The Prince and the Plant Whisperer

Walk Back

"Wait for me," he tells Kai, with her package folded under his arm. "We'll strap all these to my bike. You going back to Gaffigan?" he asks, holding his own beat-up looking cardboard box.

She nods. As they stand in the morning air, he pulls an orange bungee cord around both their boxes, attaching them to the rack of his bike.

"Thank you," she says.

He steers the bike with one hand, as they walk side by side.

Suddenly he says, "I'm moving out of Gaffigan next semester."

"Oh?"

"Yep. Off campus."

Kai smiles. "That sounds super nice. Your own room? You'll have so much space!"

"That's what I'd thought." For some reason, he doesn't seem all that happy about it.

They lapse into silence again.

There's something about Lukas's answers—they're like periods at the ends of sentences, Kai thinks. They just don't lead to more conversation. They shut down conversation.

But I'm getting used to it. It's not half-bad.

Or maybe I'M the quiet one? she wonders.

Around them, Kai feels the electric gaze of curious people.

Her thoughts turn to these gawkers. Are we really such a spectacle?

Hasn't Lukas ever been seen walking next to any other women?

If the answer is no—

But, wait! He's seen around Nadia all the time, right? That thought gives Kai some relief.

As they pass the gothic buildings of main campus, Lukas suddenly asks, "How was your day?"

Kai's brow furrows. "It's just starting, no?" she says. "It's only 10AM?"

"I mean yesterday."

Yesterday.

A pause.

She breathes in.

That's right. He knows now, about last year. About the accident. From all our conversations for that psych experiment.

She nods. "It was OK. I mean, it was just pretty busy, and all." She had been busy, it was true. And throughout class, she'd daydreamed about the new greenhouse coming in the mail. She'd mentally catalogued the new plants she could raise in there. Between waves of sadness, she'd let herself feel waves of optimism.

Just then, they turn the corner and reach the green lawn of the campus quad. Sterling library looms to the west, and Hopper College casts a long shadow in the autumn morning. On the grass, the juggling club is out doing drills: spinning plates, juggling bowling pins.

With his height, Lukas has a broad stride. Kai senses he's been walking slower than usual—so that he doesn't leave her behind.

Out of the blue, he asks, "Should we stop for any coffee on the way back?"

Coffee...

In fact, earlier that morning, Lilly had accidentally made an extra cup of coffee. As Lilly stood with it by the bathroom sink, Kai intervened. "Don't dump it out!" She didn't want it to go to waste. So she'd chugged it.

Maybe that's why she was feeling weirdly jittery?

"I'm already highly caffeinated," she tells Lukas, truthfully. "But I don't mind stopping if you need."