17. Lily

17

LILY

L ily sat on the floor of the toy store after closing the next night, tying pretty satin bows around the necks of dozens of cute stuffed animals in preparation for the big hospital visit. A fragrant pine jar candle burned on the counter as soft Christmas music played on the radio. The street outside was dark, but she could see snow flurries shimmering under the streetlamps.

This should have been one of the happiest moments of her life—the culmination of years of dreaming about giving back to the children’s wing in the way that so many kind souls had brightened her day when she was there. But instead, her heart was heavy, and it was hard to tie the ribbons with the tears that kept filling her eyes.

All these years she had thought Levi was keeping her embarrassing secret and still cared for her in spite of it. But he’d had everything backwards the whole time and thought she was there at the library helping someone else .

These last few weeks she had begun to think that he might actually love her one day, in spite of him being so brilliant, and her having struggled just to get through school.

But really he’d thought… she didn’t know what—that she was smart enough to teach someone else? She had never had the kind of grades or success in school to lead someone to believe she could be a reading tutor. Why had he thought that?

She knew there was a good reason for her trouble. She’d had an especially difficult time because she’d missed out on most of kindergarten and first grade, when everyone else was picking up and honing their reading skills. But it was still hard not to internalize her failures and feel dumb a lot of the time.

The school had chosen not to hold her back when her last surgery was finished and she was ready to return. When she started second grade, she struggled, but her teacher was kind to her and never asked to speak to her parents. It was like Mrs. Edmonds didn’t want to be the one to hurt the feelings of the little girl who had survived so much.

And Lily hadn’t wanted to confide in her parents either. They were so relieved that she was okay, and so busy juggling their jobs, that it didn’t feel right to tell them she needed even more help.

Besides, she could normally figure things out through context. And as she moved through elementary school, she found that teachers often read aloud in class, or had the class read aloud. Lily would just pretend to be too shy when it was her turn, and they would move along to the next student without pushing her. No one wanted to stress out the little girl with the healing heart.

She managed to get through elementary school, memorizing as many words as she could and guessing on the ones she didn’t recognize.

But by middle school it was getting harder and harder. When the homeroom teacher put up a flyer in her classroom for the older kids, asking them to volunteer to help people learn to read at the library in town, Lily finally decided to go and ask for help on her own.

She could walk to the library herself, and the program was free, so she just told her parents she was joining a book club.

To her great relief, the sessions were held in the basement, so no one ever saw her there. And predictably, none of the kids from school volunteered to help. Most of the tutors in the program were retirees from the town.

But not Mr. Gustafsson. He still worked, and hard. He ran a dairy farm and was up early each morning to care for his animals.

The afternoon when they first met, he told Lily that he tutored because of his father. Mr. Gustafsson’s parents had come to Pennsylvania from Sweden before he was born. Their farm thrived, but they struggled with their new language, especially reading and writing it. Another farmer in Trinity Falls began quietly stopping by in the evenings to tutor them—a man who refused to be paid a dime for his efforts.

Mr. Gustafsson’s father had encouraged him to pay it forward if he ever had the chance, and he said he was very glad to do so now.

Lily never got up the nerve to ask Mr. Gustafsson how many people he had helped learn to read in that library basement over the years, but she sensed it was a lot. After six months of his gentle instruction, she could read aloud to him and handle most of her classwork without too much difficulty. To her, it felt like a miracle.

And once she got that boost of skill and confidence, she was able to improve a lot more just by practicing on her own. These days, she even liked reading for pleasure—probably only because Sarah hand-picked the very best new romances and cozy mysteries for her—but it still gave her moments of real pride.

In her heart of hearts, though, she still felt like the same ignorant little girl she had once been, staring at the words on the page, her heart hammering as she prayed for the teacher to say something that would help her guess what they meant, because she couldn’t do what the other children did so easily.

Her phone buzzed again, rousing her from the memories.

Levi had been calling her all day, leaving messages and texting too, though she hadn’t looked at any of them.

She was pretty sure he was trying to be honorable by telling her she had nothing to be ashamed of, and that he cared for her no matter what.

But the truth was that the whole time they had been hanging out, she had known he was out of her league. Maybe it was better that this had happened when it did, before things got so serious that it hurt even more when he inevitably looked past her pretty face and saw her for who she was .

She wasn’t going to abandon him. She’d sent him one quick text to let him know that she could still take Flora whenever he needed her to. But she just wasn’t ready to talk to Levi about anything.

There was a tap at the door and she glanced up, her heart leaping into her mouth at the idea that it might be him.

But it was Sloane Greenfield’s face in the window instead. Lily waved her in, even though the last thing she wanted right now was company.

“I got coffee for us late-nighters right before Mal closed up,” Sloane said happily as she entered, but her face fell as soon as she saw Lily.

“Thanks, Sloane,” Lily said as brightly as she could, wiping the tears off her cheeks with her sleeve, where they darkened the pink fabric to an almost red.

“Hey, what happened?” Sloane asked, lowering herself to the floor beside Lily and placing the coffees between them.

“It’s nothing,” Lily said, grabbing a ribbon and tying it around a teddy bear’s neck so she wouldn’t have to meet her friend’s eyes.

Sloane nodded and grabbed a ribbon and a bunny, getting to work without saying a word.

They worked in silence for a few minutes and Lily felt herself relax a little. It was actually kind of good to have company after all, even if she wasn’t really ready to talk about things. At least it kept her out of her own head a little.

“You’re a wonderful person,” Sloane said softly. “You know that right?”

“Thanks, Sloane,” Lily said, giving her the best smile she could manage. “You’re not so bad yourself, you know?”

“If he doesn’t appreciate you, it’s his loss,” Sloane said. “And that’s all I’m going to say.”

Of course Sloane had guessed correctly that it must be about Levi. Lily nodded, acknowledging the age-old phrase female friends always said to each other when one was at the end of a relationship: It’s his loss.

The trouble was, Lily knew it wasn’t true. Levi was smart, handsome, and kind, and he had a wonderful sense of humor. She had never met anyone like him. She was the one feeling a profound sense of loss tonight.

“It’s so good that I have this project to focus on,” Lily said, looking at the sea of adorable stuffed animals in front of them. “And a friend to help out.”

Sloane smiled at her, and Lily felt just a little better, even though she couldn’t help noticing that her phone had finally stopped buzzing.

That was probably for the best.