Flower Girl | h.s.

11.

Daisy

It had been nine days since I had seen Harry last.

Not on purpose, of course. It was just that we were busy; we both agreed that we would find time when time was available. We didn't have to push to see each other, even though it's all I really thought about.

Classes became mostly about checking my phone to see if there was a text from Harry– most of the time there was, which made me smile. He started to learn my schedule as the week went on, and would send sporadic messages throughout the day to let me know that he was thinking about me.

He worked most days, took care of the kids, and had to maintain the house. I still had all of my classes, and student teaching on top of that. It wasn't that we didn't want to see each other– but I was glad that we were able to still communicate through messages, if anything else.

On this particular day, I had made plans to see my sister. It had been a while since I had seen Phoebe– well, I hadn't seen her in person since the night that I actually met Harry. We hadn't exactly talked about the reasons we hadn't been seeing each other as often as we usually did. I expected that she was busy with the store, since I knew that there was a lot of shopping going on now that Santa Monica had all of the college kids around.

Well, all the college kids with their parents money, which paid the bills to the building she rented a lot easier.

Her store, Silk, had been her pride and joy for as long as I could remember– it had only been a reality for a few years, but had been an idea since we were teenagers. Dad took out a loan for a year and told Phoebe that if she couldn't pay it back within the next year that he would stop helping her with it; that was Dad's business model, which he used on us kids, too. Thankfully, she was able to pay him back and make a profit, because Phoebe was one of the hardest working women that I knew. We had all pitched in at some point to help her succeed, and I knew that it was something that she would never be able to repay us for– not that she had to at all.

We had decided to meet for a late lunch; I told her that I had plans that evening, with a friend, and I'd have to leave a bit earlier. The part that I wasn't totally honest with her was that it was planned with Harry, specifically. He had texted me a few days prior, asking to see me sometime this weekend.

I had told him that I would be able to come out to Malibu after lunch with Phoebe, to which he said that we could meet at his work, and we could hang out once he got off. I felt that we were both itching to see each other again, and this was the soonest that we could.

I knew that we wouldn't say that, but that was the truth. The quickest that we would be able to meet up would be the best option, no matter the convenience.

I hope he thought that way, at least.

When class was over, I jumped in my car to head over to the restaurant that Phoebe had sent me. It was one that we hadn't been to before, but she said that it had really great salads, and that is always intriguing to me. I met up with Phoebe a few blocks away from her job. Today was a rare Friday that I didn't have student teaching because of a teacher work day, so I was able to head over right after class ended.

Everything started out perfectly fine, we hugged, we ordered drinks, and got a few appetizers to share. I could tell that something was brewing in the way that she didn't make eye contact whenever she started speaking, which usually meant that she had something to tell me.

"Everything okay?" I took a sip of my iced tea, eyes lingering on her for a second. I knew that a lot of the time I had to tread lightly, which I wasn't exactly fond of. It wasn't one of her best traits, that was for sure.