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In Maysilee’s experience, Valentine’s Day offers the busiest, most eye-rolling inducing shift of the year.
Terrible partners who had forgotten to get a gift, and for some reason, thought the Donner’s Sweet Shop’s stale marshmallows would please whoever was waiting for them at home. Partners who were scrambling to add something sweet to an already existing present under their arms. Customers wandering up to her to ask the dumbest questions about the location of certain sweets as if there weren’t signs all over the place.
Before she even started her shift, she couldn’t wait for it to be over.
Today, the bullshit begins an hour after opening. A boy from Maysilee’s class, Linden Cartwright, comes through the door with a bouquet of flowers taller than his head. Maysilee only recognizes him because he’d tripped over himself at graduation and busted his face on stage. Even though he is the Cartwrights’ son, his appearance is entirely forgettable. Stringy hair, scrawny arms and legs and a set of uncomfortably white teeth.
She has the misfortune of standing near the front of the shop when he finally adjusts himself with the weight of the flowers, she pretends not to see him, studying the paint on her nails. The shine of his shoes move with the morning sun as he rotates himself to look at her, as if he was checking for something.
Maysilee cocks her head to the side. She can’t stand the goggling. “What’s your problem?”
His eyes widened at her. “Oh—wrong sister. Sorry.”
First recorded eye-roll of the day. She then releases air out of her nose like it was steam. This was going to be a long, grueling handful of hours. Maysilee can’t help but watch Merrilee’s face light up when he eventually reaches the counter, sliding the heavy glass against the surface. At this point, she’s grown numb to the contrast between her and her sister when it comes to this sort of thing. Merrilee just carries a light Maysilee doesn’t have. That draws people in, that makes them fall for her. Asterid dons it, too.
It’s not like Maysilee seeks out romance. She truly, honestly, genuinely does not care. She’s adapted to the sensation of barbed wire that’s formed in the base of her throat after being blatantly ignored at school dances over the years. She’s kind of accepted it: how there’d always be a distant wind between her and a yearning lover’s glance. How she’d never, in a million years, have a bouquet of her favorite flowers delivered to her. She supposed that was the price she was bound to pay for keeping her walls up high and mighty, snapping at anyone who dared to see through the cracks.
Whatever. It didn’t matter. It was a stupid feeling to waste time being sad over. It may have been more stupid than Valentine’s Day itself; who decided to dedicate a whole day to love anyway? As if there weren’t enough holidays on the calendar making her job hell. So useless.
The sight of Wyatt Callow through the window eases the pressure in her chest, distracting her. He’s a smidge later than usual.
Maysilee lets her legs work into motion, and she has to resist the urge to tilt her head back in relief when the fresh, cool February breeze hits her face. She brought her gaze to the sight in front of her again, the skin on her arms slightly buzzing with goosebumps beneath her sleeved dress. Wyatt stands impatiently as he fidgets with the coin she’s seen him carry around since they first met. With the fist that isn’t occupied with a coin, he clenches onto a slip of paper.
It’s an arrangement they’ve been contributing to for a good two years now. Wyatt would show up on the weekends with a list of sweets his family requested, Maysilee would get it ready for him at some point in the middle of the day, then he’d show up at sunset to pick it up. They usually don’t accept holds, or orders—but Maysilee found herself having a hard time saying no to him when he first approached her with the request, despite her not even really knowing him at the time.
His first appearance was random. She’d never seen him show up at the shop until then. “Do you think you could do this for me?” He had said to her, unfolding a piece of loose leaf paper. “I’ll pay extra.” Maysilee instantly wanted to shut down that offer, but she allowed him to explain himself anyhow.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out Wyatt was a coal miner. Then, he had just turned eighteen and Maysilee only knew that because she would often catch his eyes in the halls at school completely by accident, then he evaporated like water under heat. That was how things were here for boys his age. She just couldn’t figure out why she’d been so disappointed at his departure.
But, the reason why Wyatt had resorted to asking was due to the fact that no one in his family, including him, had the time to walk up to the Sweet Shop to shop for the treats they all seemed to crave. Him, his two brothers, and his father had been bidded to work underground until the sun rose and set—and his Ma had joint problems, so she couldn’t make the trip on her own. She knows his family runs a gambling ring, too, down on their side of the district. Her Papa told her about that, subtly mentioning Wyatt “handles the odds”. She put together that must be another part of the reason why they’re so busy all the time.
It really wasn’t a big favor to ask, to detach herself from customers and mind her own while collecting the treats his family wanted. Though, Wyatt appeared a little on edge when he first asked her. That tension burned away as soon as she accepted.
And, well, the rest was history. Wyatt would then show up right after they opened, and would return right before they closed. Always in his stained overalls and laced-up boots, bringing the smell of bonfire with him. Always giving her a shy smile and whispering, “You didn’t have to do that.” When she threw in an extra dozen of cream cheese cinnamon balls in his bag. It’s been a routine she’s actually grown to like.
Now, when she makes a move to face him, Wyatt’s attention shoots up to her. “Good morning, Maysilee.”
“Hey,” she felt her lips twitch into a welcoming smile without any force. “Little late today, huh?”
He scratches the back of his neck, sighing and outstretching the paper to her. “Yeah. I overslept.” Maysilee gently runs the pad of her thumb over the folded texture after she takes it from his grasp, she can feel his deep strokes of writing through it. “Sorry if it’s hard to read. I was rushing.”
She looks up into his dark pair of eyes, maps the bags beneath them, and he quickly turns to fixate on the cobblestone path below his soles instead. Then Maysilee’s left staring into the strands of his blowing hair as he clears his throat, the apples of her cheeks aching to blush under the cold wind.
“That’s alright,” Maysilee says with a few disoriented blinks, waving him off. “I’ll figure it out.”
Wyatt nods. “Okay,” he adjusts the tight hat on his head. The entrance door swings open and shut. “Well, thanks for your help again, we appreciate it.”
“Sure.”
A silence Maysilee can only describe as comforting stretches between them. “I’ll be seeing you.” He tells her firmly, then wisps away. And she’s left staring at his backside as he carries on to the east side of District Twelve.
She washes down the sourness on her tongue, retreating to the prison she calls work. The amount of people blitzing around the floor is overwhelming, but she blazes through anyhow to get to the front desk, each and every one of them making a path for her. She squeezes Wyatt’s list in her hand like a vice.
When she reaches the familiar shift in flooring, she glances at Merrilee’s firework of flowers on the counter behind the register without even meaning to. But they’re hard to miss, to ignore. Vivid, healthy red roses. They were beautiful. Linden Cartwright had to have walked out when she was talking to Wyatt.
Merrilee, who had been cashing buyers out, connected her gaze with Maysilee once the current customer turned on their heel. And she must’ve had a strange look on her face after she looked away, because Merrilee’s eyebrows jumped at her, a wobbly grin taking over her mouth. “I don’t even like roses.”
Maysilee knew that was a lie. But it was nice of her to try and make her feel better about it, even though it wasn’t about her at all. Merrilee had been sweet enough to receive them, she shouldn’t be feeling bad for her.
“Don’t fib, now.” She whispers as she passes by, tapping the edge of Wyatt’s tightly folded paper on the flesh of her palm. “They’re really nice. They’ll look pretty in your window.”
She can feel Merrilee physically deflate in relief. “You’re right.” She agrees, “but I don’t like him.”
“I know,” Maysilee says, she can hear the trampling footsteps of another customer making way for the register. She then thinks of how Linden had to hear her snappy voice to tell them apart. “You’re dodging a bullet.”
The topic of conversation shifts when Merrilee’s suddenly observing the paper in her grip, cherry-colored bow in her ponytail slightly coming loose as her head leaned to the side. “Is that from the Callows?”
She reaches up and tightens it for her, tucking the list under her pinky. She actually did well dressing herself today. Not that she couldn’t—it was just, well… Maysilee was the one who had a more trusted taste for fashion out of the two of them. Sometimes, she comes walking out of their room like a pastel clown. She’s wearing a white dress with red-cuffed sleeves now, matching the tint of the hair accessory perfectly. She’s obviously dressed for the holiday, while Maysilee’s wearing a gown as dull as the deep ocean. Not her best choice, honestly.
“Yeah, it is. Wyatt just gave it to me outside.”
“Can I see? If they got those cheese balls on there again, we need to make some more. None of the ones we have are fresh.”
Everything about making sweets is boring to her. Painfully so. She’d rather be working away at clothes or jewelry or whatever else made someone beautiful. But she was stuck here, and that would be her case for a long time. She hates that she has to accept it—just how she’d begrudgingly accepted the emptiness that came with being constantly rejected by love. “Here.”
