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edge of the lawn were actually
     the most heartbreakingly delicate heal-all, each pinprick of a flower like a universe of its own.
    And now even as an adult who lived every day among flowers, she still felt humbled to think that a wildflower could coax the
     most iridescent purples or fierce magentas from the most inhospitable soils. She wanted her own life to be like that, to grow
     something worthy from hardship and strife.
    Somewhere a mockingbird was singing in the darkness. The phone dangled heavy in her hand. She stood and sank her bare toes
     into the damp grass of the lawn, and above, the sky was peppered with stars.
    Calling Eli was practically instinctive. He calmed her. He made things right. She put the phone to her ear and listened to
     the static breath between rings.
    Ever since he’d returned from his trip, things had been different between them, so different that she worried she’d done something
     wrong. Instead of spending his every waking minute with her when he returned, she was lucky if she saw him a couple of times
     a week. And when she did see him, she was nervous around him, her whole body on edge.
    When at last his voice came over the line she knew he’d been sleeping.
    “I woke you,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
    “Is everything okay?”
    “I just haven’t talked to you in a couple days. I wanted to say hi.”
    “Hold on.”
    Lana waited. There was some shuffling, the sound of Eli muttering to himself. She guessed he was fumbling for his glasses.
     Maybe he’d fallen asleep leaning over his books or watching a documentary. She could picture him, the way he looked when he
     woke up, his adorable grogginess, his rich brown hair spiked on one side, flat on the other. He had the most charming freckle
     just under the lower lid of his left eye, which he rubbed when he was tired.
    At last he came back on the line. “So what’s going on?”
    “What’s going on with you?”
    His voice was low and raspy with sleep. “I dreamed that I was giving a lecture about the constellations, except I’d forgotten
     their names.”
    “Stargazing even in your dreams.”
    “Always.” He paused. She felt the luxurious comfort of silence between them, thick as the hiss of static over the phone. “You
     can’t sleep?”
    “I went to bed too early.”
    “A nightmare?”
    “No.”
    “Is it… did something happen with Ron?”
    Lana took a deep breath of the cool, crisp air and lifted her face to the sky. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”
    Eli was quiet for a long, long time. She spun slowly in place in the cold grass, and the sky pivoted in a circle, twirling
     on the point of a single star.
    When he spoke again his words were flat. “Are you in love with him?”
    She thought about the question, but not for long. Passion was like a flower that bloomed for one night a year—exquisite, poignant,
     and tragically brief. She gave herself completely to passion when she was lucky enough to find it. But she didn’t delude herself
     into thinking it would last. Not like her mother had. Only a week after meeting Lana’s father, Ellen had been so head over
     heels in love that she’d had a shepherd’s staff tattooed on her shoulder blade—as if she was endlessly sure that the name
     Calvert not only meant “shepherd,” but meant it specifically in relation to
her
.
    How wrong she’d been.
    “No,” she said. “I don’t love him.” She wasn’t sure, but she thought she sensed relief on the other end of the phone. “Does
     that surprise you?”
    “No. But I won’t say I’m not glad.”
    Lana stopped spinning, trying not to read too much into his words. The last thing she needed was to invent subtext where there
     was none. This was Eli she was talking to. What-you-see-is-what-you-get Eli. What she loved about his friendship was that
     it was predictable—even routine. She always knew where she stood with him.
    She heard a noise in the background on his end of the phone.
    “Just a minute,” he