Excerpt of Thief by Tarryn Fisher

Once, during her senior year, she bought a gardenia bush to
put outside her apartment. She fawned over that thing like
it was a dog; googled ways to take care of it and then made
notes in one of those spiral notebooks. She’d even named
it-Patricia-I think. Every day she’d squat on her haunches
outside her front door, and examine Patricia to see if it
had bloomed a flower. I’d watch her face when she came back
inside, she always wore this look of hopeful determination.
Not yet-she’d say to me, as if all of her hope for life was
tied in to that gardenia plant blooming a flower. That’s
what I loved about her; that grim determination to survive
even though the odds seemed to always be against her.

Despite all of Olivia’s plant nurturing, Patricia had slowly
started to fade away; her leaves curling at the tips and
turning brown. Olivia would stare at that plant, a crease
forming between her eyebrows and her little mouth puckered
in a frown worth kissing. Florida had an especially cold
winter the year. One morning when I got to her apartment
Patricia was clearly dead. I’d jumped into my car and sped
off to Home Depot where I’d seen them selling the same
bushes. Before my little love cracked her eyes open, I’d
replaced her dead plant with a healthy one, repotting it
over the grass in front of her building. I’d thrown the old
one in the dumpster and washed my hands in the pool before
knocking on her door.

She’d checked on it when she opened the door for me that
morning, her eyes lighting up when she saw the healthy green
leaves. I don’t know if she ever suspected what I’d done,
she’d never said anything.

I took take of it without her knowing. Sticking plant food
into the pot before I knocked on her door. My mother always
put used tea bags in the soil around her rose bushes. I did
that a couple times too. Right before we broke up that damn
plant bloomed a flower. I’d never seen her so excited. The
look on her face was the same as when I’d missed the shot
for her.