Maysilee hands over the paper, and covers the register for Merrilee so she can skim through the writing.
Maysilee drops the woman’s little baggie of peppermints on the scale. “Don’t break them!” She hissed at her. “They’re for my daughter.”
“They’re fine.” She says in return, irritation taut in her voice. No word from Merrilee on if they needed to cook up those cheese balls yet.
The woman gives her a snarl after she presses the bills into Maysilee’s hand, then she rips the bag of mints off the counter, and sets herself on stomping right on out. Maysilee has a satisfied smirk on her face, but when she turns to Merrilee, it falters at the look of her.
Merrilee’s eyes are cautiously poking over the top of the page, wide with either awe or fear. Maysilee can’t tell which, and that brings perplexity to her conscience. It was a damn list, one that hardly ever changed. What was the issue?
“Uh, what’s up with the face?” Maysilee asks, making circular wiping motions at her.
Merrilee coughs, then awkwardly refolds the slip. “Well, um, Maysilee. This is no list.” Her cheeks are as red as her ribbon. “And I should definitely not be reading it.”
Her eyebrows furrow. “What are you talking about? Lemme’ see.” And with that, she snatches it from Merrilee’s grasp, shaking the notebook lined paper out like wrinkled laundry.
She allows herself to scan the thoughtful handwriting. And it only takes a second for it to register.
Merrilee was right. This was no list. No words even slightly reminiscent of candy or cheese cream cinnamon balls or strawberry jam.
Instead, the “list” read:
O, my Love, you sink right in
Your starlight, your serenity;
The desperation to feel your tresses upon my skin
O, my Love, may your cerulean glint never dim
Your grace, your ache;
I’d let it all burn me in a wisping hymn
O, my Love, I yearn to feel your sin
Your breath, your bites;
How you’d make me bleed until I’m dripping in fuchsin
O, my Love, your beauty blooms upon you like a daisy
Your petals, your touch;
Why I’d engulf the garden to let you grow, my Maysilee.
A deep stillness spreads in the space they share. She can hear Merrilee swallow. “You said… Wyatt… gave that to you?”
“Yeah.” She doesn’t think she’s breathing when she speaks. “He did.”
Wyatt inhales a faint draft of coolness as he strolls out of the mouth of the mines, craning his neck backward to let the rays from the setting sun hit his face. Sweet freedom—aside from the coal dust in his nostrils.
He’s swinging his headlamp idly by his side when Kennedy catches up to him. “Hey, boy. Heading to see your girlfriend?”
He can feel his forehead wrinkle in annoyance. “Shut up,” he spat, “we aren’t even friends.” Kinda pained him to say, but it was true. Outside of this little exchange they’ve been keeping up with these past two years, he and Maysilee weren’t familiar with each other. At least, she didn’t think about him the way he thought of her. “And, yes. I’m picking up our sweets. How could I forget? You were breathing down my neck this morning about writing our list.”
He’d been in an awful rush this morning.
For starters, he’d woken up half-an-hour past his alarm. He was blazing through his routine, which he loathed. Brushing his teeth like he was scrubbing a sink, only giving himself a second or two to run a comb through his hair, tearing off his sleep shirt and pants. And before he’d gotten the chance to fully buckle up his miners overalls, Kennedy had kicked his door open.
“Wyatt James Callow,” Kennedy pointed at him then, poking his head in his room, his bottom halfway hanging in the hall. “Write down that list for the Donner’s now!”
“I can’t!” He’d spat out, hands rising in protest. “I’m half-naked!”
But Kennedy just shook his head and began to chant, slapping his door frame with each demand. “Ma’s cinnamon balls, Beau’s taffy, your caramel crunch bites, my peppermints!” He took a breath and paused, “and Pa’s disgusting hard candies!” He disappeared like a sly fox.
“Kennedy!” Wyatt yelled for him, again and again. But to no avail. “Oh, God damn it!”
Wyatt knew his urgency wasn’t misplaced. That didn’t stop him from wanting to slap him upside the head. Even now, he squints looking at him, thinking back to aggressively writing with half of his overalls buckled, then clumsily dropping the list and having to waste more time picking it up.
“Yeah, yeah. And you’ll thank me for it when you’re snacking on those caramel bites later.” Kennedy gives him a sassy wave off. “Helps you think, right? You’ll be needing them. We’ve got four boxing matches to attend and collect bets from. Apparently, Cayson McCoy wants his crown back. Gonna be a busy night.”
He wasn’t wrong about that, the candy helping him think. He does the same at his fingertips, flicking the zinc scrip coin up in the air to smooth his thoughts. It’s something he’s never really grown out of. “It does.” He hates to admit it to his face, Kennedy was the type of person that loved proving people wrong. And he’d never shut up about it.
Kennedy slings his arm around him. “See?”
“Yes, I see.” Wyatt groans, “now get off me. You stink.”
He makes a sound of disbelief. “Me? Oh, okay. Like you smell like roses.”
“I didn’t say I did.”
Kennedy rolls his eyes. “You know, if I was seeing my girlfriend on Valentine’s Day, I’d want to smell nice.”
And this is where Beau steps in. Lingering behind the both of them, as usual. Quiet as a mouse despite his scaling height. (Kind of like how their Pa is, except he’s probably trying to convince some lingering folks at the mines right now to come down and place some bets later on). While Wyatt’s face resembled his Ma’s in every aspect, his personality and the way he carried himself was all from Beau. “Stop it, you two.” He spoke, “especially you, Ken. Enough with teasin’ him about Mr. Donner’s girl.”
“Thank you.” Wyatt sighed. Kennedy says nothing in retaliation.
He doesn’t even know when it started—when his family began to notice. He’s founded himself on being the type of guy who never wore his heart on his sleeve, in other words, he didn’t want to be vulnerable in front of others. He didn’t want to feel anything at all, really. And certainly nothing involving romance.
But Maysilee Donner had put a wrench in his plans.
He doesn’t even know when that started. When suddenly, he could sense the strings holding up his heart tighten as he watched the sun pooling over her blonde hair in front of the Sweet Shop. How he couldn’t speak to her without getting lost in her bright eyes. Maybe it kicked in when she kept throwing extra treats in his family’s orders, or maybe years prior to that, when their gazes met in the halls at school before he was booted to the mines. He always thought she was hypnotically beautiful, she didn’t even look real sometimes. Her consistency to being kind to him only made it worse. It was so overwhelming it made him sick. But, he would never deny how warm it made him feel. Made him feel as if he was actually liked for something outside of his oddsmaking.
It blew his mind how the rest of town talked about her. He didn’t get it. He knew she brought an assertiveness with her at all times, but that didn’t seem to be a reason to talk smack behind her back. Wyatt actually found that part of her more intriguing than anything else.
Anywho, the crush was ridiculous, no town girl would associate with a Seam boy in that way, that was just fact. A rare instance if it were to be disproven. Which made it all so embarrassingly one-sided he planned to keep it to himself forever. It was infuriating how Kennedy kept peeling back those secretive layers of himself, when he thought he’d been concealing it quite well.
“Alright, fine. But you have to admit, he made it obvious going to Maysilee for the treats instead of her sister.”
Guess not.
“It doesn’t matter.” Beau says.
Having enough, Wyatt shifts the direction of his knees. “I’m going now.”
He hears both of his brothers bid him goodbye at his back, and sets off. The distance to the Sweet Shop was quite far, especially from his house, but he doesn’t mind. Maysilee had been lenient enough to take time out of her day to get his family’s sweets ready, so the very least he could do was walk a few miles. Besides, under the foggy breaks of dawn and sunsets, it was peaceful. He enjoyed the silence.
But the teasing from Kennedy, both involving Maysilee and Valentine’s Day, brought some thoughts to the surface. As he drifts between trees and bursts of gales, his brain begins to echo the lines of the poem he wrote a whole night before.
It’s a fatuous activity he’s indulged himself in these past few months. He’s never been great with getting words out with his mouth. To deal with that, he decided to write about them instead. In weird, lyrical ways that probably read as nonsensical to someone else. That’s why he always throws them away, God forbid if Kennedy got ahold of one. But it helped a lot, he had to admit. Easing some of the heightened tension in his skull after long days at the mines and long nights with the Booker Boys.
Wyatt only buries himself in his notebook when he needs to collect himself. For example, there are times where he isn’t certain if his math is correct, therefore he needs to remove himself from his own head and work out the probabilities on paper (or else, he’d get a bunch of drunk old men yelling at him for “messing with their money”). But when it comes to the poems, the process was a little different. He needed to be completely alone. Locked in his room so he could pick the right words, hunched over his desk, writing deeply into the fractioned lines.
