I walk into my house after an incredibly long day at work and pause in the doorway, my eyes roaming over the hundreds of peonies filling the room. Mom smiles up at me, a beautiful bouquet in her hands.
“Honey, if you don’t speak to him, he’ll just keep sending you flowers.”
“Donate them.”
We’ve been donating flowers to a different charity every day, for weeks now. Alec knows I don’t ever keep them, yet somehow new flowers appear in my house every single day. Mom denies it, but I know she’s colluding with him.
I shake my head and walk towards the staircase, ignoring the flowers. How does he even know that peonies are my favorite? Was that part of his background check too?
“I had the staff put the bouquets with notes on them in your bedroom,” Mom says, and I pause on the stairs. The notes… it’s the notes that always get to me.
“You should’ve thrown them out.”
My heart is racing as I walk into my bedroom, dozens of bouquets covering every horizontal surface in my room. I hate myself for looking forward to these, but I can’t help it. I sink to my knees and grab the bouquet closest to me, lifting the card from the flowers carefully. Just seeing his handwriting sends a pang of longing through my heart.
The three best things that happened today were the following:
1. Catching you sneak a glimpse at me from your bedroom window this morning
2. Writing you this note. It makes me feel like I still get to talk to you, even though you blocked me everywhere. Seriously, baby, unblock me. I miss you.
3. Loving you. Spending my days loving you makes every day great by default
I raise the note to my chest and clutch it tightly. It’s been weeks. He’s been sending me flowers for weeks, without relenting. I was certain that he’d get bored with this, with the chase. I can’t tell if I’ve just become another conquest to him, a challenge. Is any of this real? Is this just a game to him? I wonder if he’s just seeing how long it’ll take to wear me down. I reach for the next bouquet, my hand trembling just slightly.
All I want to do is take you on a date. Just one. You think I didn’t want you until I thought I’d lose you to someone else, but that isn’t true. The only reason I ever even remotely considered letting you go was because you deserve the world, Elena. You deserve more than I can give you. I will never be good enough for you, baby. A better man would have walked away by now, but I never claimed to be a good man. All I claim to be is yours.
I pull my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around myself. Every fiber of my being is begging me to go to him. I reach for the third and last card. Every single day, there are three cards, and today is no exception.
When I proposed, I told you that divorce wasn’t an option. It still isn’t. I’ll never sign the divorce papers. I won’t let you go, Elena. I made that mistake once and I’ll never make it again. I’ll be waiting for you to come back to me for the rest of our lives.
I bite down on my lip as hard as I can in an effort to keep my tears at bay, but a lone tear drops down my cheek nonetheless. I’m shaking as I walk up to my window, knowing what I’ll find. Every morning and every evening, he’s here.
I lean against the wall, just out of view, my eyes on him. He looks thinner, his clothes looser. Even from this distance I can tell that he’s tired. Despite that, he’s got his laptop on the hood of his car, trying to get some work done. Every few seconds he glances up at my window, his expression portraying despair.
This can’t go on like this. This needs to stop.
I brace myself as I walk down the stairs. Mom smiles as I walk out, and I shake my head. I don’t understand why she’s siding with Alec, why she wants us to get back together.
Alexander straightens when I walk through the gate, his body rigid. I walk up to him, and his eyes widen.
“Elena,” he says, his voice tinged with disbelief. The way his eyes roam over my body, the desperation in his eyes… it guts me.
“Alexander, you need to stop coming here.”
He leans back against his car and crosses his arms. “No.”
I raise my brows and mirror his stance, my arms crossed over my chest. “I’m not giving you a choice.”
“Baby, you’re underestimating how far I’ll go to catch a single glimpse of you,” he says, his voice soft, pained. “I can’t sleep if I don’t see you before bed, and my days don’t start right if I don’t get to see you before work.”
I run a hand through my hair, my face tipped up toward the sky. “What will it take to get you to stop?”
Alexander smiles, and my traitorous heart skips a beat. “One date. Let me take you on a date.”
“One date?” I repeat. “If I let you take me on a date, you’ll stop coming here?”
“Yes, I promise. If you let me take you on one date, I won’t show up here uninvited anymore,” Alexander says, looking sincere, yet somehow, I don’t trust his words.
I look into his eyes, taking in the need and the desperation that he’s got on display for me. I’ve never seen him look so vulnerable before.
“Fine,” I say, the words leaving my mouth before I even have a chance to think it through properly. I walk around his car and Alec runs after me, rushing to open the door for me. “I didn’t realize you meant right now,” he says, helping me into the car.
I look up at him, brows raised. “Why, is now not a good time?”
Alec shakes his head. “No, not at all. This is perfect.” He leans over me, buckling me in, his hands lingering on my skin. His scent washes over me and my heart constricts painfully. I’ve missed him, and it’s hitting me even harder now. I look up, and my lips brush against Alec’s cheek. He inhales sharply, his eyes dropping down to my lips before he swallows hard and pulls away, tugging on his tie nervously.
I watch him as he walks back around the car and gets in. This is the closest we’ve been to each other in weeks—since that night he climbed through my window.
Alec places his hand on my thigh as he starts the car, and I look at him through narrowed eyes, eliciting a smile from him.
“Hey, you said it was a date, didn’t you?”
I purse my lips and nod. I hope I can get through this date safely. I hope that by the end of the night, what’s left of my heart will still be intact.
