by Ava Lohan
Kegan winced. “I can tell,” he said. “I know how you feel. It’s the same hate I have for my grandfather. The fact that he’s dead doesn’t change a thing. Now you know why I can’t be happy. You know why you can’t love me, and why I should never have asked you to stay. It’s not fair.”
I tightened my fist around my crucifix and cleared my throat. “How long did you plan on keeping this from me?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. He looked like a hopeless child. “As long as possible, I guess,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “It’s a mess.” He reached out to hold my face in his hands but changed his mind mid-air and let his palms fall to his sides. My harsh expression must have made him rethink his actions. I didn’t want him to touch me. I just wanted to forget.
“I know it was wrong to bring you here. But if I could go back in time, I know I would do it again. Just to have you in my life for two weeks, or three months.” Kegan had said the exact opposite of what I was thinking. “Just like I know that it’s all over now and that you have to leave.” He looked out the window. His voice remained firm.
Despite the distressed look on his face, he was as handsome as ever. He was a murderer. He was the man I was in love with. Kegan was perverse, he was cruel, but with that angel face and irresistible voice he had destroyed me. Our fairytale was over. The prince had turned back into a beast. I had fallen in love with a beast to whom I should have never even given a chance. My dad would have never approved of him. I knew it, yet I chose to ignore it. But what kind of daughter would I be if I chose to stay with his killer?
I knew what I had to do.
“Yes, I do. I can’t stay here another minute.” I had to get out of there. I had to go as far away as I could. Leave before he could stop me. Before he could hurt me even more. I slipped by the apartment door and down the stairs. I ran away; Kegan didn’t follow me.
The Lord put Lexi in my path as I left. I asked her to go with me and she agreed without asking any questions. My face had said it all. I somehow managed to give her the address before closing myself up in a cloud of silence.
Lexi didn’t say a word as she drove me from Lust to SoHo. She occasionally sang along to songs on the radio, but that was all. She didn’t try to get me to talk. She certainly didn’t know the truth, and I wasn’t ready to share. What Kegan had done was burning me from the inside out, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. It was too soon. Perhaps it always would be. My mind was tortured enough as it was by my memories and words both said and heard. We listened to the radio the whole trip. I really needed a friend. I needed Jenna now more than ever. Lexi stopped the car in front of the shop.
“So,” she said, hanging her head outside the window. “What the hell are we doing outside a flower shop at four o’clock in the morning?”
I’d hoped she would drop me off without asking any questions, but Lexi wasn’t the type. She’d been patient the entire drive, but she wasn’t going to let me off that easy.
“A friend of mine lives here,” I said without thinking. It wasn’t true, but it could have been. A lot of people lived above their shops. It probably wasn’t true in Jenna’s case, but it was a credible lie.
I took my phone out of my pocket. But instead of dialing a fake number, I couldn’t help but look at the picture of Kegan on the screen. His sexy smile made me lose my train of thought; I couldn’t remember what I was doing. Everything around me disappeared and all I could see were his green eyes. I traced the outline of his face on the screen with my index finger. I would never touch that face again.
“Is your friend gonna open the door or what?”
I jumped, startled, and turned to look at Lexi. “I sent her a message. She’ll be down in five minutes. You can go. Thanks for the ride.”
“Yeah, right,” she said, opening the door and getting out of the car. The music kept playing. I turned off the radio in fear we would wake someone up. Lexi bent down to look at me through the open window. “You go inside and I’ll go away. You stay here and I’ll stay here. Simple.”
I snorted and got out of the car too. “It will just be a minute—you can go, really,” I repeated in vain.
Lexi was leaning against the car and puffing on a cigarette. She shook her head. Damn, she was hardheaded. “I’m not leaving you here in the middle of the night. Do you know what would happen to me if something happened to you?” She didn’t give me time to answer. “I’d be fired immediately. You are my responsibility now. And anyway, I drove for over two hours. I deserve to know why.” She flashed me a smile. “Come on,” she insisted. “I won’t tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m not gonna risk losing my job.”