Maysilee usually dances across his mind in pirouettes. Sudden and fast. But last night, she wouldn’t seem to leave his head, so he wrote about her. From her eyes to her hair, how he wanted to feel her “bites”, which meant kisses. Kinda. He even made sure to touch on daisies; a flower he remembers her by because of one of her necklaces. It also just meshed nicely with her name.
After hours had passed, Maysilee’s face had begun to wisp away behind his eyes and he was pleased with the result of the poem. He hadn’t written anything in the branch of romance up until that point, and he wouldn’t consider it as a bad experience.
But the insecurity leaked back in, and he tossed it toward his trash can without looking.
The Sweet Shop’s orangey, overhead light ahead shines on Maysilee. She’s propped up against the window, scratching at her knees. She’s still in that flowy blue gown she was in this morning, gorgeous and effortlessly so. Wyatt’s boot kicks against a stone in the pathway that leads to the entrance, and when Maysilee looks at him through her lashes, she seems surprised to see him.
He isn’t sure why, either. This is the usual time he arrives to pick up his family’s stuff. “Hi.”
For a second her mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Her cheeks are blood red. “Uh—Wyatt, hi.” She takes a breath as she stands, wiping down her dress, her lips still parted. The sight was unnerving. The sharpness he was used to seeing on her had appeared to completely melt. “Yeah. Hi.”
Maybe she was just tired. He gets like that sometimes—slaphappy, that’s what his Ma calls it. Wyatt’s brows lift a little in acknowledgment, and he dips his hand in his pocket, yanking out a sealed bag of money. He keeps the payment in there so it doesn’t get stained to hell while he’s working. He stretched it to her. “With a tip, as always.”
That surprise on her features gradually fades to confusion. “What?”
“For… my family’s sweets? The list?” He draws it out. He realizes then, that the weighty basket Maysilee usually has on the shop’s windowsill when he comes to pick the treats up is nowhere to be seen. Now he’s just as confused as she is. “Am I missing something? I’m lost.”
Maysilee moves closer and keeps her gape secured on him, like she was waiting for him to slip up. He only blinked at her, intimidated and stuck in place. It didn’t help that he was blushing at her sudden closeness, either. Once a good moment passes though, she takes a step back, and softens.
“Wyatt,” she says slowly, her brows highly strung. “You didn’t give me a list today.”
Maysilee was thrown the whole rest of the day. The words of Wyatt’s poem drummed in between her ears as she numbly refilled jars of candy.
My Love—I’d let it all burn me—Your starlight—How you’d make me bleed—Your beauty blooms upon you like a daisy.
How could someone even pretend to be unbothered after reading that? And that went a long way, coming from her.
When it came to unraveling the reality of the situation, she had no idea where to even begin.
Well, she supposed the best place to start was with Wyatt Callow. She hadn’t considered for a second that he felt this way about her. He was so stone-faced; concealing everything. There wasn’t anything about their interactions over the years that insinuated anything beyond a mutual acquaintanceship, nothing Maysilee caught onto at least. Sure, he had a softness to him and she always felt welcome in his presence, but nothing could have prepared her for a full-on romantic poem dedicated to her name. A beautiful one, at that.
It literally has her considering changing her opinion on Valentine’s Day. Because she thinks she’ll now forever associate the holiday with this memory. Sweetness, warmth, excitement. For the first time in what felt like years, she was happy. She couldn’t stop smiling to herself.
Once a few hours had passed, Merrilee wandered up to her in a still-paced hour. “Do you think he’ll come back later?” She mumbled to Maysilee, then turned to her gently.
“No clue—he’s not picking up anything. Obviously, I had no list to go by.”
Merrilee sighs. “No way. He can’t leave you hanging after that.”
She flushes while releasing a chuckle. “I know,” she says, “if he doesn’t, he’ll eventually show regardless, right? Next weekend for sure.”
“I’d hope so.” Merrilee agrees, “we know where he works if not. We’ll find him.”
“Okay. It’s supposed to be me saying that type of stuff, not you.”
She smiles brightly, tugging a big empty jar to her stomach. “I just think you deserve this. Someone nice, you know. Everyone always judges you.” And when Maysilee thaws at that, she flips around, speaking while marching away. “Gotta go fill this up with those nasty thick licorice sticks. I’ll be in the back if you need me!”
Then Maysilee’s left alone again with her thoughts. With Wyatt’s poem.
So, she lets her loud mind go wild. What if Wyatt did show up at sunset? What would she say—or do? Say thank you? Ask him about his poetry?
Tell him how she felt?
Maysilee’s shoulders tightened. She didn’t know how to answer herself. She’d been so used to being ignored or flat-out avoided, her body forced itself into some mode where it simply wouldn’t let her pine over someone without them coming to her first. It would be too painful. To side-step the possibility of that, she’s formed a hard shell around her heart.
But Wyatt had come to her first.
And she wouldn’t deny it: she’s found him attractive since they first met. He had soulful eyes and a strongly placed face. His clothing always tightly stuck to his biceps due to the muscle he’d built there whilst working, he could probably pick her up off her feet. His voice never grated on her ears like every other man’s she’s come across, instead, he spoke quietly. In an easy way that still obtained masculine charm. And that wasn’t even mentioning that he was smart—one time, she got curious about the things odds and probabilities entailed and read up on it herself. To be an expert at that was insanely impressive.
Her Papa wouldn’t approve. Not because he was from the Seam (like how other parents of town kids believe), but because of his family’s whole gambling ordeal. She still doesn’t know if he overheard stuff or experienced it first hand, but apparently the Callows encouraged a lot of violence to scrape some money from betters. Boxing matches, dog fights. Maysilee remembers vividly how uncomfortable he’d looked when she told him about filling orders for them. But he couldn’t tell her what to do—or who to date.
Everything rushes in like a dam cracking underneath a heavy weight. She needed to see him now.
Eventually, the afternoon sun began to dwindle below the horizon, business slowed down, and Maysilee took herself outside. The chill swallowed her up, inciting goosebumps up her skin. There’s some flowers near the doors that escaped customers’ caged bouquet; that came in-and-out of the Sweet Shop in a rush. Roses and tulips and carnations.
Maysilee listens patiently to birds in the distance, she bets her own canary is hooting at them right now through her window. It felt like that went on for a while, silent and windy. Like Wyatt wasn’t coming.
Her discussion with Merrilee lifts to the front of her memory, how him not showing up again would make sense. There weren't any treat baskets for his family to take home—actually—no! Who gives her the sweetest poem she’s ever read and doesn’t come back to see her? Surely he had every intention for her to read it. With the date and all.
She’s just nervous; on edge. Two feelings she certainly wasn’t used to letting fill her body.
The sunset turns a blood red, pretty much gone out of the sky. And now, it’s colder than ever. Maysilee’s palms cuddle the faint hairs on her legs, eyes drifting to the ground. And when the shop’s tangerine light pours on her head, the tips of her reflective shoes soaking it in, a shape of a tall figure dusts over her eyelashes.
Wyatt Callow’s hefty boot meshes with rock, and Maysilee’s head jolts up like a gunshot had rung out throughout her skull.
She blinks at him excessively, unable to put a halt to the hotness that was spreading across her face. The poem starts to sing to her.
“Hi.” Wyatt announces himself. His tan skin is brushed with taint from the mines, carrying his helmet, brewing dusk setting over his shoulders perfectly. He suited the night well, and that made Maysilee feel even more attracted to him.
Her voice seemed tangled inside of her throat; it itched. “Uh—Wyatt, hi.” Maysilee presses herself to get it out. Her knees shift forward, hoping to ease some of the awkwardness she’s definitely just created. Her fingers meet the silk of her dress, she almost goes to fidget with her necklaces. “Yeah. Hi.”
Wyatt’s dark set of brows twitch, and she wants to sink into the dirt. Because his expression heralded nothing. She thought, maybe, he would be coming to tell her how he’d felt. And they could talk. Now, Maysilee has a hunch that she might have overestimated him. His hand then scrambles in his pocket, reeling out a plastic bag full of bills. “With a tip, as always.”
This had to be a joke. “What?”
“For… my family’s sweets? The list?” He says it as if it were obvious. Like he didn’t hand her a piece of paper that made her rethink her whole outlook on this stupid holiday this morning. Did he even know how hard it was for someone to do that? Whether it be about fashion or jewels or people or stupid Valentine’s Day, the code that’s built her into her was run with an iron fist. It takes a fucking mountain to change her mind. Sometimes, the mountain in question was a crinkled poem. Wyatt must be able to notice her terrible confusion. “Am I missing something? I’m lost.”
