliment or a criticism or just an observation. She forced herself to smile. “Well, to start with, I’m not a plant.”
“You aren’t,” he said gravely.
She’d meant it as a joke. “Let’s … try again.”
Focusing on her notes, Terlu picked out the next spell to try. It was far easier to study the words than to try to read his face right now. She wished she could try again on the conversation. I should have just kissed him. She hadn’t meant to complicate everything, but if she grew to care about him （and his honey cakes and honey rolls and honeyed kisses） while he only liked her for her proximity … She didn’t want that kind of heartbreak. It would be better to stay friends, if that was even what they were.
Quietly, he asked, “Who hurt you?”
She froze and looked at him. “I didn’t say…” Closing her mouth, she swallowed. She didn’t know how to answer that. It wasn’t as if she’d had a grand heartbreak. She had no real trauma to explain why she was the way she was. It was more just years’ worth of little cracks in her heart, like in the glass panes of the failed greenhouses. Her family loved her, but she never really found her place with them on Eano. And the library … She never truly fit there either. She drifted through life, wanting and reaching but never having, always feeling just a little lost and just a little empty and just a little lonely. “I’m just too sensitive.”
Yarrow grunted. “I don’t know what that means.”
“I’m hurt when I shouldn’t be.”
“If you’re hurt, you’re hurt. It doesn’t matter if anyone else thinks you don’t have a good enough reason. Pain doesn’t require approval.”
She opened and closed her mouth. No one had ever said that to her before. She turned the words over in her head and decided that it was easy to say that, but he hadn’t been there when she burst into tears after a library patron had told her that she’d brought him the wrong book. The patron had questioned her credentials, and she’d cared too much what he thought. Or the time she’d worn silk scarves with a brightly colored dress to what she’d thought was a romantic dinner, and her date had only wanted access to a spellbook on the shelves to help her cheat on a university exam. Little nothing moments that she should have been able to forget but instead they lingered with her. “I always want everyone to like me.”
“I—”
She wanted him to say “I like you.” Or anything reassuring. Perhaps he liked that she didn’t snore at night or he liked that she always hung her towel so it would dry or that she had woken the plants or that she didn’t whistle in an annoying fashion. But he didn’t get the chance to say whatever he was going to say.
Several plants barreled through the door, with Lotti in the lead, bounding ahead on her roots and leaves. “There are people on the island!” the rose announced.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
People? Who— Before Terlu could ask out loud, Yarrow charged through the greenhouse. She glanced at the plants. Lotti held up her leaves, toddler-like, and Terlu scooped her up as she hurried after Yarrow.
“Where?” she asked as she huffed. Being a librarian had involved a lot less running than being a gardener/pretend-sorcerer did.
Lotti clung to the fabric of her skirt. “Dock.”
“A boat?”
“Yes. You’re bouncing a lot.”
Glancing back, Terlu saw that the other plants were trailing after them in a ribbon of green on the white snow. She wondered if it was wise to bring the talking plants to meet the new arrivals. Granted, they’d been created years ago by a legitimate sorcerer, and there was no need for anyone to know she’d woken them recently, but that was no guarantee that the newcomers wouldn’t leap to conclusions and cause complications that they didn’t want or have time for. “Who are the arrivals?” Terlu asked. “What do they want?”
“I don’t know,” Lotti said. “We came to get you as soon as Dendy spotted all the passengers ready to come off the boat as soon as it docks.”
Slowing, Terlu waited for Dendy to catch up. “Want to climb on?”
The philodendron climbed up her leg and wrapped himself around her waist.
“Me too!” Risa demanded.
Terlu stayed stationary while several more plants climbed onto her. A few of the smaller plants stuffed their root balls into her coat pockets. Once they’d all wrapped themselves around her or found other ways to hold on （the orchid clung to her boot laces, the thistle burrowed its prickles into the fabric of her coat sleeve, and the daisy climbed onto Terlu’s curls like a living fascinator）， Terlu hurried after Yarrow again. She’d lost sight of him through the pine trees, but it didn’t matter because she knew where he was headed.