Chapter 32: Dahlia

The south wall got the best morning light so that’s where I started the kitchen garden, and I was on my knees in the dirt with my playlist going from my phone propped against a terracotta pot when I heard boots on the gravel path behind me.

I didn’t bother turning around. I knew those footsteps since I was four years old.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” I said, pressing a basil seedling into the soil.

My dad set a tray of seedlings down beside mine and crouched next to me like I hadn’t s