This sparks anger in her. So, she steps closer to him, close enough to burn under his gaze. Her shoes slap harshfully against the cobblestone as she tries to sniff out something he’s trying to hide from her. She glares at him so hard her vision blurs. But then, she blinks, and the fury shifts away when that familiar softness in Wyatt’s face flourishes in front of her. He truly looks addled. And she instantly feels awful for getting in his face.
Maysilee’s heel stutters backward. With a forced calm breath, she says: “Wyatt, you didn’t give me a list today.”
A whole range of emotions break across his features before he actually speaks. “What?” The end strands of his hair wobble as he shakes his head. A deep wrinkle lies in the center of his brows as he pulls them close, as if he were rewinding something. “No, I did. I know I did.”
Maysilee straightens her lips at him. “Hm… I don’t think so.” She motions behind her, “you know I would’ve had your family’s stuff out here if you did.”
She can tell Wyatt understands she’s right. He starts to play with something in his pocket, his breathing breaking a little under the mild brushes of wind. “What did I give you exactly?”
Maysilee’s teeth meet the flesh of her cheek, and she crosses her arms over her chest with a huff. This was crazy. “<em>Oh, my Love, your beauty blooms upon you like a daisy</em>… That’ ring any bells?” She asks, voice unintentionally falling into a dreamy timbre as she echoes the words. At the reminder of that particular line, her stomach flutters all over again. She couldn’t help the smile that drew across her lips.
The warmth it brought slips away like wine when the color in Wyatt’s face drains.
She takes in his expression, and the only way she can describe it is pure mortification. His eyes have gradually gotten wider, his bottom lip is trembling like he wants to say something. That habitual stone-faced look is back, but it’s in an entirely different way. If she were to touch him, she’d bet everything that he’d be ice-cold.
Her smirk drops. “Wyatt,” she worriedly blurts.
But he only wipes at his mouth, and twists on his heel.
The gust of air she sucks in vacuums around her throat. “H-Hey!” Maysilee coughs out, urging to follow him. Wyatt was moving quickly, though. Succumbing to the darkness of the forest in just a handful of desperate steps, she’s nearly out of the square when she accepts that she wasn’t catching him. “Where are you going?!” She screams it vibrantly. It’s enough to bounce back to her. Wyatt doesn’t flinch, and she’s left staring at his back once again, until he’s wrapped completely in the gloom and she can’t see him anymore.
For a moment, she’s frozen. She couldn’t believe what had just happened to her.
Her sister’s voice might’ve been the sole thing that kept her from standing out there for hours. “Maysilee?” Merrilee calls. It’s like a signal. She flips around and bolts for the door Merrilee’s propping open. “What’s wrong? Was that Wyatt?”
Maysilee’s mouth felt sewn shut. All she could do was blitz past her into the shop, the blaring smells of sugar that bombard her spike an even heavier sense of nausea in her. It makes her eyes burn worse as they brim with hot tears.
A waft of cooking potatoes from the kitchen hits Wyatt’s face as he lunges through the back door. He avoided the front, because he knew Kennedy and Beau and probably his Pa, too, would be crowded on the couch and immediately swarm him with questions about their sweets—that did not exist.
He tries to move without much noise, but he’s so shaken-up and embarrassed he can’t help but stumble into his room. He presses his desk chair against the doorknob, and glares at the loose papers on the wooden surface ahead with a buddling rage. Some were sketched with odds and probabilities he’d written down on a whim, some were old lists. He looks to the floor. The folded piece he sees, riddled with crinkles, should be it. Maysilee’s poem. He knows it isn’t.
He bends down, and uncrumples it anyway.
MA — CINNAMON BALLS
PA — HARD CANDIES
KENNEDY — PEPPERMINTS
BEAU — TAFFY
ME — CARAMEL CRUNCH BITES
He couldn’t believe himself. What a stupid mistake. How could he do this to himself? He never makes mistakes like this.
Wyatt stares blankly at the paper that was supposed to be Maysilee’s poem. He tries to retrace the trail of events, to make sense of it.
Last night, he tossed it toward his trash can without looking, it must’ve not—didn’t make it in. It bounced off the wall or something. When he was in a rush this morning, he dropped the list… and picked up the poem instead. He didn’t check which was which. That was exactly what happened. And it felt like the whole world was crumbling beneath him.
It wasn’t even all about him. He couldn’t even imagine how Maysilee had felt. It wasn’t simply a love poem, in Wyatt’s head, it was more graphic than that. He wrote it because he’d been thinking of her constantly that day, therefore, everything he scribbled down came straight from the caves in his chest. How he wanted to feel her hair against his skin, her touch and her bites for God’s sake! It wasn’t meant to be seen by anyone, let alone her.
He can’t imagine a guy he hardly knew outside of a short, one-day-a-week transaction giving him a poem that involved that sort of language. It’d been on-going for two years, but that didn’t make it any better. Wyatt used to get called creepy for simply staring at people when he was younger, for working out observations in his mind about them. He wouldn’t blame her for thinking the very same of him now.
She had grinned at him, too, when she read off that first line from the last stanza to him. Was she making fun of him? And why had she memorized it? He needed to die this instant. He doesn’t know if he could face Maysilee Donner ever again.
A knock comes at his door. “Wyatt?”
It’s his Ma. The final thing he wants to do is talk, at all. But especially about this. He’d rather speak to her over anyone else, though. “Yes?” His voice sounds completely dead.
“Your brothers and Pa are fixin’ to leave soon. Come and eat something before you go.”
He stands, removing the chair from its place under the knob. She gently smiles when he peeks behind his shredded door. “I’m not hungry.”
Ma’s brows rise, unconvinced. “You’ve been at work all day, hun. Come on. I made your favorite.”
That’d explain the scent of potatoes when he came in. Even his favorite dinner didn’t sound good. He just wanted to curl under his bed and hide forever like a scared cat. “I’m really not.”
“Wyatt James.” She snaps, “get changed out of those nasty overalls and eat right now. I’m not asking.”
This is where he jumps at her change in tone, and instantly listens.
Wyatt cries with the shower’s rain. Felt like he hasn’t done that in forever. His stomach ached, thinking of Maysilee and how disgusted she probably was. He always knew he’s had trouble with approaching romance, but this was a whole ‘nother level. Any scrap of positive odds he had of finally being seen by someone had now twirled down the drain. And it was his own fault, just like everything else was. Why he couldn’t make friends, why nobody wanted to be around him. This was why. He messes them up before they even begin. That was the forever curse of having a fast, high-wired brain, he tripped over himself.
He takes one glance at himself in the mirror and decides to look at the cracked sink instead. No wonder Maysilee laughed at him.
Shrugging on a flannel that’s torn at the sides and a pair of jeans he’s had since he was a teenager, he slips into the kitchen. His brothers and Pa are already washing off their plates when the heels of his boots hit the tile.
Ma motions towards his plate, hot and steaming in front of his usual chair. He has a death grip on his coin. “Heated it up for you,” she says, and brushes his damp hair out of his eyes.
When he sits down, Kennedy squints at him hard. “What’s going on?”
Wyatt pretends to savor the bite of mashed potatoes in his mouth. “What?”
“You’ve been going up there for two years Wyatt, and you ain’t never come back without ours and your sweets. What happened?”
“Nothing.” He says back far too fast, and sickness flushes through him again. As if it ever left. “She didn’t have anything today.” What a terrible, effortless lie. He just kept digging himself in deeper graves, didn’t he?
“She had, like, nothing?”
Wyatt nods, not blinking. “Like, nothing.” He repeats after him.
Kennedy makes a face. And his Pa tosses a wash rag in the sink. “Son, your poker face is worse than sin—”
“Alright, stop it.” Ma presses a hand on his shoulder, “you aren’t eating a thing. Are you feeling bad?”
He swallowed anxiously. “N-No.” Another lie. He knows Ma can feel it.
She inhales harshly, and sighs just as hard. “Probably exhausted from work. Hard not to be when they got you running the whole district down there.” Yep. That was it, totally. Not poems or Maysilee Donner related whatsoever. She bends over and meets his lost gaze. “You don’t have to go tonight if you don’t want to.”
Objections come from his family at once.
“Oh, come on, he’s fine!”
“We may as well cancel the whole damn thing, then.”
“We’re gonna get no cash if he’s not setting the odds.”
Ma rolls her eyes. “Jethro can do it just fine. I’ve seen it.”
Kennedy pouts. “Yeah, but—Pa’s not always right. He’s not as good.” He freezes up momentarily, focus shifting to their Pa. “No offense.” He only shrugs, agreeing.
“I mean, it’s up to Wyatt.” Ma says.
