C E L A N D I N E

[ficaria verna] ➳ forthcoming.    

TWO HOURS LATER, WE stood outside Russell Falls Animal Shelter as I gathered my newly-collected brochures into my backpack.

"There are way too many of these," I complained, moving a ten-pager about emergency procedures to the bottom of the stack. The wind rustled every sheet in my hands. "Isaac, this is too much work."

He didn't reply. Once I found the most important pamphlet — the one about the morning dog-walking program — and placed it at the top, I realized he was fiddling with a polka-dotted umbrella. It popped open, and he held it over our heads.

I hadn't even noticed that it was pouring rain.

"Thanks." I frowned. "Where did you get that?"

"Amy let me borrow it," he said, referring to the blond college student who had talked me through the shelter's volunteer program despite my reluctance. Her handshake had been friendly, and her enthusiasm had only grown when Isaac expressed an interest in the morning program on my behalf.

"You're gonna do it, right?" he asked after a moment, watching me shove the papers into the laptop compartment and zip my backpack shut. "I know it's a lot of reading, and the training'll take a week or two, but I swear it'll be worth it."

"I guess so," I said. I grimaced and threw my bag over my shoulder. "I'd rather hang out with dogs than Jackie Merritt."

He laughed, head tilted back. "You're so mean."

Short on comebacks, I blew my hair out of my face, taking care to stay under cover as we headed down the path. It looped around the parking lot and led up the suburban block to the closest shopping mall.

While my parents had been surprised when I called to let them know I was several kilometers outside of Newberry, they'd still been less concerned than I was. It was a good thing, according to my father, that I was getting out of our suffocating town, even if it was just for an afternoon.

"That's an ice cream shop," Isaac said, motioning to a pair of glass doors on the ground floor of a tall complex. We approached an intersection, and a few other people came up from behind to cross the street. "There's a good pizza place right next to it."

"Do you come here all the time?" I asked, looking around. Russell Falls wasn't as tiny as Newberry — it was much more alive. The only downside was that only one bus passed through both towns, and it was a long, bumpy ride.

"Just a couple times a week for work." He pointed his chin at a large brown building behind a parking lot. "That's the mall, by the way."

We cut across the empty asphalt, and Isaac held the door for me as we slipped into the warm plaza. Concrete columns bridged the tiled floor and high ceiling, and flower baskets hung above the store signs.

This was obviously an old shopping centre. Between spacious electronics stores were vintage-themed boutiques and family-owned cafes; brand names were few and far between. I liked the cracks in the walls and cramped quarters of every shop — how the mall lights looked like streetlamps and the elevators were engraved.

Isaac tucked the umbrella into his backpack, noticing my delight. "I know you wanna get home before dark, but maybe we can walk around?"

"Sure."

I slid my hands into my sweater, searching around for one type of store in particular. Isaac's gaze was inquisitive, but if he noticed my newfound sense of purpose, he said nothing about it.

We circled half the mall without passing a word between us, in fact. 

I figured his thoughts were back at the shelter with the work that he loved, rather than with me — the girl who'd contemplated knocking him over the head with a skateboard just days before. 

I hadn't missed the way Isaac's whole face had glowed when Amy let us into the back room, where dozens of animals pawed at the walls of their cages until he stuck his hands inside to pet them. Even as the image reoccurred to me for the twentieth time that afternoon, I wasn't sure what to make of it.

Had it even been real?

"Isaac?" I said. We were the only people strolling through this section of the mall.

"Yeah?"

I burrowed my arms further into my pink cardigan, which was slightly damp from the rain. It was nice to see his face, to have his full attention.

"You're actually pretty nice," I settled on after a long moment, "apart from the stealing thing."

"Thank you."

His grin sat smugly between his dimpled cheeks, but he didn't say anything else. A vague sensation in my tummy informed me that I had just unravelled, and I scrambled to reconstruct some semblance of composure. 

I opened my mouth to speak again, but Isaac jerked his thumb at the nearest store. He was pointing at a jewellery shop, glass display cases lining its entrance.

"No," I said firmly, all the sentiment washed from the thoughts. "We're not going in."

He laughed. "Shut up. I just wanted an excuse to ask you about that necklace."

Relieved as I was that this wasn't about to become the scene of a diamond robbery, I still felt trepidation tiptoe up my spine. "You shut up," I told him, instinctively cradling the silver butterfly with my hand. 

It was cold and metallic. We walked past the store, Isaac's eyes never leaving the pendent. "Come on. Who's it from?"

When I said nothing, he added, "You were wearing it in some of your pictures. Is it a family thing? Grandparents? Birthday present?" He paused. "Boyfriend?"

He correctly inferred that my silence was an affirmative.

"Okay, Ren," he said slowly. "This is the part where you're supposed tell me if you already have a boyfriend."

I gritted my teeth, focussing on the old-fashioned staircase that blocked a kiosk in front of us. I had temporarily forgotten that this was an unfamiliar place, but I felt it in every fibre of me now: the white lighting, strangers in the shops, signs that led to places I'd never been. 

I sighed. "Ex-boyfriend."

"Oh." 

The conversation lulled again. This time, the silence was daunting. One of his hands fiddled with the fold of his jeans, and his other shot off a text on his phone. I was tempted to ask why he had never texted me, but thought better of it. After all, I never texted him. 

But I had just taken a step with him. I had never admitted to anyone else here who my necklace came from. And nobody in my hometown knew I was still wearing it. My friends would've been aghast if they found out. 

Then again, I rarely texted them, either. 

When we reached the stairway, I eyed the stand behind it. Once certain of its nature, I parked us next to a wooden bench. I clasped Isaac's forearm, anchoring him to where we were standing.

"Stay here," I told him.

His thick brows winged high. "Why?"

"I need to buy something." I bit my lip and released him. "Don't steal anything from anyone in the meantime."

"Ren," he said, lacing frustration into my name. "I'm not that bad —"

"Stay here," I repeated. "Just do it."

"Fine, fine."

He held his hands up in mock-surrender as I scampered off and ducked behind the spiral staircase. I smiled at the lady behind the kiosk, already fishing through my backpack for my wallet.

Breathless, I returned to Isaac a few minutes later, the flower stand receipt fluttering in one hand, and a single yellow carnation in the other.

"Ren," he started, his face faintly pink. 

I cut him off. "It's for the dog."

Isaac's eyes widened as he accepted the flower, gripping the flimsy plastic wrapped around its stem. "But it's so... pretty."

"Good. Maybe now you'll start buying them instead of stealing mine."

He chuckled. "Is that what this is about?"

"Yep. I'm trying to ease you into the flower-acquisition practices of most normal people."

"Well," said Isaac. "Thank you."

Warmth flooded my tummy and soaked through my skin. My necklace bounced against my chest as I pulled him along again, and we headed for another loop around the mall. Even in my peripheral vision, I could tell he was studying the flower as we went, memorizing every crease and every petal.

It was for the dog. But in the sense that maybe if me and Isaac were no longer victim and thief, we could become something else entirely.