Flowers for Rachel

White Lilies

"So, do you want to talk about?" I probed, cautiously approaching Beth as she crushes the last remaining petal.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Beth blasted back, eyeing me wearily.

Confused, I give her a questionable look after searching for the meaning of red tulips on my phone. "About what?"

"That you somehow know Deloris' hot grandson," she said matter of factly, making my stomach buzz with an unfamiliar feeling that's entirely alien.

"He's hot? Hmm...I didn't notice," I muttered, averting my gaze to block her perceptiveness from extracting the truth out of me.

Rolling her eyes, Beth directs a mocking smile at my face. "Yeah, right."

Clearing my throat, I swallow hard and sit next to her on the couch. "I really can't remember anything. You know how bad I am with faces and names."

"Seriously, you don't recall a thing? No boy you ever played with when you came over during summers?"

"Who dear?" asked Gillian, walking in with a fresh loaf of banana bread and setting the coffee table with a french press and some cups.

"A boy Rachel played with when she was younger. Did she have friends here, aunt Gill?" Beth questioned, grabbing a slice of the loaf and adding a spoon of sugar mechanically into a cup before pouring the steamy black coffee in.

Straightening, aunt Gill suspends all activity and ponders on the question. Her face goes from being clouded to clear as she snaps her fingers from a fond moment in time. "Oh, yes! How could I ever forget? Little Constantine! I'm sure he's down here now visiting Deloris, I think I saw him at yesterday's meeting. Back then, Rachel used to run around calling him Consta. It was really adorable."

Great-aunt Gillian's walk down memory lane triggers something in my own mind as the mention of a childhood name suddenly illustrates snapshots of summers past, a boy in each and every one. "Consta..." I whispered, my lips uttering the name with amity and a sense of simply knowing, like reclaiming something I thought I had lost.

"I remember," I said slowly, turning to Beth who eyes me over the rim of her cup.

"Then go say hi," she muttered, finally saying something after a moment's pause to eat a bit of loaf.

"I..." I trailed, gulping my coffee that sloshes in its cup to find the courage to do just that. I needed to apologise to a friend tied to distant good memories.

Smacking my lips after swallowing the last drips of caffeine, I rise from the couch and turn sharply on my heel, into sneakers, and out the door but backtrack and look Beth dead in the eyes. "When I'm back, we can talk about you and Rowan and how you destroyed a flower representing perfect love," I quickly huffed, grinning when I hear her groan at my retreating footsteps.

I don't even know if he'll be home or if Deloris is in, but showing up randomly now may be the only chance I'll give myself before backing down forever and going into hiding; I habitually hide from things that remind me of humiliation or could result in future embarrassment. I'd rather save myself the trouble and tip toe around such instances than face them head on. Is it cowardly? Yeah...maybe. But does it prevent me from wanting to smack my head against a wall? Absolutely.

Ringing the doorbell that whirs as fast as my own heartbeat, I try to prepare my mind for every possible outcome but come up short when Constantine himself answers the door and leans against it's frame casually, his signature smirk spread across his mouth with a sense of ease.

Okay...I was not expecting him to answer.

Opening my mouth to say something intelligible, I end up forming a hallow 'O' with nothing coming out and this only makes him chuckle before nearing closer and shutting the door behind him.

"Your face says you remember," he said, grinning when I nod in the affirmative.

Eyes shyly planted on my shoes, I slowly raise my head but focus on his sweater. "Yeah, thanks to aunt Gill. She reminded me that I used to call you Consta and then I remembered how you and I joked that - "

"It would be the best worst rapper name," he finished, before we both glance at each other and break into a laugh.

"So do I ask how are you? Is now a good time?" I questioned lightly, eyes crinkling with humour.

Constantine's mouth forms a thin line as his gaze narrows down at me. "You can ask me over some lunch, which you definitely owe as compensation for forgetting."

"That...seems fair," I gushed out with a blush after hesitating briefly.

"And I'm coming too!" Burst a third voice sounding from a window not too far from where we stand. Silas juts his head out and waves before materialising at the front door.

Tilting my head sideways and sending my tied hair swinging, I give Silas an apologetic look. "Um, just to be clear. I owe him lunch, not you."

"Hey! That hurts," he returned dejectedly while Consta laughs and I glance between the two of them nervously, cautiously walking down the street as they follow.

"So where are we going?" Constantine asked, pulling up alongside me onto the left and Silas steps into place on the right.

"There's actually a local cafe not too far from here," I replied, not daring to look either one of them in the eye when they were pressed this close to me.

We're almost halfway across the street when Silas taps a finger against my shoulder and points to the Everheart house. "Shouldn't you stop over at your aunt's place though?"

"Why?" I asked, scrunching my brows. I had everything I needed tucked into the pockets of my coat; my phone, credit card, ID, and even my bus pass.

"Don't you need to get a new delivery of flowers?" he countered, making the blood from my face drain as it goes ghostly pale.

And how does he know that I receive flowers at noon?

Is there a chance that Nora was right? Is it really one of the grandsons sending me flowers? And is it Silas?

"Yeah, I do," I mumbled, heading back to the house and watch Silas closely as I accept white flowers from a grinning courier who relays "flowers for Rachel," the three words I've heard constantly for a month.

"Those are lilies," Silas added, glancing down at the bouquet filled with flowers that have six petals each and some speckled with spots on their outer rims.

This can't be a coincidence.

And I continue to eye him with surmounting suspicion and a rising feeling of distrust, all the way to the cafe and at lunch where he continually sends me carefree smiles. The only thing that holds me back from unleashing a flood of questions at him is a particular glint in Constantine's eyes that never wanes.