It Ends With Us

“What brought you to Boston?”

“My residency. And my sister lives here.” He taps his foot and says, “Right beneath us, actually. Married a tech-savvy Bostonian and they bought the entire top floor.”

I look down. “The entire top floor?”

He nods. “Lucky bastard works from home. Doesn’t even have to change out of his pajamas and makes seven figures a year.”

Lucky bastard, indeed.

“What kind of residency? Are you a doctor?”

He nods. “Neurosurgeon. Less than a year left of my residency and then it’s official.”

Stylish, well spoken, and smart. And smokes pot. If this were an SAT question, I would ask which one didn’t belong. “Should doctors be smoking weed?”

He smirks. “Probably not. But if we didn’t indulge on occasion, there would be a lot more of us taking the leap over these ledges, I can promise you that.” He’s facing forward again with his chin resting on his arms. His eyes are closed now, like he’s enjoying the wind against his face. He doesn’t look as intimidating like this.

“You want to know something that only the locals know?”

“Of course,” he says, bringing his attention back to me.

I point to the east. “See that building? The one with the green roof?”

He nods.

“There’s a building behind it on Melcher. There’s a house on top of the building. Like a legit house, built right on the rooftop. You can’t see it from the street, and the building is so tall that not many people even know about it.”

He looks impressed. “Really?”

I nod. “I saw it when I was searching Google Earth, so I looked it up. Apparently a permit was granted for the construction in 1982. How cool would that be? To live in a house on top of a building?”

“You’d get the whole roof to yourself,” he says.

I hadn’t thought of that. If I owned it I could plant gardens up there. I’d have an outlet.

“Who lives there?” he asks.

“No one really knows. It’s one of the great mysteries of Boston.”

He laughs and then looks at me inquisitively. “What’s another great mystery of Boston?”

“Your name.” As soon as I say it, I slap my hand against my forehead. It sounded so much like a cheesy pickup line; the only thing I can do is laugh at myself.

He smiles. “It’s Ryle,” he says. “Ryle Kincaid.”

I sigh, sinking into myself. “That’s a really great name.”

“Why do you sound sad about it?”

“Because, I’d give anything for a great name.”

“You don’t like the name Lily?”

I tilt my head and cock an eyebrow. “My last name . . . is Bloom.”

He’s quiet. I can feel him trying to hold back his pity.

“I know. It’s awful. It’s the name of a two-year-old little girl, not a twenty-three-year-old woman.”

“A two-year-old girl will have the same name no matter how old she gets. Names aren’t something we eventually grow out of, Lily Bloom.”

“Unfortunately for me,” I say. “But what makes it even worse is that I absolutely love gardening. I love flowers. Plants. Growing things. It’s my passion. It’s always been my dream to open a florist shop, but I’m afraid if I did, people wouldn’t think my desire was authentic. They would think I was trying to capitalize off my name and that being a florist isn’t really my dream job.”

“Maybe so,” he says. “But what’s that matter?”

“It doesn’t, I suppose.” I catch myself whispering, “Lily Bloom’s” quietly. I can see him smiling a little bit. “It really is a great name for a florist. But I have a master’s degree in business. I’d be downgrading, don’t you think? I work for the biggest marketing firm in Boston.”

“Owning your own business isn’t downgrading,” he says.

I raise an eyebrow. “Unless it flops.”

He nods in agreement. “Unless it flops,” he says. “So what’s your middle name, Lily Bloom?”

I groan, which makes him perk up.

“You mean it gets worse?”

I drop my head in my hands and nod.

“Rose?”

I shake my head. “Worse.”

“Violet?”

“I wish.” I cringe and then mutter, “Blossom.”

There’s a moment of silence. “Goddamn,” he says softly.

“Yeah. Blossom is my mother’s maiden name and my parents thought it was fate that their last names were synonyms. So of course when they had me, a flower was their first choice.”

“Your parents must be real assholes.”

One of them is. Was. “My father died this week.”

He glances at me. “Nice try. I’m not falling for that.”

“I’m serious. That’s why I came up here tonight. I think I just needed a good cry.”

He stares at me suspiciously for a moment to make sure I’m not pulling his leg. He doesn’t apologize for the blunder. Instead, his eyes grow a little more curious, like his intrigue is actually authentic. “Were you close?”

That’s a hard question. I rest my chin on my arms and look down at the street again. “I don’t know,” I say with a shrug. “As his daughter, I loved him. But as a human, I hated him.”

I can feel him watching me for a moment, and then he says, “I like that. Your honesty.”