I rolled my eyes and regretted asking her. I should have just called a taxi. I cursed the cigarette between her lips. “We’re here because Kegan is a bastard.”
“Yeah, and?” she chuckled.
“No, Lexi,” I said firmly. “You don’t understand.”
She stopped smiling.
“He…” I said, trying to breathe. I clenched my fists, gritted my teeth, and shut my eyes tight, trying to contain myself. “He killed my parents.” And with those words I let myself go. I couldn’t keep the pain in any longer. I felt tears rolling down from my eyes.
“What the fuck…?” Lexi exclaimed, unable to finish her thought. Her cigarette fell to the ground and she stomped it out with her heel.
“His motorcycle. The accident.”
I’d never seen her so upset. Lexi knew that Kegan didn’t ride his motorcycles anymore—that is, until the day we’d gone out together. But she’d never asked herself why. Nobody had known except Finn. Now I knew why Finn had said Kegan would destroy me. And it had nothing to do with refusing to be with me, or making me watch him that night with the Turners. He knew Kegan would destroy me because sooner or later, I would discover his secret. Finn had been right all along. Kegan had completely annihilated me. The pain I'd felt when I saw him with Tereza was nothing in comparison to this. I heard a window open. Lexi’s face was still shocked, and if we were in any other circumstance, I would have found it amusing. She ran a hand through her hair. I imagined she was looking for the right words to say, but nothing she could say would ever be right. She opened her mouth as if she were ready to speak.
“Don’t say anything,” I said.
Lexi nodded and just kept staring at me, trying to compose herself. I turned around and looked at the neon sign hanging over the door of the flower shop that I still hadn’t found the courage to enter.
“Nobody’s expecting me,” I confessed to Lexi. “There’s no—”
“Rose?”
But it wasn’t Lexi’s voice that spoke.
“Rose, is that you?”
The voice wasn’t Lexi’s, but it wasn’t a stranger’s either. My heart began beating wildly. I hadn’t heard that voice in years. I looked up and saw a face that I knew so well. It had been three years, but she hadn’t changed one bit. Jenna. Jenna was staring at me from the second-floor window. We looked at each other for a long time without saying a word as our past flew through my minds. It felt like it had been merely days since the last time I’d seen her. Great moments and awful ones too: I was reliving it all. We stared at each other; the feeling was indescribable, a mixture of joy and fear. I wanted to run toward her and get away from there. Jenna looked at me like she’d just seen a ghost.
“Rose, oh my God.” She stepped away from the window. A few seconds later the door opened. She ran toward me and threw her arms around me with the strength of a tornado. I hugged her back. The tears I’d been fighting against now flowed freely down my face. Jenna was crying and laughing at the same time. I didn’t know which one of us had started it. It was like we were one. We went from sobbing to smiling to sobbing again, our cheeks stained with tears as we pushed our foreheads together. I could see my eyes reflecting in hers. “I missed you.”
And with those three words, Jenna mended the heart that Kegan had broken. I was just about to tel
l her that I missed her more when a fake cough interrupted me. Lexi. I’d almost forgotten about her. She was already back in the car.
“Well,” she said, looking at us together. “I guess I can leave now.”
I said goodbye and she started the car.
“Call me if you need anything,” she said as she put the car in drive.
I watched her disappear around the corner until Jenna pulled on my arm.
“You’re here. I can’t believe it.” She was elated. “How did you find me?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, hugging her again.
“There’s time,” she whispered.
She took me by the hand and led me to her apartment.
Jenna’s apartment was small but cozy. In the center of the living room was a baby’s playpen. Looking around the room, I noticed several more baby toys and a bottle on the kitchen table.
“Do you live here alone?” I asked.
“More or less,” she said, looking me up and down with a worried look. “Sorry to say this, but you look awful. You look like you’ve just run away from home. Do you even have a bag?”
