Fluke

Bonus 2: Trees and Thank You

"Okay, so where's this tree?"

I shrugged. "I don't know."

"Why don't you know? You know everything, but you don't know where this fucking ginkgo tree is?"

"I thought it'd be fun to find it together. We get to go for a walk and use clues to find where the tree is," I said.

"For fuck's sake, Rea. It's Saturday. I don't want to be here if I don't have to be, and I sure as hell don't want to spend all day looking for a tree."

I didn't even reply to that. I didn't force him to come to look for this tree, so if he was that against the idea, why did he even bother?

Logan let out a sigh. "You're lucky I love you. I'd let anyone else just look for this stupid tree alone."

Maybe I would have searched alone, but I probably would have just texted Brett and asked if he wanted to come. He was too sweet to say no, and he definitely would have wanted to learn a thing or two about the ginkgo.

I smiled anyway. "I'm glad you're officially on board. It wouldn't have been any fun without you."

"You're such a liar, but I'll ignore it," Logan said, and we walked down the brick walkway that snaked throughout the entire campus. For a college that was just miles from the ocean, the lush greenery was one of the biggest surprises. It was just another reason I decided to chase my paradise.

Ironically enough, there wasn't much green grass on the rock Paradise City.

As we wandered side by side without any leads as to where the tree could have been, Logan nudged me. "What are we gonna do when we find it?"

I thought for a moment. "I'm not quite sure. I'll probably be very overwhelmed with emotion, and I might cry."

"You said that in the most monotonous voice ever. You're the least emotional person I know, and yet, you're somehow also the most emotional."

I supposed that was true. Most people had no idea that I had a little too much heart because they never bothered to look past my resting bitch face. Eventually, Logan figured me out, and that was good enough for me.

I nudged him right back. "The same goes for you."

He rolled his eyes as we walked past one of the buildings where a lot of bio classes were held. There was a library in there too, and if I wasn't in class or at home, I spent quite a bit of time in there. There were countless books on whales that filled the shelves. I sometimes fell asleep while I was reading them, and it was easily some of the best sleep I ever got. I also crammed for exams in there with more coffee than water in my blood. It was much more of a tossup than it needed to be.

"You know, maybe we should capture the moment of truth on video, just so we can look back on it with Blue and Racecar. I think they'd like to see another plant for once," I said.

"Wow, Rea, that's a really great idea. I'm sure they'll appreciate it a lot," Logan replied, and there was no way he wasn't being sarcastic.

But I didn't care. I took my phone out and started recording a video.

I narrated as we continued on, and although there were plenty of trees that lined the path and buildings, there was no ginkgo.

"It should be somewhere around here. This campus really isn't that big." I stopped in the middle of the walkway, and Logan did too.

The buildings were also made of brick and looked old from the outside, but they looked even older on the inside.

"Rea, isn't that leaf what you're looking for?" Logan said, and he picked up a leaf off the ground and handed it to me.

It was golden and fan-shaped, just like the pictures I had studied. There were so many other colored leaves that blanketed the ground, so it was lucky that he stumbled upon the right one so easily.

"That's it. We have to be getting close." I smiled. "This is so exciting." I scanned the rest of the area, and just off the pathway by the chemistry laboratory, I saw it.

"Stop being such a nerd—"

"There it is!" I squealed. "Logan, look. That's our ginkgo tree." I grabbed a hold of his wrist with my phone in my other hand, and I led him to it.

On the ground beneath the tree, there were a few partially decayed green fruits that must have fallen from the tree. As the wind blew, there was a faint unpleasant odor, and I knew exactly what it was.

I knelt down and picked up one of the fruits from the ground and held it up to the camera. "Look, it's a female. The interesting part about that is that the females actually produce this fruit, and it's—"

Logan interrupted me. "As you can see, Reagan is very passionate about sexing things. Trees, whales, me."

"Logan!" I cried. "I was going to show this video to my dad. Now I'll have to edit that out later."

I turned off the video and stuffed my phone into my pocket. There were times I missed the first rule of Paradise City, and this was certainly one of them.

"Here, hold this and smell it." I handed the fruit to Logan.

He took a whiff and coughed. "That's horrible, Rea. It smells like vomit." He sniffed it again and winced.

"It's butanoic acid. Isn't it cool?"

"No."

"I thought it smelled like our first date. You know, like whale snot and you throwing up after we kissed."

"Rea."

I laughed. "Come on, Logan. It's funny now."

"Yeah, Logan, it's funny now," someone else's voice said, and although I recognized it, I had to turn to see who it was.

Jia's boyfriend.

I shook my head as I stood up. Not this guy again.

"You guys know Jia, right?" he asked.

"Who the fuck are you?" Logan asked. "We're clearly in the middle of an argument, and you interrupted us with pointless bullshit."

Jia's boyfriend held up his hands. "Look, I'm just trying to surprise my girlfriend, and I know the redhead is friends with her. That's all."

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Where's Malcolm Hall?"

That was the biology building we had passed earlier, but I didn't remember which way we came from.

I pointed down the brick path. "It's somewhere that way. I'm not even entirely sure where we are now, but that seems right." I looked over at Logan. "Right?"

Logan shrugged. "This sounds like not my problem."

Jia's boyfriend smiled and waved a couple finger guns at us. "Thank you guys so much." He continued on his merry way without saying anything else, and I looked over at Logan.

"Poor Jia," Logan said.

I nodded. "Well, she didn't have too many options since I took the good one. You want a granola bar?"

I held one out to him, and he took it.

"So what's the real reason you wanted to see this tree? Sure, it's pretty, but you're a lot deeper than superficial beauty," Logan said.

I hesitated. "I don't know. I read somewhere that it symbolizes love and unity, and I don't know if it's true, but I want to believe it."

"That's really fucking cheesy," Logan said. "But it's sweet."

"Just eat the granola bar. I don't want to talk about this silly tree anymore."

Logan smiled, and we didn't talk about the not silly tree anymore. Even if I was wrong and the ginkgo tree symbolized nothing for the world, it now symbolized something for the two of us.

That was just the way we worked, I supposed. And I kinda really liked it.