Was it me who got in her head or you?” Micah asked. She must’ve batted at the leaves on the potted plant that blocked their view of me; I heard the smack and watched the overgrown bush shake.

“What are you talking about?” Andrew asked. His voice was quieter but I could still hear it clearly.

“Was it you with all your talk about how she wouldn’t fit in in New York? Or me with the whole you hate our town and people speech?”

“I never told her she wouldn’t fit in in New York.”

“Yes, you did.”

I strained forward on the porch swing, holding my breath.

“I may have said something about it being a hard place to live or that it eats people alive, but I wasn’t talking about her. I was mostly talking about me.”

“She thought you were talking about her.”

“She probably wouldn’t fit in there,” Andrew said. “But New York is the kind of place you should want to stand out in. And she would definitely stand out.”

“You need to tell her that.”

“She thinks I was telling her not to move to New York? No wonder she hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you,” Micah said. “You just broke her, that’s all.”

“What happened to the idea that you broke her with all the you’re a snob talk?”

“You’re right. I broke her too.” Micah sighed. “We both broke her and now she doesn’t want to go to New York anymore. This is her lifelong dream and she’s just giving up. She’s quitting. She’s settling or something.”

“I’m not settling!” I called out.

Micah screamed, then poked her head around the bush to the alcove where I sat, pushing the swing ever so gently with my foot.

“Soph, you are such an eavesdropper,” she said.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be talking about me behind my back.”

“I always talk about you behind your back. Mostly good things. Or in this case getting advice on how to fix you.”

“I’m not broken.”

Micah walked over and lowered herself onto the swing beside me. “Then why? Does this have to do with what I said at the Fall Festival?”

My eyes flickered to Andrew, who hung in the background, as though unsure if he should leave or not. My thoughts about New York versus Alabama had nothing to do with what Micah had said. It had to do with the fact that I had been feeling unworthy ever since the city, in the form of Andrew Hart, walked into my life, seeming to say my designs, me, weren’t good enough. But that was my perception. My own lack of confidence that I was projecting onto him.

“It’s me,” Andrew spoke up. “If I made it seem like you wouldn’t survive in New York, I didn’t mean to. New York would be happy to have you.” He lowered his eyes to the ground before they met mine again.

“No, it’s neither of you,” I said, looking from Andrew to Micah. “I promise. It’s me. It’s my stupid design journal full of nothing that is unique enough to do anything with right now. I just need to figure myself out a while and I don’t need New York to do that.”

Micah rested her head on my shoulder. “You know yourself. More than you realize, I think.”

I laughed. “Those two sentences contradict each other and are exactly my point.”

“So you’re going to take that scholarship?” Micah asked. A month ago she would’ve been happy about this, but she didn’t seem to be now.

“I think so.”

“I’ll be right back.” Micah stood and rushed away around the corner.

My mom’s voice, singing away to a completely new song, sounded and then was cut off again as Micah opened then closed the sliding door.

Andrew stood there in silence, then pointed to the seat next to me that Micah had abandoned. I nodded and he sat down. “Was that your dad on the phone earlier?” he asked.

My dad. I’d almost forgotten how badly that conversation had ended. “Yes.”

“Everything okay?”

“I don’t know. A lot of things have become clear to me lately and some of them are hard to accept.”

“I guess that means we’re growing up.” He said it like a joke but he was right. I imagined that was part of growing up—seeing things for how they really were and not just how you wanted them to be. Like you, Andrew, I wanted to say. There was what I wanted and then there was reality—a future that would take us our separate ways.

“You look so sad,” he said, placing his hand on mine. “What can I do?”

“I’m not sad,” I said, looking at him. His blue eyes seemed very intense. “Just being more realistic lately … I just need to … Your eyes are very distracting. You need to take that eyeliner off stat.”

He smiled. I turned my hand palm up, letting our fingers slide together.

He curled his fingers around mine. “I’m sorry I was a jerk to you most of the year.”

I smiled. “Ditto. I’m glad we’re friends now.”

He looked down at our hands. “Me too.”

Friends, I said to myself firmly. We have to be just friends.

Micah’s feet on the wooden porch preceded her arrival. I let go of Andrew’s hand and turned toward her as she rounded the corner. She held my design journal and wore a nervous expression.

“Don’t be mad!” she said. “I know you don’t like anyone touching this. But can we help you? Let us help you.”

