“David! This is beautiful!” Laurel said breathlessly, stretching up on her toes to kiss him, glad they were just out of sight of the house, in case either of her parents came home for lunch—which they usually didn’t. “When did you do this?”

“There was a reason you couldn’t find me this morning,” he said sheepishly.

“David Lawson!” Laurel gasped with mock sternness. “What is the world coming to when Del Norte’s star student is skipping his classes?”

He shrugged, then grinned. “Some things are more important than my GPA.”

After a brief hesitation, Laurel asked, “Did I…forget some special occasion?”

David shook his head. “Nope. I just thought that we’ve both been under so much stress lately that we haven’t really had any good together-time.”

Laurel reached her arms around David’s neck and kissed him. “I think this is definitely going to make up for it.”

“That’s the idea,” he replied. “Have a seat.” She sat cross-legged on the blanket and he dropped to the ground behind her. “One more thing,” he said, his hands slipping around her waist, just under her shirt. Laurel smiled as he worked at the knot in her sash, but he eventually managed it and pushed her shirt back so her blossom could splay out behind her. “Much better,” David said. He poured them each a glass of cider and they lay propped up on the pillows, with Laurel snuggled against David’s chest.

“This is awesome,” Laurel said lazily. David held up a slice of nectarine; she laughed as he avoided her hands and held the fruit toward her face. She tilted her head back and opened her mouth. She leaned forward at the last second, her teeth biting lightly at his fingers. Then she let his hand go and pressed her mouth against his lips instead. His fingers trailed over the bare skin, now showing between the top of her jeans and the hem of her shirt, caressing her softly, gently, tentatively. Even after a year he always touched her that way, as if it was a privilege he wasn’t entirely convinced he had earned.

He tasted like apples and nectarines, and the smell from the grass had seeped into his clothes. Laurel often noticed the biological differences between the two of them, but today they seemed the same. With the smell and taste of nature all around him, David could almost have been a faerie.

“How is your blossom?” David asked, stroking it very gently.

“It’s okay now,” Laurel said. “The first couple of days it still ached, but I think it’s going to be fine.” She craned her neck, trying to see the damaged side. “I hate the way it’s healing, though. The ends are dry and brown. It’s really not very pretty.”

“But it was some major damage,” David said. He kissed her forehead. “It will grow back next year and will be as beautiful as ever.”

“Wow, next year,” Laurel said. “I can hardly even imagine next year. Sometimes it feels like this year will never end.”

“And last year—doesn’t it seem like ages ago? So much has happened.” David laughed. “Would you have imagined a year ago that we’d be lying here today?”

Laurel just smiled and shook her head. “I thought I was on death’s door last year.”

“What do you think we’ll be doing next year?”

“This same thing, I hope,” Laurel said, snuggling against him.

“Well, other than that.” He lay back, lacing his fingers together to support his head. Laurel rolled onto her side, her stomach pressed against his ribs. “I mean, senior year next year. We’ll be picking colleges and stuff.”

Laurel’s heart sank and she looked away from him. Ever since Chelsea had brought up the SAT tests the thought of her educational future had been a little hard to think about. “I don’t think college is in my future.”

“What? Why not?”

“I imagine they’ll want me at the Academy full-time,” she said, a little despondently.

David propped his head up on his elbow so he could look at her. “I always figured you would study at the Academy off and on—maybe full-time eventually—but that doesn’t mean you can’t go to college.”

“What would be the point?” Laurel shrugged. “It’s not like I’m going to have a career someday. I’m a faerie.”

“So?”

“They’ll want me to do…faerie stuff.” She gestured vaguely with her hands.

David pursed his lips. “What does it matter what they want? What do you want?”

“I…don’t really know, I guess. What else would I do?”

“You’re way more than just a faerie, Laurel. You have this opportunity to do something most faeries never get to do. To live like a human. To make that choice.”

“But they’ll never see any of that as important. The only thing that matters to anyone in Avalon is that I learn how to be a Fall faerie—and that I inherit the land.”

“It doesn’t matter what they think is important. You’re the one who decides what’s important. Same with anything in life. The value you give it is the only value it has.” He paused. “Don’t let them convince you that humans aren’t important,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “If you think we’re important, then we are.”

“But what would I do?”

“What did you want to do before you found out you were a faerie?”