Sighing, I scurry inside and shut the door of my great-aunt's home, leaving the coffee that's now a watery and flat substance on the dining table next to the white flowers.
"Again?" my cousin Beth exclaimed, staring at the innocent white flowers with disdain. She's in her pyjamas with a bowl of cereal in her hands, proof that she's just woken up from pulling an all-nighter to finish an essay in time for the deadline.
"Hey, don't blame the flowers," I said defensively, headed for the storage room to find an empty bucket big enough to place them in. I've been receiving flowers every day for an entire month now, with every square inch of the lower half of the house full of different flowers in vases and buckets, jars, glasses, and even kitchen pots.
If it's cylinder and hallow, then it's been used.
I don't know why I've been chosen as the 'destined' one and the first few deliveries of flowers, I assumed they were for Beth or even my great-aunt Gillian but on the fourth day, the delivery person specified, "for Rachel," and sealed my fate as a receiver of flora or as my neighbours now call me, 'flower girl.'
"I just don't get it, why is this person sending you this many flowers without showing themselves?" Beth continued, hot on my heels as I water the new batch and search for their meaning online through my phone.
"If I knew, all of this wouldn't be so much of a mystery to me either. All I know, is that they're trying to send me messages through them."
Lifting a hand momentarily to stop her, I read aloud my findings. "These are apple blossoms and they symbolise long life and represent spring."
"Hmm," Beth murmured philosophically.
"Does this person think I'm going to end my life or something?" I asked scoffing because as much as my life is dull and boring, I still liked it.
Suddenly gasping, Beth collapses onto the couch, knocking into a vase of sunflowers. "Oh my gosh, what if the person is kidnapped and the only way to communicate with the outside world is to send flowers as a kind of S.O.S!"
"Right, because sending them to a random college girl who lives in the town of Malamute and knows next to nothing about flowers is going to save them."
"Fine, but this is getting way out of hand. At first I thought it was insanely romantic, but now I'm beginning to think it might be psychotic."
Shaking my head, I sigh at her assumption that taints the flowers as something sinister. "If you think romance is dead, sure."
"I don't think, I know," Beth said bitingly with hurt shining in her eyes.
I might just be perceptive or my cousin too obvious, but it's clear as to why she's so against the flower deliveries. "You and Greyson broke up again?"
"Was that a high pitch inflexion in your voice?" she squawked, placing a hand on her chest to indicate the offence taken by the action.
Narrowing my eyes, I send her a sheepish look. "Maybe, depends if I'm right or not."
Beth crumples slightly, fisting her hands to prevent herself from knocking the delicate glass vase set by the lamp to her side. "Yeah we broke up, and I'd like to stab and punch everything but instead, I'm in a home brimming and blooming with romance. Literally."
"Sorry, I guess I can make it up to you with pizza?" I offered with a shrug, already placing an order because I was ravenous from work and had an online class soon.
Definitely an XL sized pizza.
"With a side of hot wings and mozzarella sticks," she added, giving me a sad performance with her head drooping dejectedly to persuade the pity in me to come out and show itself.
"Fine," I conceded, running up the stairs to change into sweats and an oversized t-shirt, yet struggle to manoeuvre around my room filled with more flowers. Aunt Gillian refused to have any flowers in her kitchen or any of the bathrooms, so my room was sacrificed to take on the role of a hardwood greenhouse. An overall enchanting scene you'd normally find in a movie with her old fashioned wallpaper that's a pale pastel green and jungle shrubbery all over it.
Grabbing my laptop, I head back downstairs and lay on the couch then login to my online class all the while eating a crumbled up granola bar in some yogurt.
As if my day hasn't been gruesome enough, learning about theories made up by some dead guys somehow makes it all the more painful but the pizza soon arrives and all is right with the world again.
See mysterious flower sender, all I need to be happy in life is pizza.
************
The next day brings with it pouring rain, turning the earth mucky as the last dregs of darkened snow turns into slush before melting and disappearing down drain pipes. Okay, so maybe my flower person was onto something since it's definitely spring now and I feel like death this morning.
I set my alarm early to go for a morning run but didn't read the forecast and ended up doing the walk of shame, completely drenched and the object of everyone's morning gossip as I caught some of my neighbours sipping their morning coffees with mild derision on their faces that peered through their windows.
Trudging home, I took a hot shower and consumed a quick breakfast of toast and tea and then emerged back into the rain to catch a bus headed for my college campus. The only reason I moved in with my great-aunt is because I got into the school of my choice, and life has a funny way of hurling you back into places you wish to escape from.
Malamute is my mom's hometown and one she ran away from the moment she had a chance. She called it oppressively slow and sheltered, even if my childhood memories of trips taken to visit Gillian are retrospectively aglow with warmth.
Goes to show that the same places and the same moments are felt differently by all of us.
Heading for my earliest class of the day, I drown out the noise with my headphones and only take them off once the lecture begins. Once it's over two hours later, I immediately place them back on and climb three flights of stairs in the same building for my Crime & Punishment course, falling into a spring semester's routine.
It's almost two o'clock by the time I hop off the bus on Langston street, my cheap umbrella hardly shielding me from the onslaught of rain that's turned lethal. Grunting all the way home, the useless thing drops out of my hands as I stare at a hooded figure who gently places a set of flowers wrapped in protective plastic down onto the porch with care.
The sound of the umbrella hitting the sidewalk alerts the stranger who makes a run for it down the street before I have a chance to call out, blinded by the rain.
"Wait!" I yelled, a few seconds too late.
Met by silence, I pick up the flowers and instantly recognise them to be daisies.
"Who are you?" I mumbled, shivering from the cold and the encounter with my mystery man because it was a man I saw, tall and hooded.
YOU ARE READING
Flowers for Rachel
Romance| FEATURED | Every day, Rachel Everheart comes home from her deadbeat retail job to a mysterious delivery of flowers, each bouquet different from the last and with their own intended meaning. Romantic, right? But she doesn't know who the sender is o...