He, in all truth, didn’t want to leave the house tonight. He felt the furthest thing from okay, sluggish and pierced. His whole body continued to burn in slashes due to everything. Each letter, each word of his dumb poem stabbed at him like a furious bee. But, on the other hand, maybe it’d help him get his mind off of it. Watching men beat the socks off of one another while he did what he was best at, he’d be able to fully detach himself from the fresh thought of Maysilee’s serrated blues reading the poem that was never meant to cross her path.
Wyatt’s shoulders rise in a tense motion. “It’s alright,” he says with a tired heave, “I’ll go.” Anything to get his wounded head to slow down just for a little while.
It doesn’t.
“I can’t believe that. He just… ran away?”
Maysilee doesn’t want to think about it anymore. “Yeah. He did.” It had to be about one in the morning. The moonlight cast over her vision as she leant her head against her wall, she squeezed the poem tightly in her fist. She desires to be angry, it comes to her so easily, but all she can muster is sadness. “It was so weird, Mer. He looked terrified when I told him.”
Merrilee plucks at the matching necklace Maysilee made for her a few months back. “What did you tell him?”
“Well, after I said he didn’t bring me the list, he asked me what he actually gave me.” Wyatt’s face before he bolted on her flickers behind her eyes. “So… I read my favorite part. I thought he would’ve liked that.” She flopped back onto her pillow, blowing a raspberry. “Guess not.”
Merrilee falls quiet, then her bed creaks as she sits up. “Did he say anything before he left? I’m stuck on that.”
“No, his lips just turned completely white. It was like I’d told him his whole family died in a house fire or something.” Maysilee unhands the paper in her palm, it unravels on her chest. She can’t stop herself from rereading it all again. He seemed to put so much thought into it, from the words to the handwriting. She didn’t understand.
“That doesn’t seem like something a dick would do. Go white at his own poem? I don’t know—we’re missing something.”
“Have to be.” Maysilee says weakly, she draws her thumb along the smeared strikes of pencil led. This day has felt eons long. “I’m so tired, Mer.”
Merrilee chuckles. “I don’t blame you,” the shape of the roses Linden Cartwright gave her carefully swayed in front of her open window. Another draining Valentine’s Day for Maysilee, somehow worse than any other year. “You should sleep. We can talk more tomorrow, okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.” Maysilee mumbles back, and she hears her rustling under her covers as she tucks Wyatt’s poem beneath her pillow.
Which comes to be the worst thing she could’ve ever done, because he haunts her dreams. It’s so dramatic. Maysilee tastes the ash on his lips and dresses him in clothes that make him look even more attractive, his hand slots easily within hers and he loves her for who she is. It feels so real; it pisses her off. How could he do this? Give her a poem, just one, and suddenly unlock this side of herself she’s refused to let break through her whole life—until now. It made her think in the midst of swift glances and planned order arrangements, she’s always sort of felt this way for him, and just ignored it like a gnat on the wall.
The way shadowed places in her chest would soften at his darkened eyes, how his gentle hands made the pace of her heart quicken when their fingers grazed. How the sight of him seemed to calm her at once. Did he feel the same way this whole time? He had to obtain a tenderness for her somewhere. A tenderness for Maysilee Donner, he may be the first in District Twelve to ever do it.
And Wyatt couldn’t even own up to the damn thing. Something he wrote. Maysilee’s mind drifts in between loose memories, of Wyatt looking the most confused she’d ever seen him, trying to give her money for a sweets order that was never real.
The following dawn, the realization hits her over the head like an anvil.
The charms on her jewelry jingle loudly as she curls toward Merrilee in her vanity seat. “Merrilee, I think I know what’s up.”
Her sister’s eyebrows perk. “Oh?”
Maysilee drags her fingertips over her dress for today, it’s a pretty peach. Such a shame it would be covered by the hideous Sweet Shop apron. “He didn’t mean to give it to me.” It leaves a bad taste in her mouth.
Merrilee pulls on her socks. “How on earth did you figure that out?”
“He was about to pay me for his family’s sweets. He thought he brought a list to me.” Maysilee explains, “it’s the only thing that makes sense.”
She thinks a little harder about it. That explained why he ran away, he was embarrassed. Shocked that it somehow ended up in her hands. But, also, it wasn’t like Maysilee was an unreasonable person. He could’ve told her it was an accident; they still could’ve talked about everything.
But he left her to stare at his back.
“So,” a pause cuddles their room. “What are you gonna do?”
Maysilee worries her lip, thinking. “Guess’ I’ve got no choice but to wait,” she answers, then quickly realizes that simply wouldn’t do.
She tells herself she’ll wait until next weekend, before she takes things into her own hands and finds him herself. Because she knew who she was. This poem was going to drive her crazy; Wyatt was going to drive her crazy.
And he does.
Through the whole week, he’s made a home in Maysilee’s mind. She can’t look into the trees behind the shop without trying to make him out, she can’t smell the coal in the air without thinking of him. Can’t map the dark sky with her eyes and think of his own. It’s the worst feeling in the world. She wants to desperately revert to her old ways, lock her heart away, lead her life with a perpetual scowl and burning face, but she can’t. It was like the pieces of Wyatt’s poem had stuck themselves over her brain like the paper volcano she and Merrilee made when they were little. He was now glued there. His work, the kind words he used to describe her. Awakening a feeling of longing so intense it peeled her skin back.
On February twenty-first, officially a week since she’s had his poem for her in her possession, she holds a slim hope that he’ll actually show up.
It’s a beautiful Saturday. The sky is completely blue, a soft air coming with it, it’s not too cold despite the month. Maysilee sits and waits until clouds begin to roll in, she waits for Wyatt to appear in his miner’s overalls with a new list, clutching his hat, that coin. She could probably guess what his family would want—while it did change at times, they usually stuck to the same things. His Ma liked the cream cheese cinnamon balls; his Pa, hard candies; Kennedy, peppermints; Beau, taffy; Wyatt, caramel crunch bites.
She accepts how entirely hopeless she is when he doesn’t show at sunset. She’s devastated and hates herself for it. Tears really flow at night, when Merrilee’s asleep and so is Lou Lou, completely knocked out on her perch. Stupid poem. Daisies, touches and bites. Fuck all of it.
The hurt is so bad she takes herself up to the mines the next day. In her rosy red dress and glossy shoes, she hikes to the Seam right as the sun begins to sleep. And she has no intentions to see Wyatt. She knew he wouldn’t be there by the time she reached the entrance. He’d told her once that he takes the long way, left early. Meaning he went entirely on his own. He wouldn’t be with his brothers.
She’s seen Kennedy and Beau in fast glimpses. All she remembered about them was that they were taller than Wyatt, and had much shorter hair. But, it’s not too hard finding them. With all the men hoarding around them, chatting about tonight’s “game”? Maysilee didn’t need to do much searching.
Maysilee trots on over, and worms in between the group like nothing. “Hi. Kennedy and Beau Callow, right?” Both of their paired eyes go wide at her as if she had three heads, and they look just like Wyatt when they do it. They share a glance before nodding. A forced smile hooks on the corners of her lips while she scrunches up her nose. “Can I steal you for a second? It’s about your brother. I’m real worried.”
Wyatt avoids the Sweet Shop like it’s a radioactive waste plant.
He doesn’t even take the “long” way anymore. He takes a path that has him leaving an hour before his shift begins, the “longer” way, if you will. He has to hop over deep puddles, sharp rocks. He’s already tired by the time he reaches the mouth of the mines. It was worth it. He couldn’t risk catching eyes with Maysilee through the tall trees that grew in front of the square. He cannot dare to see her. He’s sure she’s just as sick over him, only in a different way. A way only resided with negative connotations, filled with words describing him that he doesn’t want to hear. He’s beat himself up this whole week, though. So he probably got there before she did.
It wasn’t a smart plan, really. Because he still thought of her everyday. And it wasn’t quick, bypassing thoughts. They were constant; she was constant. It was like the night he decided to write the poem, but worse. He dreamt of her every night, and stared at himself in the mirror with more and more hatred every day. Sometimes he’d zone out during a game of Poker with the Booker Boys, thinking of how pretty her blonde strands glistened under the blood orange sun. He’d have to be nudged back to reality by Kennedy.
The avoiding plan may not have been smart, but it would suffice.
Exactly seven days after Wyatt made the biggest mistake of his life, he arrives home at dusk and presses open the front door to the sight of Kennedy and Beau doing dishes at the sink. The house is quiet, occupied with nothing but the sound of rushing water. And his Pa’s snoring. He sleeps on the couch with a pillow over his face, it didn’t do much muffling. A gene Wyatt somehow snagged from him.
