Laying wide awake in bed, I glare at my bedroom ceiling as the morning sun tosses beams across its surface and wonder if last night's talk with Constantine contains more than I can imagine, bottling overcharged feelings that are begging to be unleashed.
I never denied liking him.
I could have, but I didn't.
He could have asked me and I could have explained myself, forming a a carefully webbed reply of denial and ensuring that we remain forever anchored in the friend zone. But the fact of the matter is, that Constantine didn't ask and I didn't materialise a rejection with my words.
My gaze drifts to the flowers arranged in organised disarray over the floor, on my vanity, and the windowsill, blooming with life by the touch of sunshine. Their presence is like a slap of reality, reminding me that I had a secret admirer to discover and that I'm in no position to throw myself into a string of 'what ifs' in regards to Constantine.
Shoving the comforter aside, I take the stairs one at a time with begrudging steps and begin the task of preparing breakfast with a pout sculpted onto my face.
"What's wrong, Rachel?" Aunt Gill asked worriedly, placing a tender hand against my back and giving it a gentle rub.
"Possibly everything," I groaned with a touch of melodrama.
A wobbly smile tugs at a corner of her mouth and her eyes shine with perceptiveness. "Is it one of Deloris' grandsons?"
"I think I might like him, aunt Gill," I admitted, sucking in a breath and suspending everything at once in order to process the guilt, the desire, and the relief that intermingle as a trifecta of rushing emotions.
"Hardly a crime, dear," muttered Gill, her features filtered by amusement.
Plopping down onto a chair where the table is spread out with a coffee pot, eggs, bread, and some butter, I nibble on a slice of toast grimly. "But what if I tell him that and it ruins everything?"
"This again?" Gill burst, shaking her head in exasperation before a low and lengthy sigh escapes her lips.
"I can't help it!" I defended meekly, further discouraged by the steely glare sent flying at me.
"Rachel Everheart. Either you go and directly ask those boys whether one is your secret admirer and whether the other feels the same about you, or sit here and bask in your unsettled nerves. Nothing will come out of indecision."
Great-aunt Gill's tone is stiff and piled with accusation that targets my fickle heart into taking a leap of faith. She doesn't know that the former brother isn't a worry anymore, since Constantine ruled him out instantly. What really needs to be dealt with are the nagging feelings which persistently demand I put an end to us just as friends, welcoming spring with a sense of pluckiness to be daring and bold.
"Even if Constantine doesn't feel the same way as you, would it be so awful?" Gill whispered.
"I'll forever be embarrassed by it," I objected heatedly in childish anguish.
I don't care what anyone says, no matter how old you get or how many years go by, the first bundle of messy feelings you have for someone make you feel as if you're choking on air while a wrench is deeply lodged at your centre.
"Then feel the notions, dear. Get what you've got in you, out of your system and tell him. It'll hurt more to see him everyday and not muster up the courage. Whatever happened to my great-niece who likes telling people to piss off?"
Cracking a trembling smile, I shake my head at her hearty cackle. "I don't actually say that. I just think it."
"Well, it's time that you actually did."
***********
I can do this.
No I can't.
My hand hovers, frozen in air against Deloris' door with a heart racing at a velocity as if it's about to leap and run out of my chest. Aunt Gill was right. Inaction will only cause regrets and keep me up at night with a truckload of questions coursing through my mind.
So what if Constantine says no? I'll die from the embarrassment of rejection, weep under the covers, go through a few stages of grief, cuss at myself, and then go right back to normal without a crack to my exterior facade.
What could possibly go wrong?
Everything.
My bottom lip trembles and I gnaw at it to prevent it from shaking. I haven't felt this scared and alive in so long. Every single day is spent going to classes, doing assignments, mentally throwing bricks at customers at work, and workplace gossip.
The only exciting thing to have happened to me is receiving flowers from a mysterious stranger who looks at a boring girl as she hops off the bus from work or reads her flash cards for school and thinks that there's something about her that's worthwhile.
"Rachel?" Deloris' quivering voice breaks the silence and my eyes sharply turn to her leaning out of the same window Silas stuck his head from.
"Hi, Del. Is Constantine home?" I fumbled out nervously.
A steady and slow smile graces her lips with red lipstick, an effulge of her youth splintering through and challenging time itself. "You two are inseparable and always have been. Why don't you come inside? He's gone out for a bit."
Walking inside, I follow her firm instructions and plant myself on a chair in her living room as she serves me a glass of iced tea. Swallowing the sweet and bitter drink with bouts of nervousness since my objective for coming still hasn't been exacted, my eyes dart around the room and land on a book which immediately seizes my heart with a tight grip.
"Del, can I ask you something?" I asked in a mere whisper, my entire face glued to a book by a lamp set on a side table.
Grinning languidly, she sits in a chair opposite and crosses her legs, raising her glass of iced tea to salute the inquiry. "Of course!"
"When did Constantine arrive in Malamute?"
She taps a finger against her chin, willing her brain to showcase its remarkable memory since Deloris never forgets a time or a place. "Let's see, probably a month ago. He said he wanted to take the spring semester off and come down here to get a break."
"So he avoided me?" I heaved, releasing a disgruntled sigh of dismay.
Waving her hand with a rapid shake, Deloris shrugs aside my worried glance. "Nonsense! I did think the same thing at some point, but he kept telling me that he was sending you messages and was waiting for the right time to see you in person. I just assumed you two were texting. He did go back to the city to stay with his parents for a time, but he told me everything was arranged and he'd be back. Him and Silas came on the day of the association meeting."
Her words make my blood run cold, not from fear but from mangled hope. That what I feel is felt as equally and that the mysteries of a hooded figure blotted out like a black shadow is materialising into someone I've given my heart to.
"Can I see that book, please?"
"The Language of Flowers from the Victorian Period? I guess you're taking an interest since you've been getting so many," she said, nodding as I take the book's spine into my hands and begin flipping through its pages and then raise my head to give Deloris a blushing wide eyed look.
"They're messages," I stated finally, my heart performing a circus act filled with flips and cartwheels.
They're all there. Every single flower I've received in the past week, in the week that we've met face to face and all the assortments and flowers delivered in the last month.
I had it all wrong.
The flowers aren't generic messages but love letters.
"Just one more question," I pleaded softly, my voice on the edge of breaking.
"What is it?"
"Does Constantine have a middle name starting with K?" I asked with a fleeting sense of dread as all the pieces fit except that one feature. The massive K on every card.
"No, but Rachel didn't you know? His first name is spelt with a K."
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...