“That’s more or less the truth,” I replied, smiling like an idiot. “I have a cellphone...” I said, pulling it out of my pocket, “…my wallet, and the clothes on my back.”
I’d considered packing my suitcase before I left Lust, but bringing my bag with me just meant dragging memories of Kegan along. The white jeans, my black tee, the lingerie set with hearts. Everything was tied to memories that I had to erase. I had to start over. From scratch. Without anything that could make me think about him or Lust.
“What are you doing at my place at four o’clock in the morning?”
I shrugged. “And what are you doing awake at four o’clock in the morning?”
Jenna rolled her eyes. “Come see.”
I followed Jenna into her bedroom. There was a huge picture of her and a baby hanging on the wall. Then I saw it: the crib with a sleeping baby. I looked at the boy in shock. Jenna had a son. I was speechless. She’d always said she didn’t want kids. And now here she was, with a boy who couldn’t have been more than two. I’d seen the toys scattered around the house, but I’d just figured she lived with a young mom. I expected Paul to pop out from around a corner any minute and felt a wave of anxiety course through my body. Luckily, nothing happened and I calmed down. Even if thinking about him no longer had any effect over me, it would still be embarrassing to see him again.
“This is Jethro. He’s the reason I was smoking at the window. He woke up about half an hour ago and wanted something to eat.” She ran her fingers through her hair and looked at him with loving eyes. “He’s a champ at waking up in the middle of the night.”
I moved closer to the crib. “Jethro, like our P.E. teacher.”
She couldn’t help but smile. “Exactly,” she confirmed. “We were all in love with him. I was so jealous when you said you guys did it in the locker room.”
“It was a lie,” I admitted.
“Too bad.”
After a few seconds of silence, we both burst out laughing. Luckily, Jethro didn’t wake up.
“Where’s Paul?”
She shook her head. “He and I broke up shortly after your parents’ accident.” She dove onto the bed and patted her hand on the mattress, inviting me to sit down next to her. “I got into Yale,” she said, reaching for my hand. “And then, at a frat party, I got seriously wasted. It was insane. And Jethro here is the result. His father doesn’t even want to see him. My parents wanted me to have an abortion, but I just couldn’t do it, so I came to live with my aunt in New York. I always hated flowers, but here I am, working in a flower shop. Now I know more about plants than anything else.”
“I wrote to you. The whole time I was at the convent. I hardly did anything else.” I thought back to all the days I’d spent hoping she would respond. “I wrote, I called. I tried everything.”
Jenna sighed. “My mom forwarded me all your letters,” she confessed. “I knew you were close by, but I was so ashamed. I was…” She turned to face me. “I was pregnant and you were in a convent. I didn’t know what you’d think of me. And I was so ashamed of how I’d treated you in Florida. That I didn’t help you after your parents died. I just thought you were better off without me,” she said, smiling shyly. She looked like she was about to cry again. “I never even really cared about you and Paul. I never wrote you back because I was ashamed. After that night, I realized I didn’t even really love him. I think I was just attracted to the fact that he played football. And he was so popular. He never made me feel butterflies in my stomach. I don’t even know if that’s a real thing.”
“It is,” I muttered, thinking about Kegan.
Butterflies in my stomach, my heart beating in my chest, feeling like I was unstoppable, Kegan had taught me that it was all real. He'd given me all of those things. Then he’d ripped them away. We sat next to each other in silence, both staring at the ceiling. I couldn’t get Kegan out of my head. There he was, stuck in my brain, and in my heart. He just wouldn’t leave me alone.
“I wasn’t in love with Paul either, really. I only thought I was at the time,” I said.
Paul had been a mere crush that I'd gotten over in no time. Kegan, on the other hand, wouldn’t be so easy, not even with the help of the best psychologists in the world. I squeezed Jenna’s hand. I had to stop thinking about him.