He carefully twists the door shut, and Kennedy hesitantly looks back at him. “Hey… Buddy.” Wyatt’s brows furrow. “You go to the Sweet Shop today?” Beau smacks his arm so hard he flinches.
No. Of course he didn’t. He told everyone he wouldn’t be, ever again, and refused to explain further.
The air in the room felt off. “What’s going on?”
His brothers share a weird glance. Kennedy goes to open his mouth, but Beau is the one that steps forward. “How about you sit down, Wy?”
“Why?” He says as the muscles in his shoulders tense up.
“Just—we wanna talk to you.”
Wyatt takes a cautionary look around the walls, and gives in to his brother’s request. It couldn’t be that bad. If he were to guess, it was most likely related to the game tonight. He places his headlamp on the floor as he brings himself down on a chair.
He breathes in. “So?”
Beau falls into thought instantly, Kennedy keeps his gaze on the floor. “So, um. We had… a visitor.”
Wyatt blinks. “Here?” That didn’t make any sense. No one really liked them and their family wasn’t too big at all.
“No, no. At the mines, you’d already left.” He dismisses. Wyatt suddenly feels the inclination to roll his coin over his knuckles. “How do I put this—”
Kennedy says it for him. “Maysilee Donner!”
“Kennedy!”
At once, Wyatt’s lips go cold and the saliva in his mouth doubles. Not where he thought this sit-down was going at all. His knees burn to stand, to bolt himself away.
He must look like he’d been slapped across the face. “Wyatt, it’s nothing bad. I swear.” Beau’s hand flattens on his shoulder, keeping him from running. His voice is calm. He then eyes Kennedy. “We swear.”
He wants to throw up. “What is it? Just tell me. Please.” He shakes an anxious hand through his hair, what if she told them about the poem? It was getting harder to sit still. What did she say?
“She… didn’t tell us what happened, but she’s worried about you. You haven’t shown up at the shop in two weeks. She only wants to talk to you, that’s all.” Beau’s grip remains on his frame, and as the nervousness rolls in his stomach, it’s actually comforting. “You should go.”
“Yeah, please do.” Kennedy states, crossing his arms over his chest. “She’s scary, man.”
“No, she’s not.” Beau cuts in, “just… feisty.”
Maysilee… worried about him. For the past week, he hasn’t been able to even worry about himself. He doesn’t know what to think, but he can feel the color coming back to his cheeks. “She… didn’t say anything about…?” He trails off.
“Say anything about what?” Beau asks; Wyatt doesn’t speak. “Look, whatever this is about, just talk it out. Cut the avoidant crap, okay?”
He forces himself to swallow. “Okay.” He traces the ridges of his coin with his thumb thoughtfully. “Where am I supposed to go?”
“She didn’t say,” he replies with a shrug, his hand is then gone from Wyatt’s body. “But we all know something’s up with you. So, I’d go to her family’s shop first thing before work. Just get it out of the way so you can stop moving like a cat with its back arched-up, yeah?”
Wyatt frowns, but nods. “Yeah.”
And the next morning, he does just as his brother suggests. With the sun barely rising, the fog is thick and dark. Wyatt cuts through the trees as if he was carrying a machete. He’s so pent-up he could burst into ribbons, he had no clue what to expect with Maysilee. He didn’t know if she was upset, or angry. Disgusted. His hand sweats in his pocket, as he flips his little scrip coin around, trying to relax himself, clear his clogged brain, for just a moment.
The rooftop of the Donner’s Sweet Shop shines under the mist, and as if to taunt him, a familiar poem ping-pongs within his skull.
O, my Love, you sink right in
Your starlight, your serenity;
The desperation to feel your tresses upon my skin
O, my Love, may your cerulean glint never dim
Your grace, your ache;
I’d let it all burn me in a wisping hymn
O, my Love, I yearn to feel your sin
Your breath, your bites;
How you’d make me bleed until I’m dripping in fuchsin
O, my Love, your beauty blooms upon you like a daisy
Your petals, your touch;
Why I’d engulf the garden to let you grow, my Maysilee.
The buttons of his overalls tap on his chest, his steps growing heavier the closer he gets, heart knocking hard on his ribs. He thinks he’d be less terrified if he was hanging by one arm under a cliff’s ledge.
Wyatt moves slowly up the moderately steep hill that would carry him to the Sweet Shop’s doors. His breathing is pouring out of him in uneven strokes, he makes himself recollect. He couldn’t look like this in front of her, she probably thought he was cowardly enough. For running, avoiding her. He knows he can be better than that. Outside of his family, Maysilee has been the nicest person in all of Twelve to him. She didn’t deserve to be ignored like she did something wrong for his own stupid mistake.
He has to remind himself of this fiercely when his unfocused gape lands right on her through the window, flipping the shop’s sign to OPEN. Maysilee’s tired eyes etch into him instantly, and she turns her head to the side. Then she makes for the door.
This is it, he thought.
Maysilee comes out in a raven black dress, half of her blonde hair tied up with a matching bow, her eye makeup smeared a little on her lower lashes. Her necklaces, ranging from silver to gold to brown thread, fit upon her perfectly. The gray, morning haze cradles her sharp cheeks, and she looks fucking gorgeous. This is exactly why he wrote that poem in the first place.
“Hello,” Wyatt says blankly, his whole body is hot. “You wanted to talk?”
She studies him. He can see her suck in her cheek. “Hey, you.” A brief moment passes before she nods toward the shop. “Come in. It’s too cold to stay out here.”
He trails behind her, setting his headlamp on the ground and slipping through those big doors. The smell that crashed into him was dizzying. Every single candy scent, from fruity to sour, wrapped around him. It was too much, he couldn’t believe Maysilee worked in here everyday. Maybe she can’t either, because the expression on her face when she shifts to glance at him was nothing synonymous to contentment.
Maysilee leads him into some break room. The walls paint has begun to chip with age, a fragrance of peppermint and moth balls seemed glued to the brick. She motions towards one of the open seats near the edge of a table that was in the center of the floor, he plops himself down, and anxiously flattens his palms against his thighs. The threading of his jeans felt alive.
“So,” Maysilee announces, sitting down herself. She digs into a slit on the side of her dress. Wyatt can see the blinding white of paper, see the recognizable handwriting through it. He already knows what it is before she unfolds it in front of him. “I kind of figured you didn’t mean to give this to me.”
The poem’s straightened out on the surface of the thin wooden table, Maysilee’s glittery nails resting atop of it. “No,” Wyatt agrees, “I didn’t.”
He doesn’t like looking at it, so he looks at her instead. “Were you just… never going to confess?” Right to the point. He can’t help but freeze, especially when Maysilee’s bright blue eyes are boring right into him.
He mentally slaps himself awake. “I didn’t plan to, no.”
Wyatt doesn’t know why her gaze softens like mush. It was like the wind was taken out of her. “Why?” There’s deep strokes of hurt in her tone, it surprises him so much he stays tightened up for a breath too long.
He can feel his throat close up, but he forces the words out. “I… I don’t know,” he began, “we weren’t really close friends or anything. You know how it is with the Seam and merchant sides when it comes to… this. I didn’t want to embarrass myself.” Maysilee crosses her ankles under the table. His voice falls to a murmur. “And I did anyway.”
“It was an accident, Wyatt. You could’ve told me the truth the night it happened.” She asserts, “but you didn’t. You walked away, and—and avoided me. Like everyone else.”
For some reason, that aches to hear. Because he wasn’t like everyone else, he knew that since he was a little kid. Damn, he really hurt her feelings.
“I’m sorry,” Wyatt says gently, taking out his coin and running it along his set of knuckles that were at his torso. His lip shakes. “But… Please try to understand my side, okay? I keep everything to myself, especially things like that. It was personal, no one’s ever seen anything I’ve written. I always throw those poems away because I don’t want anyone else to find them. You somehow getting a hold of one crushed my whole world.” Maysilee stares at him with in-turned brows, the anger in her has seemed to float away, just like that. “I thought you’d never want to see me again. Thought I was gross, or something.”
A gasp emerges in his throat when she leans forward, hesitantly lacing her soft hand over his. The chiming sounds of her necklaces cuddling up together is soothing. “I never thought that about you,” she whispers, and it releases the weight that’s been dragging on him all week long. “I thought you were really sweet, and I thought the poem was beautiful. You said you throw them away?” She didn’t find the poem disgusting. She wasn’t ever making fun of him.
“Yeah.” He answers.
