he loves me, he loves me not

part one

The time was 10:00 p.m., the official end to another boring shift. She had just finished watering the gardenias and was dying to get home as soon as possible.
See she'd had this flower shop gig for about four months now. Jezabel isn't the type of person you'd expect to be into flowers, because she isn't. She's always seen the act of giving and receiving flowers so heteronormatively cliche. Sure they looked nice, but they died in a few days, so what's the point? Yet, one day she was driving past Broadway when she noticed a store with a "now hiring" sign posted on the window. Buds N' Roses Flower Shop she read at the top of the door and she decided she might as well apply, it seemed like a simple job. She had been saving up for a road trip after high school and she needed the cash. She went in for an interview and three days later, she was hired.
It was not a simple job. She had no idea how much maintenance flowers needed. Nip the buds, pull the weeds, trim the roses, cut the thorns, and water the plants, but not every day or they'll drown, make sure they have enough sunlight, and keep those plants away from sunlight. The list went on for what seemed like forever.
    Luckily, they rarely had customers. Her boss had mentioned that customers would mostly walk in during holidays like valentine's day or mother's day. Men would walk in every now and then with the "me and my wife have been married for blah blah amount of years and I want to get her the perfect flowers for our anniversary" speech so business was mostly dry. And because they rarely had customers, that meant that most of the time she would be working by herself.
    That had been the case tonight. She was doing her nightly tasks. She counted the money in the register, a whopping $30.50 from a man who walked in for a bouquet for his wife. She walked up to the door to flip the sign so it read "CLOSED" from the outside and was about to lock up the door when she heard sirens from down the street. She didn't think much of it since it had become a common occurrence to hear the sirens since the shop was so close to the police station. Well... that was until she saw the outline of a tall person running in her direction.
    Fear spread through Jezabel's body. All she wanted to do was hide and yet, it felt as if she was frozen in place. Every thought was pacing through Jezabel's head.  This guy is running from the cops, he has to be dangerous. What if he tries to hurt me?  The guy was inching closer with every passing second. She figured the only bright thing to do at that moment was to run back into the store and lock it so he can't get in. She rushes to the open door in a haste to close it but the door is stopped in the process by a foot forcing its way through. There standing right in front of her was a guy wearing a black hoodie and grey sweats. The guy who had been running from the cops. Jezabel wasn't sure if fight or flight was a real thing before tonight but the fight part seemed to kick in as she punched the shady person straight in the eye.
    "HEY WHAT THE HELL!" the guy winces in pain. Wait... She recognized that voice. The voice belonged to none other than her mischievous next-door neighbor and old childhood friend, Shawn DeMarco.
    She didn't hate him by any means, she just found him rather annoying. He had this reputation of getting in trouble all the time and it bothered her when she would hear the police sirens at two in the morning every week because Shawn was getting busted for illegally setting off fireworks in the middle of January or doing donuts in his black mustang in the cul de sac. She was pretty used to peering out her window in the middle of the night and seeing him sneak into his house through his bedroom window so she wasn't that surprised by his actions tonight.
    "Shoot, I'm sorry!" she let out in a quiet breath, she grabs his arms apologetically pulling him into the store, "But you kind of had it coming."
    "Yeah, of course, a sketchy dude in a black hoodie running from the cops? Shit, I'd punch me too!" he smiles while comforting his throbbing eye.
    "I think there's some ice in the freezer. Let me go check in the back it'll be just a sec-" she was walking in the direction of the back room but is stopped by the sound of banging at the door.
    "Shit shit shit, it's the police!" he quietly shouts in her direction his eyes were wide. He quickly heads to the counter and gets under it while folding in on himself.
    "Miss? Can I speak to you for a minute? This is the police!" a large officer shouts from the outside.
    "Just a second!" Jezabel replies. She walks up to the counter and looks below it to see Shawn hiding. Really? she mouths with her arms crossed which only gives her a shush from Shawn who places a finger in her mouth which she quickly swipes away. And yet, with the wave of his arm and a quick eye roll, she walks away to go deal with the officer.