“Kegan…” I started, but quickly fell silent.
I regretted saying his name. My stomach sank as soon as my ears heard it. The very sound of it was so beautiful but so painful. It drained all the energy I had left. I had just promised myself I wouldn’t think about him anymore, and what was the first thing I had done when I’d had a chance to speak? I’d said his name. I sat in silence with my lips parted. Jenna didn’t prod me; she simply stroked my cheek, showing me that she understood the effect that name had on me.
“He was the one who found you,” I continued, my voice full of sadness. “I came to the flower shop so many times, but I never had the guts to come in. I was so scared you would just kick me out.”
“We were both afraid,” Jenna whispered. “But now you’re here to stay.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“The asshole is here,” Jenna yelled, throwing open the door to the backroom of the flower shop, where I was feeding Jethro. I hoped I hadn’t heard her right. I sat there with the fork in mid-air while Jethro waved his arms from his high chair. Finally, he managed to hit the fork and sent the last bit of mashed potatoes flying. I absentmindedly cleaned it up. Kegan in the flower shop. I must have heard her wrong.
A few months had passed. I felt like a drug addict in rehab, trying to detox. But my body wouldn’t let me forget about him. My lips did nothing but remind me of how much I liked kissing him and how much I missed it. Every part of me remembered every single thing about him; every day was torture. All I could do was picture him working at Lust. His hands all over his clients’ bodies for money. Him. Without me. Then I would remember he’d caused my parents’ accident, and all the guilt I'd felt for missing him would turn into shame. I hated myself. I hated the weak girl he had turned me into. I hated that I still couldn’t get over his confession. Despite me cutting him out of my life, Kegan was still tormenting me.
But he only lived two hours away and knew the address of the flower shop by heart, so he really could’ve been here, mere yards from where I was sitting. I’d spent the past months secretly hoping he would come one day, but he never came, and I thought he never would. It wasn’t like him to come to me. It was something I’d equally hoped for and feared. He’d let me go. He would never come for me.
Jethro started to cry. Jenna picked him up. “The asshole is here,” she repeated in an annoyed voice.
I sighed. It took all my willpower to not storm out into the shop and slap Kegan across the face. That was exactly what I wanted to do. No kiss, no reconciliation. Just a slap across the face and a few kicks in the ass b
ecause he still had so much control over my mind when he no longer had the right. “I don’t want to see him.”
“He brought a bag that he wants to give to you personally. He also had the balls to ask me to make you a bouquet. I am doing my best not to scream at him. I need to cool down for a few seconds before I make your damn bouquet.”
Jenna was beside herself. Jethro, on the other hand, had calmed down and was playing happily in his playpen.
I frowned. “Kegan doesn’t do flowers.” In the two and a half months we had lived together, not once had he given me a single flower. I’d thought he hated plants or something. The only flower I’d ever seen in his apartment was the rose. “Are you sure it’s him?” It all seemed so bizarre; my mind kept telling me that Kegan would never do something like this.
“Who else could it be? He asked for you. And he’s an asshole. I can always recognize an asshole by how they stand. And this one’s a serious asshole.” Her logic was simple: there was an asshole in the shop, and it had to be Kegan.
Jenna knew everything, from the fake deal to save the convent, to what had happened between us and how he was responsible for my parents’ death. When I was angry, she’d tell me to forget him. When I would cry, she’d suggest that I call him and try to forgive him. That the accident would have happened anyway. She always based her advice on my mood. She didn’t seem to know definitively what I should do. I could tell by the look on her face that her current advice would be to kick him to the curb.
The door to the backroom flew open and we both turned around. It was Jenna’s aunt. “The customer is waiting for his bouquet,” she said. “He started choosing flowers—they’re on the counter. But he is still picking them out. He looks confused… I think he needs some advice. Since you were serving him—”
Jenna didn’t let her finish. “I’ll go help the asshole. Watch Jethro.”