“Well, if you ever write any more, give them to me. I’ll keep them forever.” Maysilee says strongly, then looks at the paper in front of her. “Just like this one.” Bashfully, he blushes, and angles his chin down into his chest. Trying not to smile. “That’s… why I was so hurt when you ran away, why you wouldn’t show up after. It’s the kindest thing anyone’s ever given to me. You made me so happy.”
Guilt clutches around him like barbed wire.
“But I get why you were embarrassed, or afraid. Like you said, it was personal. I didn’t know that—I’m sorry for jumping down your throat.”
“It’s okay.”
Maysilee smiles, blinking as it leisurely went down. She slips into some sort of thought bubble. “I just… can’t really put into words how it made me feel. How you made me feel.” Wyatt’s hand has begun to sweat under hers, but she doesn’t appear to mind. “It made me realize some things.”
He tugs at his bottom lip. “Can you elaborate?”
She hisses through her teeth. “Like… I don’t know—that I like you? And that I might have for longer than I thought?”
That can’t be right. The flesh on his cheeks is so hot his face might melt to the bone. “Sorry, what?”
Maysilee gives him an unamused squint. “Wyatt.”
“Yes?”
“I like you,” Maysilee squeezes his hand tightly, she says it with authority. And he doesn’t think he can breathe. “Is this… a mutual feeling or did I just read your poem completely wrong?”
That wakes him up. “No! No—No, you didn’t. Sorry, it’s so difficult for me to get the words out.” It may be the most frustrating feeling in the world for him. It makes him feel less intelligent, when he knows he’s anything but that. He could hear the words in his head, flourishing in color, but getting them to come out properly? It was a real piece of work. If he spoke in the wrong tone, he was looked at strangely. If he spoke at the wrong time, he was looked at with annoyance. It’s ridiculous, seemingly impossible to get the hang of.
But Maysilee only gives him a reassuring clench. “It’s fine,” she states, and he can tell she’s not being judgemental in the slightest. “I’m not going anywhere.” That relaxes him. It actually forces him to calm down.
So, with the hand that isn’t being held by her, he flips his coin between the narrow bones of his fingers, and lets his eyes focus on a small crack in the wall. Bringing his mind to a close for just a second, only allowing images of Maysilee to slip through. He thinks of the consistent kindness she carries with her, despite the whole district speaking the opposite; the extra treats she throws in his family’s orders, how she never told Beau and Kennedy about the poem. He flows to how fiery her pale hair looks under the sun, her azure eyes and how she made him feel better about the things that’ve made his life harder. He still doesn’t know when it all began, but he knows one thing: he’s fallen for her, the wrench in his plans. And he’d write thousands of poems for her if that’s what she wanted.
“I like you, too. You’re kind. The prettiest person I’ve ever seen.” Wyatt says, after what felt like a good minute or two. Maysilee’s still fully here, patiently analyzing him with a redness on her round cheeks. “I know the poem made it obvious, but…”
“It’s nice to hear you say it. I’m sure you feel the same about me telling you.” She interjects, and he bobs his head. For the first time, with a real grin on his mouth. She’s slowly started to massage her thumb into his knuckles, like she was gradually smushing away all of his worries, though they were long gone now. “I had no idea, you know.”
Wyatt finds himself nodding. “I know.”
“How would I have guessed, with that stone-face of yours?” Maysilee says with lightness. She then slots her fingers in between his, somehow bringing them closer. His breathing has never been so clear. “I’m glad you came to see me.”
“Me, too.” He holds the firm eye contact with her, his heart felt like jelly. “Sorry you had to go to my brothers about it. I messed up. I really was thinking the worst.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, alright? You’ve explained why you did it. Apologized.”
A small smile returns to his lips. “Thanks for understanding. It means a lot to me.”
“Thanks for giving me a reason to think I’m worth your work.” Maysilee says, and Wyatt winces with the sweetness of it. “Best mistake I’ve ever seen, if you ask me.”
“Of course you are. You were my muse.” Wyatt tells her honestly. When Maysilee inhales at that, something in her eyes flashes. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” she rolls her shoulders, expression lifting from bareness. “I just—I’m having a hard time accepting this is happening to me. That someone thinks of me this way.”
You’re telling me, he thinks, biting back on saying it aloud. Maysilee’s words were a shocking thought. Yes, she’s looked down upon for her speech, how she carries herself. Everyone knew that (and were totally wrong—they just cannot fathom the idea of a girl that doesn’t let people walk all over her). But to believe no one else has ever fallen for her like he has? To the point where she’s surprised someone out there genuinely likes her to this degree? It left him starstruck. But, maybe that just meant he was the smart one. Because they don’t know what they’re missing.
“Well, start accepting it.” Wyatt says, a burst of self-assurance splashing over him. “I didn’t write that poem for nothing.”
She laughs tenderly through her nose, it sends a punch of butterflies to his stomach. “Don’t worry, I am.”
Valentine’s Day fell on a Sunday this year. And it didn’t take much for Maysilee to discern it was the first Valentine’s Day she wasn’t dreading.
What, with Wyatt Callow walking up to her doorstep with an armful of handpicked daisies, how could she not be flooding with joy?
“Why, who must these be for?” Maysilee announces, stepping down into the cobblestone that was baking under the morning sun. She’s shrugged off her apron already, so he’s seeing her in her full get-up. She’d decided what to wear carefully, as always, but this day was special to her now. So, she took the extra time to match everything. Her earrings with her necklaces, her shoes with her socks, her makeup with her dress. Pinks, whites and a singular dash of red. The thread she’d made for Wyatt stirs in her pocket.
He still has that nervous glint in his eyes, even after a solid ten months of calling one another partners. She thinks it’s sweet, how dedicated he is to doing things right; to pleasing her. But to Maysilee, he could never do any wrong. “Only for the best girl in the world.”
Wyatt extends the flowers out to her, and the smell is so wild-like, perfect. He picked these himself. She wouldn’t be eyeing other store-bought bouquets with envy at all today, she had everything she wanted right here. “They’re beautiful,” she says, taking note of a little slip of paper in the petals. Instinctively, she plucks it out. “What’s this?”
He has his hands laced behind his back. “A card.” He raises his brows as he peeks over the daisies, looking into her hand. “Cards.”
Testing the weight of the folded paper, she can tell there’s two pieces tucked together. And she has a good feeling as to what one of them is.
Despite expressing how much he adored his first poem that was (accidentally) given to her, a smidge of shyness about writing remains in him. She doesn’t find that strange, she knows he’s reserved about it. But he writes with such vividness and authenticity, it’s hard not to want to read them all the time. It comes straight from his chest.
Sometimes, when she tags along at night to those gambling events his family runs (much dismay to her Papa—but he likes Wyatt. Grown to, at least. He thinks he’s real smart and mature. He doesn’t hold his family against him), she’ll just slump asleep against his shoulder, the plush of her cheek creased with his jacket lining. Other times, though, she’ll catch him scrawling a flurry of stanzas on the back of cashed-out slips, then impulsively going to crumple them up in his fist. She’d seize his wrist, and ask to see it. He always hands it to her without hesitation, and she always stores them in her journal once she gets home.
Maysilee slowly unveils the folds, one page is a letter. Written in fine pen, each twirl of an ending word smudging with ink from the side of his hand.
Dear Maysilee,
I picked the daisies for you because you’re all I think of when I see them. Has been that way for a long time now. You’re the sweetest girl I’ll ever know, I love you for you. Thank you for liking me for me. You’re my perfect equation.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Love, Wyatt
Honestly? It makes her want to burst into tears.
To press them back, she steps forward and shoves her face into the crook of his warm neck. She used to be so bad at this, embracing others—she was so stiff. Now, she wafts into Wyatt’s body as if she were water. Breathing him in. She knows it’s never been his forte either, but as he holds her back just as softly, she has a difficult time believing that was ever true. Maybe he was molded just for her, fitting into her like a puzzle.
When she leans away, Wyatt delicately caresses her dangling braid with his thumb. It reminds her of the gift under the ruffles of her skirt.
“Oh, couldn’t forget to give you this before you went to work.” Maysilee smiles, sticking her fingers down the side of her dress. “So, remember how I asked to borrow your scrip coin for like, two days, a while ago?”
“I do.” Wyatt nods, his grasp sliding off her hair piece as she lifts up the braided necklace for him. Woven with cord and thick threading, she’d left an open space for his coin.
“Your coin will fit right in, see? So you don’t have to worry about losing it while working, or, you know. Doing whatever. You can take it out whenever you want.”
There’s a gentleness in his eyes she doesn’t think she’s ever seen before. Not even when they continued to spend time together after Maysilee hounded Wyatt’s brothers to get him to face himself and talk to her about the poem, when he began to learn more and more about her. When she began to fall indescribably for him in the height of spring, as if she wasn’t already.
