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Lila's expression softens, just a tiny bit, but enough to give me hope. She moves the bouquet on the counter and shifts her weight, the warmth of her presence reaching out as if to thaw the icy barrier I'd built around myself. “You don't owe me any apologies or explanations,” she says, her voice gentle yet firm. “Besides, things were... complicated back then.”
I nod, grateful for her understanding as the sour taste of guilt rises up in me for how I'd left things between us. “Complicated is an understatement,” I say with a wry smile, hoping to ease some of the tension that lingers between us.
Lila's lips lift in a small smile that almost instantly fades, as if something had come crashing down in her mind. “Well, things are different now. I’m sorry about your dad.” The words feel like an afterthought, an obligatory kindness that betrays she remembers how I feel about my parents.
“Thanks,” I say, feeling even more guilty at what I was going to do to her.
Chapter Two
Lila
“Aren’t you supposed to be at the funeral?” I ask, glancing down at the clock face of my phone. It dawns on me that he might be here to pick up flowers for his deceased father, but that doesn’t ring true with the man I know. Or the man I used to know, I guess.
He chuckles softly, a bitter edge to the laughter. “I figured I’d be fashionably late. You know how the old man hated when I’d make a scene.”
I almost feel bad for him.
He shifts his weight, putting both elbows on the counter and leaning closer to me, his scent - something crisp and clean like fresh mountain air after a snowfall - fills my lungs.
He lowers his voice as if we are sharing secrets.
But I’m fooled; I’m not someone he can share secrets with. Hell, he couldn’t even tell me he was leaving all those years ago. I’m not special to him, and I probably never was. “I doubt anyone would even notice if I didn't show up,” he says, his gaze distant for a moment before all his attention focuses on me.
“I came here because this place holds a piece of the past that I can't seem to let go of.”
On the surface, his words seem sweet, flirty even, but I know better. Deep down, beneath the layers of charm and wit, I can sense the pain still swirling within him, a pain that had drawn me to him when I was a teenager who thought her love could fix all.
He’d taught me better.
As I think about the past, my heart aches with a mixture of longing and resentment. His sweet words still somehow hold the power to unravel me with just those few carefully chosen words. His piercing gaze and familiar voice still feel like home, and I can feel the walls I built around my heart beginning to crumble in his presence. I can’t do that. I can’t let him in. Not again.
I’d learned that lesson the hard way - through pain and heartbreak.
Staying guarded is the only way to survive Fredrick.
I clear my throat, trying to push down all the emotions threatening to surface and derail my life. “What do you mean by that?” I ask, confronting him and calling him out on this toxic behavior.
I mean, did he really think he could walk back in here a decade later and everything would go back to the way it was before he left?
He pauses for a moment, as if debating some internal ideas. Then, with a sigh, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a faded photograph. I recognize it before he unfolds the image; it’s a picture of us, taken years ago in front of this very flower shop. We were both smiling, our faces filled with genuine happiness and youthful affection for one another.
“You know, we’re in the digital age. No need to keep physical pictures anymore,” I say.
His gaze softens as he looks down at the photograph in his hand, a flicker of vulnerability crossing his face before he composes himself and meets my gaze. “What makes you think I don’t have digital copies?” he asks in a lighthearted voice before the seriousness creeps back in. “This picture reminds me of a time when everything felt right in the world. When I still believed I had it all figured out.” He lets out a mirthless chuckle.
I know better than to feel bad for him.
He’d made his decisions as an adult and now he had to face the consequences. That wasn’t on me or anyone else.
I study him, trying to figure him out. Somehow the stress and the years have barely touched him. He still has that ruggedly handsome look I always found so appealing with his thick, brown hair and reddish-brown eyes. Part of me craves what we’d shared when we were young, but the smart part of me knows that path holds only pain.
I’d never make that mistake again.
In spite of knowing better, a part of me softens toward him, old wounds reopening despite my best efforts to keep them sealed shut. I can't afford to let my guard down again, not when the damage from his vanishing act still lingers, raw, unhealed, and threatening to weep.
“I’m not holding onto the past, Fredrick,” I say softly, truly feeling bad for him as his gaze meets mine once more. “I’m sorry you still are. But we both need to move on.”
His expression tightens. “That’s all you had to say.” With those words, he turns to leave.
