Last I heard, he was rotting in the state prison.
What surprised me most about the Ridge, though, was that the field was covered in small white puffs. Dandelions. Stretching on and on like a fresh powdering of new snow. It was beautiful, struck against the contrast of the clear blue sky. I could lie down in it and be buried beneath the blooms, totally submerged, and sleep there.
They were weeds—technically wildflowers, I guessed, but not the kind I was looking for.
I let out a long breath. “Well, shit.”
Ben stood beside me, looking out onto the field. “Lots of wishes there.”
“What?”
“You know, wishes,” he replied, motioning to the field. “Didn’t you ever blow on dandelion tufts?”
“Of course I did,” I replied defensively. “It’s just dandelions are useless to me right now. They’re not what I need.”
“No, but . . . do you think we could stay a little longer?” he asked, and motioned for me to follow him into the field. In the sunlight, he looked a little more washed out than he did in the shade, a little more ghostly, sparkling like he was made of the twinkle lights I strung up in my dorm in college. The dandelions bent softly in the breeze through his ankles, and I wanted to walk with him.
“Just a little,” I agreed.
He waited for me to catch up, his hands in his pockets, patient and tall as always. “Imagine how many wishes you could get out of these. At least one is bound to come true.”
Ben never stopped fascinating me. “You believe in dandelion wishes?”
“Statistically, one is bound to come true with all of these dandelions, so yes.”
“And if you only made one wish? On all of them?”
He tilted his head, actually debating the question. Finally he decided, “It depends on the wish.”
What kind of wish would that be?
I plucked a dandelion and twirled it around between my fingers. “Then set the scene,” I began. “What would a refined dead editor wish for? He’s walking with his chaotic author. It’s midmorning—well, probably afternoon now—and there are hundreds of thousands of dandelions to wish on. What would he wish for?”
The edge of his lips twitched. Then he bent down close to me, and my skin prickled at his nearness, and he said in a soft rumble, “If he tells her, then it won’t come true.”
My breath caught in my throat. “She won’t finish her manuscript on time.”
“He wouldn’t wish for that. He knows she’s perfectly capable of it on her own. She just needs a little more faith in herself.” His ears started turning pink. “Because even though she can’t see how talented she is, he knows she’ll figure it out someday.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“Maybe that’s what he wishes for. That she does.”
I quickly looked away, my cheeks burning in a blush. “That’s a terrible wish,” I forced out. “Wasted potential—my editor would circle that and tell me to recast.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Fine, then what would the author wish for?”
“World peace,” I replied smartly because I couldn’t bear to tell him the truth.
That I’d wish that this moment in the field would last forever. That we never had to leave, that we could freeze time and live in this moment where the sun was high and warm and the sky was a crystalline blue and my heart beat bright in my chest and he was here.
I wanted a moment that never ended.
This moment.