“Hold these for a sec,” She pins the flower stems into Wyatt’s overalls, he takes them diligently. She then plants her palm against the shape of his bicep and moves to his backside, taking the time to be attentive as she shrugged the braided ends around his neck. She interlaces them together before tapping the inner muscle of his elbow. “Can I see it?”
Wyatt hums in agreement, when it’s in her palm, she shifts to his front half again. His coin has been completely scrubbed free of any engravings, Maysilee’s got a pretty good memory on what they usually look like. The amount of miners that come in and try to buy sweets with them… God, constantly reminding them is exhausting. They’re only valid for the District store, Wyatt’s brought her some cute hairclips from there, actually. Her focus carries back to the coin, now on his chest. She thinks he’s kept the same one since he first got sent to the mines. Which made sense for him.
“What do you think?” She asks.
Wyatt reaches up and cradles the coin. Squeezing the cords that hugged it tight. “I love it.” She takes her flowers back into her grasp, he doesn’t take his gaze off of her the entire time. “Thank you.”
“Of course. I knew I wanted to make something for you. Thought using your coin was a good place to start.” Maysilee got the idea when he’d come over one rainy afternoon, she remembers the day as clear as glass. Merrilee had caught a sickness and was quarantined in the guest bedroom, tiredly waving at Wyatt when he’d passed by the door (who was absolutely over the moon when Maysilee had told her about Wyatt asking her out. She knows everything Maysilee does, at this point).
Wyatt was trying his damndest to follow what she was doing as they worked over her jewelry station. It made her laugh, distracting her entirely. He wasn’t… bad. He just needed practice, even though he had a thoughtful touch, he had a problem with making the jewelry look—well, pretty. But the point was, he was interested in it. She caught him working out the coil and twists of metal in her necklaces more than once. So, she thought she would make him his own.
“It was a perfect place to start,” Wyatt adds, staring at the side of her dress. Something must come to mind, because the gray in his irises began to pop. “Did you see the other card?”
Maysilee blinks, eyebrows flitting. She hadn’t, she got distracted by him fiddling with her braid. She removes the paper that was on the backside of the letter, she tucks her bangs behind her ear as she read:
MA — CINNAMON BALLS
PA — HARD CANDIES
KENNEDY — PEPPERMINTS
BEAU — TAFFY
ME — CARAMEL CRUNCH BITES
When she looks up at Wyatt, he’s grinning like a Cheshire cat. “Come on—it’s funny! Right?”
“You are a complete dork.” Maysilee shakes her head, and cradles his jaw and strands of escaped hairs as she pulls him in for a chaste kiss. It brings a light to her chest, knowing they can just laugh about it now. When this time last year, things were different. She was upset; he was mortified. But at the same time, she’s thankful it happened. The two of them just had to muddle through that rock in the road to end up here. They did those orders to this day, except Wyatt would often arrive much earlier and leave much later so they could spend more time tangled in each other.
Wyatt’s cheeks have gone rosy. “Here’s the actual second card.”
She’s still buzzing with the taste of ash—of her future—on her lips as he lifts another wedge of paper to her. With a faint smile, she unravels it with one hand. A new poem. “And, you definitely meant to give this to me, right?”
He latches onto her thrown back jest, and grins with the points of his teeth. “Yes. I promise.”
He wrote about her braids, her sharp voice, her lips and hard touches. How she burned beautifully under the sun. The way she ran her hands through his hair when he was half-asleep. It’s all about how caring she is, even with the fire she welds. And it isn’t a poem from him to her without the emphasis on daisies. She would never get tired of it, she could reread the things he writes a thousand times over, getting drunk off his words forever.
“You really enjoy making me fall head first for you, don’t you?”
Wyatt shrugs, the pink on his sweet face shining in the sun. “Possibly.” He says, “do you have a problem with that?”
“Nope,” Maysilee inches closer to him, her bouquet squishing between them. She gets lost in his eyes for a moment. How could she not? When the owner of them made her believe she could be loved this way, that she was just as deserving of a soft love as anyone else. “As long as you’re falling just as hard for me.”
There’s a breeze, then Wyatt tilts up her chin to kiss her. “Already have.”
The setting sun is warm on Wyatt’s back as Maysilee lies against his chest. They’re positioned just in front of the calm water of the lake, Maysilee pokes her feet into the coolness of it. She wants it to be spring so badly she pretends like it is already. “You know, it won’t be too long until it gets warmer. I’d rather you not be sick when that time comes.”
Maysilee wags her finger. “I do not need your incredibly accurate logistics right now, babe.”
He laughs, and looks at the state of her. Swallowed up in his jacket, face flushed pink with the cold, her hands knotted within his. Her eyes slightly droop, she’s sleepy, but doesn’t seem to want to leave their date site just yet.
The picnic blanket curls under his bottom, basket and plates and wine glasses behind him. Her vase of daisies he picked for her. Obviously, it’s too chilly for this sort of thing, however, it was what Maysilee wanted to do for Valentine’s. And he does anything she wants to.
Wyatt keeps his gaze on her, following her pupils as they enlarge at something in the distance. “What is it?”
Maysilee’s lips pucker. “That water spider. You see it?”
He has to squint real hard, but sure enough, he sees what she’s talking about. Walking upon the lake with its crooked legs. “Ew.”
She cranes her neck to look up at him. “Ew? How dare you. They’re fascinating. Have you gotten close enough to see the little details in their webs?”
She’s genuinely asking him, with big, interested eyes. “No. I always duck under them.”
Maysilee smiles. “Well, at least you don’t walk through them. Anyway, the silk they make is beautiful. That’s why I like them.”
Wyatt subconsciously glances down at her blush pink dress. He realizes its material is exactly what she’s talking about. Silk and spiders… something new to write about.
He squeezes her hand. She has a keen eye for things like that, seeing the plausible beauty in everything. Shockingly, she even does it for him. The most recent instance was today, when he’d showered after work and Maysilee had come into his room suddenly, offering to help him look nice for their date. He had a decent outfit picked out, but she added little pieces of her touch that made it appear even nicer. Like the jacket, his belt with the silver buckle, unbuttoning his flannel. She also refused to let him put gel in his hair. While Kennedy and Beau suggested it with enthusiasm, Maysilee had smacked it out of his hand. Said his hair “looked cute when it was fluffy”.
Wyatt had to agree with not using it. The stuff looked like a sensual nightmare.
“Interesting,” he says.
Maysilee grins, then reaches up on cue to ruffle his hair. Her fingers fall to graze the coin at his chest, the beautiful corded necklace she crafted for him by her hands. “I knew you’d get me.”
That made him mirror her expression. “Always.”
Afterward, they sway into a comfortable silence. Maysilee cradles his hand, staring out into the sun-glittering water, and Wyatt can’t stop looking at her. They may have been together for a while now, but that didn’t weaken the rushes of pure euphoria and nervousness he got glazing over every inch of her. The time heightened those feelings, more than anything. He can’t help but think about what he was doing this day last year, he knows Maysilee’s thinking about it. The poem that was mistaken for a list. Pacing around his room, terrified she’d be repulsed at the sight of him.
Turned out to be the exact opposite. Now, he gets to see her beaming face every single day, freckled with beauty. Kissing him. When did he get so lucky?
“Thanks for coming here with me today,” Maysilee suddenly lifts from her lying position, looking as cute as ever. With her messy hair, donning his jacket still. When she comes with him to his family’s event nights, she naps on his arm, and wakes up the exact same. “I loved it.”
“You don’t have to thank me. I like to do what makes you happy.” Wyatt tells her, starting to shift his legs, as he’s getting the gist she’s ready to go. “Was this Valentine’s better than last year’s?”
Her head snaps to him, her eyes lidded. And they move together to clean up the picnic. “I’ll have to think about that,” Maysilee pressed her cheek into his shoulder.
“Wow,” Wyatt sighed as he folded the blanket into his chest while Maysilee carefully stacked the porcelain plates and delicate wine glasses in the basket. She insisted on bringing her pretty fine ware.
“Oh, a girl can’t even make a joke now. It was miles better.” She chuckles as she says it. Wyatt feels inclined to do the very same. She has the basket tucked over her arm now, her flowers in the other. They just compliment her so well. She wiggles her fingers towards him. “You know every day is good with you.”
Wyatt clutches the blanket at his side, outstretching his hand to intertwine himself with her. “To many more, right?”
He can hear faint wings of birds flying over them, the sky swirling into a creamsicle orange. Maysilee brings them to a stop, and she leans up to kiss him hard on the cheek. “You don’t even have to say it.”