Love Without Her Note

Synopsis

In the third year of our marriage, I caught a whiff of a perfume on Derek Carter that wasn't mine. It was Givenchy's limited edition. The top notes were a crisp orange, with a faint trace of bitter almond. The heart notes carried the lingering tuberose, blended with the scent of jasmine. The base notes brought a subtle vetiver, mixed with an almost undetectable patchouli. That fragrance, for some reason, made me think of Iris Reed, his archnemesis, who was still recuperating in Sliden. Their story was like the fragrance of this bottle of perfume. Bitter and stifling, their feelings overwhelmed the two of them. Buried beneath the surface, their hearts were hopelessly tangled, caught in a web of love and hate with no escape. And I was just a meaningless tag attached to that perfume, close enough to sense it, but never really part of their tangled mess of love and hate. Our nose always knew before our heart did.