    She wishes she could say that this is the first time she's had to save him from a situation such as this one, but it isn't. As annoying as he might be, they were really good childhood friends so she felt like even though they strayed paths, and his path lead him down into terrible situations if he ever needed her help, she'd be there.
     She puts on a cheerful smile as she walks up to the door and opens it. "Sorry Officer..." she takes a second to read his nametag "Howie, we're actually closed right now but you could come back tomorrow if you'd like-"
    "That's not what I came here to talk to you about." the officer cuts her off rudely. "I was wondering if you've seen a tall skinny white guy, reddish-brown hair,  around your age wearing a black hoodie just now?"
    "Not that I can recall no," Jezabel answers politely even though the officer was being cold. "I was in the back this whole time organizing the seeds that I dropped earlier." She can hear a chuckle from under the counter which is a reaction anybody who knew Jezabel would have at this moment because she's usually never this fake sounding.
    "What was that?" the officer asks stepping closer to go inside to which Jezabel was quick to gently push him back and come up with a response.
     "Oh, those must be the cicadas again. I should go deal with that." She points to the back of the store.
    "Uh... okay, but if you see a person matching the description don't hesitate to contact me or any other officer."
    "Of course! Have a nice night officer!" Jezabel says and rapidly shuts the door behind her. As soon as the officer is gone, Jezabel rushes to the counter, looking under it giving Shawn a signal that he is safe to walk out from under it. Shawn slowly starts to get up and is chuckling the entire time.
"What's so funny," Jezabel questions, both arms crossed.
"HaVe A nIcE nIgHt OfFiCeR," he mimics in a high-pitched tone, "I'm sorry but I never heard you sound so fake."
"Shut up," Jezabel rolls her eyes annoyed.
"Also you do know that cicadas live in trees right?" He questions her propping himself onto the counter. The disrespect! I just wiped that down!
"I still got you out of that mess though, didn't I?"
"Yeah, I owe you one," He rubs his neck shamefully smiling at the floor.
"Do I even want to know why you were running from the cops this time?" She asks as she hops onto the counter right next to him. Hey, it's only disrespectful when he does it.
"Well see, I was hanging out with a couple of buddies at my friend Chris' place and we were messing around with a bong and I thought that it would be funny if we put lighter fluid inside of it just to see what would happen. I guess that wasn't such a good idea because it kind of exploded and it lit his carpet on fire." Dear Lord. "Well we got the fire out but his folks weren't too happy about it so they called the cops on me because of course  I'm always causing problems and I'm leading their son down a terrible path. So I start booking it. I mean Usain Bolt 100-meter dash running. I got pretty far until I wound up here on Broadway and you know the police station is right here which is when even MORE of them started looking for me and I saw the door here open so I stopped you hoping that if I could hide here, I would be okay. Didn't realize I'd be dealing with Muhammad Ali though." he laughs as he concludes his explanation.
"Yeah I did get you pretty good huh?" she smiles remembering the punch she'd thrown him then quickly realizes, "Oh yeah the ice! I'll go get it,"
"Please," Shawn says pouting like a child as Jezabel walks to the back.
"So flowers huh? I wouldn't expect them to be your thing," Shawn shouts from the front of the store.
"It's cause they're not," Jezabel smiles walking back in with the ice she had promised, "... at least I'm getting paid."
"They are pretty though," Shawn says as he receives the ice, grateful to finally aid his bruise.
"Yeah some of them are," Jezabel says looking over at the rows and rows of seemingly endless displays in the store. So many different colors. Some many beautiful scents. She'd be lying if she said that they weren't nice to look at. They were enchanting. Jezabel sucks into a daze but snaps out of it as fast as she stepped into it. "Hey, shouldn't you be heading back now? I was kind of in the middle of closing shop and everything."
"Right..." his voice suddenly raises an octave and he turns away from her, "Is it cool if I chill here for a little longer? The cops are going to be at my place next and I kind of don't want to be there if they are."
