Renata Santos doesn't expect her heart to flutter when she catches a boy stealing flowers out of her backyard. But as she unravels his reputation, she realizes puppy-eyed delinquent Isaac Marshall may just be the sunshine she needs to turn her life...
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C E L A N D I N E
[ficaria verna] ➳ forthcoming.
TWO HOURS LATER, WE stood outside Russell Falls Animal Shelter as I gathered my newly-collected brochures into my backpack.
"There are way too many of these," I complained, moving a ten-pager about emergency procedures to the bottom of the stack. The wind rustled every sheet in my hands. "Isaac, this is too much work."
He didn't reply. Once I found the most important pamphlet — the one about the morning dog-walking program — and placed it at the top, I realized he was fiddling with a polka-dotted umbrella. It popped open, and he held it over our heads.
I hadn't even noticed that it was pouring rain.
"Thanks." I frowned. "Where did you get that?"
"Amy let me borrow it," he said, referring to the blond college student who had talked me through the shelter's volunteer program despite my reluctance. Her handshake had been friendly, and her enthusiasm had only grown when Isaac expressed an interest in the morning program on my behalf.
"You're gonna do it, right?" he asked after a moment, watching me shove the papers into the laptop compartment and zip my backpack shut. "I know it's a lot of reading, and the training'll take a week or two, but I swear it'll be worth it."
"I guess so," I said. I grimaced and threw my bag over my shoulder. "I'd rather hang out with dogs than Jackie Merritt."
He laughed, head tilted back. "You're so mean."
Short on comebacks, I blew my hair out of my face, taking care to stay under cover as we headed down the path. It looped around the parking lot and led up the suburban block to the closest shopping mall.
While my parents had been surprised when I called to let them know I was several kilometers outside of Newberry, they'd still been less concerned than I was. It was a good thing, according to my father, that I was getting out of our suffocating town, even if it was just for an afternoon.
"That's an ice cream shop," Isaac said, motioning to a pair of glass doors on the ground floor of a tall complex. We approached an intersection, and a few other people came up from behind to cross the street. "There's a good pizza place right next to it."
"Do you come here all the time?" I asked, looking around. Russell Falls wasn't as tiny as Newberry — it was much more alive. The only downside was that only one bus passed through both towns, and it was a long, bumpy ride.
"Just a couple times a week for work." He pointed his chin at a large brown building behind a parking lot. "That's the mall, by the way."
We cut across the empty asphalt, and Isaac held the door for me as we slipped into the warm plaza. Concrete columns bridged the tiled floor and high ceiling, and flower baskets hung above the store signs.
