Blessing in Disguise

Extra 1

James had come to understand one thing lately. Nyx loved to touch his flowers. Actually, it wasn’t with only his flowers. She loved to touch plants in general. They would be walking down the street, passing by a bush or tree and the woman had to reach out and touch. Touch the wooden trunks, touch the leaves, and if there were any flowers around, she would reach out with the tip of her finger and lightly touch the petals. Even the cactuses in his apartment weren’t spared.

She was like a curious cat that would reach out with its paw and just so ever lightly touch before retreating that sneaky paw immediately. It was almost as if she couldn’t bare not to come in contact with the plant when it was right in front of her.

He couldn’t even remember the amount of time he had caught her standing by his flowerpots touching all the flowers one by one first, not forgetting even one, before going on with her things. At first, he didn’t feel comfortable because James didn’t like anyone being near his flowers, but he found out that Nyx most of the time did such a thing completely unconsciously. It looked like it was her way of showing her love to the flowers.

It was kind of cute, actually...

And today wasn’t any different.

Nyx stood by the window of his living room stroking the petals of the lavender-coloured scabiosas. The window was open and the gentle morning breeze swayed the curtain lightly. The sun fell on Nyx’s face as she looked down at the flower, absentmindedly. Her blue hair was let loose, pooling on her shoulders and messily falling over her face. James had noticed that she didn’t like to tie up her hair unless it was getting on the way.

He approached her from behind and rested his chin on her shoulder, his arms hugging her waist. “What are you doing?”

The moment he hugged her, Nyx turned off her phone and put it away. Such movements brought James’s attention to the phone that was cast away, and a frown appeared in his face.

Knowing what he was thinking about, Nyx sighed. Her hand touched the arms around her waist as her head rested back on James’s shoulder. “It’s just mom. You don’t have to worry about it.”

But how could James not worry about it?

He wasn’t that self-centred to think that the reason why Nyx was having this cold war with her mother was him because it was something bigger than Elinor not accepting James as her boyfriend, but he still felt guilty.

Ever since that day when Nyx yelled at her mother to leave, the two of them hadn’t really talked together. At first, Elinor played the victim, complaining and wailing left and right to pretty much everyone. To her husband, her son, her daughter-in-law... She even had the face to go and complain to Walter, but the old man shut her up with the five words: ‘I like that young man’, meaning ‘Wail somewhere else’. However, all the noise she made was for nothing. She intended to use them to talk some reason into Nyx, but Owen and Lucy, much like Walter, didn’t intend on doing such a thing, and as for Randy, the man still suffered from the guilt from five years ago. He didn’t have the heart to do the same thing to his daughter again. Even more so when there was no good reason to keep her away from the man she loved.

Seeing that this wasn’t working, Elinor started pestering Nyx. Call after call. Strings of messages that had no end... She even showed up at Nyx’s apartment a couple of times. But Nyx either didn’t open the door at all, or was at James’s apartment and ignored the noise and commotion, only calling her father to come to take her away.

Still, Elinor wouldn’t be stopped. But Nyx had stopped caring a long time ago.

“Are you never going to talk to her again?” James asked, his cheek pressing against Nyx’s.