Chapter 4

I finished tidying up the shop, locked the door, and walked back to my apartment complex. It was already dark. The streetlights stretched my shadow into a long, thin line.

My phone rang. It was an unknown number. I picked up.

"Sophie."

It was Daniel. How on earth did he get my new number?

"Don't hang up," he said quickly. "Just give me a minute."

I didn't hang up.

"After Alex bolted from the ICU, he drove straight to your old apartment." Daniel's voice was incredibly hoarse. "He thought you were still there.

"By the time we found him, he was crouched outside that rundown building, holding onto those burnt scraps you'd thrown away. His hands were covered in blisters."

I leaned against a lamppost.

"He said he could smell you," Daniel continued. "In that pile of ash, he said he could smell you. He was shaking like a leaf when we tried to pull him up.

"I've never seen him like that. Alex has had everything handed to him since he was a kid. He's never had to beg for anything in his life."

I stared down at the tips of my shoes.

"Sophie, for Heaven's sake, just have a heart. Can't you just come back for a visit?" Daniel pleaded.

"Have a heart?" I heard my own voice rasping out of my throat. "Who ever had a heart for me?"

Daniel was stunned. "I..."

I continued, "Daniel, when you guys treated me like your footstool, who pitied me then?"

He went silent.

I added, "When you guys made me kiss your boots and serve drinks at those parties, did anyone pity me?

"When Emily drenched me in red wine while the whole room laughed and Alex told me to stop being an eyesore, where was the pity then?

"On my birthday, you all had me go to a restaurant just to hand me an empty box. Who gave a damn about me?"

I hung up. My hands were shaking. Not out of anger, but because I'd finally said it out loud.

For 365 days, I'd kept those words bottled up. They cut like a knife, over and over, until I eventually went numb to the pain. I thought the wounds had scabbed over, thick enough to be bulletproof.

Only now did I realize that beneath the surface, it was all still raw and festering. One touch was all it took to break me open.

I crouched under the streetlamp, burying my face in my knees.

One image kept playing on a loop in my head.

It wasn't the empty boxes, the spilled wine, or when they made me kiss their boots. It was the ice pack the kitchen maid had handed me on Alex's eighteenth birthday.

"Mr. Sterling had this sent over," she said.

Those words made me follow him like a lost puppy for all those years.

*****

The flower shop's first week was dead quiet.

I opened at seven and closed at eight. My only regulars were parents from the preschool across the street, picking up a bouquet on the way home with their kids.

Occasionally, a few young office workers from the nearby high-rises would drop by for roses.

Life was peaceful, so peaceful that I'd sometimes lose my bearings, feeling as if those 365 days had never existed.

On the eighth day, that afternoon, I had just finished misting a bouquet of lilies when the wind chimes jingled.

I looked up. Daniel was standing in the doorway with a scar across his cheekbone.

He'd lost a lot of weight since a year ago, and his suit hung loose on his shoulders. The scar on his face was fresh, running from his cheekbone to his ear, the stitches not yet fully healed.

He stood in the doorway, not stepping inside.

I went back to misting the flowers.

"Sophie," he called out.

"You've got the wrong person," I replied.

"Sophie," he called out again. "Can I come in?"

"The shop is open for business. If you're buying flowers, come in," I said.

He walked over and stood before the lilies. Droplets rolled off the petals and landed on his leather shoes. He stared down at them but didn't budge.

"Alex has been looking for you for a year," he said.

I set the spray bottle down and picked up the shears to prune the roses.

He continued, "He turned Riverside City upside down, checked the surveillance, tracked down your old classmates, and went through that ratty apartment of yours dozens of times.

"That notebook you kept? He held onto it while he slept for three months, until the pages were worn to shreds."

The shears snipped, and the thorns of the rose and leaf dropped to the floor.

He added, "After three months, he took to the bottle. He ended up in the hospital twice with stomach bleeding.

"Melissa hid all the liquor, so he just went out to drink. Once, he got so wasted he collapsed on the curb and split his face open. He got seven stitches."

Daniel pointed to his own cheekbone. "Right here. I got stitched up, too."

"What are your stitches for?" I asked.

"He tried to head back out for more after the seven stitches. I tried to stop him. He hit me with the bottle," he replied.

I stayed silent.

"Last winter, he drove out to your mother's gravesite alone," Daniel said. "It was snowing hard. The car skidded and hit a tree.

"By the time we found him at the hospital, he was still wasted, mumbling 'sorry for your loss' over and over again."

The shears snapped again. A rose thorn pricked my finger, and a bead of blood welled up.

I pressed the finger to my lips, the metallic taste of blood spreading across my tongue.

"That birthday incident," Daniel's voice dropped, "the empty box... Emily rigged that herself. Alex had no clue she'd even called you. He was stuck in meetings at the office from dawn 'til dusk.

"Emily called him saying there was a get-together that night and told him to drop by. He didn't even know you were there until he arrived, but by then, you were already gone."

I pulled my finger from my mouth. The blood was still seeping out.

He continued, "Emily told him that you saw her and just walked out without a word. Alex didn't think twice about it.

"It wasn't until he found your notebook later that he saw what you'd written... about the birthday, the empty box, and Emily telling you that was all you were worth."

Daniel pulled something out of his pocket. It was a blue velvet jewelry box. "He bought this that day."

He set the box on the counter and clicked it open. Inside was a necklace with a tiny sunflower pendant.

"He snuck out in the middle of his meeting to buy it," Daniel said. "The designer told him sunflowers represented 'silent love,' so he grabbed it.

"He had no idea Emily would pull that trick. After he bought it, he went back to finish his meetings. He carried that necklace in his pocket the entire day."