I frowned. “How can you help me?”

“Maybe we can look through it.” She nodded at Andrew. “Tell you what stands out to us, what feels unique.”

My automatic instinct was to throw my guard up, to bury my journal in her backyard under the willow tree. But that seemed a little dramatic. It was the wrong instinct. That was my pride talking. What was wrong with letting people help me?

“Okay,” I said quietly.

“Yes?” she asked, excited.

I nodded.

She came to the other side of the swing. “Okay, scoot, scoot.” She gestured for me to slide closer to Andrew. The swing wasn’t built for three, but Andrew inched as far as he could to the right and made more room by draping his arm along the back of the seat. I slid over against his side. He smelled good, like fresh linen and musky cologne. Micah sat on my left and placed my journal in my lap. Then both she and Andrew leaned toward me in anticipation.

“So, it’s kind of messy, and whatever inspiration catches my eye just gets added to it with no rhyme or reason,” I said, clutching the journal.

“Stop stalling,” Andrew said.

“Yes, we want to see what lives in that messy brain of yours,” Micah said.

“Not helping,” I said.

She bumped her shoulder against mine and I opened the book.

I turned to the first page: a sketch I’d drawn over two years ago. It was a basic pencil skirt with a billowy blouse. Nothing special, but it was well drawn. I remembered taking my time on each and every line. I turned the page to where I’d stored a magazine clipping of a pink dress I liked. I didn’t even remember why I liked the dress. It was cute, but it didn’t feel like my style at all. Micah and Andrew were exceptionally quiet and I wondered if they were waiting for me to ask their opinions. I was too nervous to do that.

I kept flipping. It was much of the same. Page after page of sketches and snippets from magazines or scraps of cloth. Micah started humming a little when I turned to something she found cute.

“How is this going to help me exactly?” I asked. I wondered if looking at these was actually lowering my confidence in my ability to become anything but just a really good drawer.

“They’re good, Soph,” Micah said. “I was hoping you’d see that.”

I flipped to another page and was about to flip it again when I stopped myself. The sketch here wasn’t exceptionally detailed. In fact, my lines were shaky and it wasn’t complete, but it felt different from the others. The skirt was fitted along the hips and flared out at the bottom, the front of the skirt higher, the back coming to a soft point. It almost looked like a lily. An upside-down lily. I looked at the date I’d scribbled in the corner. I’d drawn it the week I’d started working at the flower shop.

Andrew must’ve noticed something different about the sketch too. He asked, “What changed?”

“I got my job this week,” I said. I flipped to another page. This one was a sketch of a dress, its buttons roses, its skirt layers and layers like rose petals.

“Flowers,” Micah whispered. “That’s your spin.”

I turned more pages. Not all my designs were flower themed. Not even every third one. But the ones that incorporated flowers seemed to pop off the page, seemed to come alive. I thought of all the images that had popped into my head this past year when I’d been around flowers—the girls in dresses marching through a field of tulips, the ballerinas dancing over sunflowers. Maybe my inspiration had been in front of me all along.

“Is that the flower I gave you?” Andrew asked. He kept me from turning a page again by placing his hand on the book. A pink tulip was pressed flat. The page behind it featured a sketch of a scalloped-sleeved blouse. That was the day I’d met Andrew. I’d thought the design wasn’t going anywhere, but it was. Now that I looked at it, I knew I needed to add layers to the sleeve instead of just the scallops.

“That is not the flower you gave me,” I protested. “I’d put this in before we even met.”

“Sure …”

“This one was a throwaway. The stem wasn’t long enough.”

“Just keep talking,” he said in that teasing voice of his.

I pinched his side and he laughed. I closed the journal.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Micah asked. “We’re not done.”

“We are,” I said. “You’re right. Flowers are my thing. I’m going to perfect all my flower designs and that will be my portfolio for design school applications.” I felt a rush of certainty that warmed me.

“For New York design school applications,” Micah said.

I hugged my book to my chest and nodded.

Micah threw her arms around me.

“Thank you for pushing me.” I glanced over at Andrew, hoping he knew that statement was for him too. His smile said he did.

Mr. Williams appeared around the corner. “There you are,” he said. “It’s time for dessert.”

“We’re coming,” Micah said. “Let’s eat some pie, y’all. We’ve earned it.”