    "Fine," she rolls her eyes and pulls out her phone, "I'll just tell my parents that I had a late customer I had to deal with so I'm closing a little later than expected."
"Wow you seem like a pretty good liar," Shawn says with a devilish smile, "Is that your side hobby when you're not being Miss Maudie?"
"Maybe...do you pick up a book every now and then when you're not busy being Ferris Bueller?"
"Maybe,"  He laughs. There's a short pause.
He gets up off the counter from where he was sitting, "So... lots of pretty flowers here huh?"
"Yeah," is all Jezabel replies with.
"You know what any of them mean? Like how dandelions are meant for wishing and roses are for The Bachelor to give to hot 20 somethings?" He asks sort of anticipating an answer.
"Yeah, some,"
Okay, Jezabel is going to sound like a huge nerd. She'd been working here for months now and for "research purposes only" did she want to look up the meaning of some of the flowers. Like what if she accidentally gave a white lily, the flower of mourning, to a person looking for engagement flowers. Or what if a guy came in looking for a mother's day flower and she gave him a marigold which symbolized deep passionate love for a significant other. She couldn't make those types of mistakes. Plus, it was kind of fun having some flower knowledge that she could flaunt at any moment such as this one.
"What do these mean?" Shawn says stepping up to closely examine the yellow hyacinth display in the window, the small spark of moonlight illuminates the pedals.
"Hyacinth," Jezabel walks up with her arms crossed, "well, each color has a different meaning but the yellow ones mean envy,"
"Yikes," Shawn looks up from them furrowing his brows, "and people actually get these sometimes?"
"Well yeah but most store-goers don't really care about the meanings so I help them out with that. Like this one time, a lady walked in and she was on her way to an engagement party between her sister and her ex-boyfriend and she said and I quote," she coughs and raises her voice up to sound like a valley girl while trying to hold in her giggles, "'See  I love my sister right, but her fiance can be such a tool sometimes' she was clearly jealous, so I gave her those."
"Interesting," Shawn says and moves away to the farther end of the store and looks at the pink flowers in a muddy pot that seemed to be closing in on itself and points at them, "how about these?"
"The sacred lotus," she smiles, this was one of her favorites, "the lotus symbolizes rebirth. See how it seems to be going down in the muddy water right now? It does that every night, but when the sun comes up, the flower re-blooms into its true beauty." She almost visibly gags at how cheesy she sounded at that very moment.
"Wow, that's surprisingly poetic," Shawn lets out.  Okay, maybe not as cheesy as I thought.
"Okay how about this," he pauses to face her and puts his hands in his pockets, "what flower means 'thanks for letting me hang here and dealing with the police and I owe you big time'?" He looks at her expectantly in a joking yet not joking at all kind of way.
"I'm sorry I don't think we sell those actually," she jokes smiling, "but I think the best we have are the campanulas which show gratitude." She points at the purple flowers on the highest shelf that were dangling down on the other flowers.
"Oh..." Shawn stares at them, "those look kind of sad." And so, he makes his way to the other isle of flowers close to the back room and studies each one carefully. He takes his time with it then finally picks up a single white camellia and hands it over to Jezabel.
"Here," he pushes it in front of her face with a smile.
"I really shouldn't keep this flower," She shies away from it.
"Cmon, what's ONE flower going to do to hurt business," he shrugs and continues to determinedly force Jezabel to accept the flower.
"No, it's not that it's just that flower means-"
"Oh, who cares what the flower means, it's pretty isn't it?"
Jezabel smiles and hesitantly receives the flower from his hand. "Thanks," her voice is so small, you'd doubt if a mouse would be able to hear it.  "but you still need to pay." Her attitude shifts and in a heartbeat, she's stern as ever holding out a hand expecting cash to be placed in it.
"Well, would you look at the time?!" Shawn checks his wrist at a watch that is not there, "I better get going!" He bonks his head comedically and makes his way for the door.
"Hey!" Jezabel shouts at him who has already opened the door and was making his way out of her view. She places the flower in her hand on the counter and chases him down.
"I don't have any money on me! Maybe next time?" He shouts from halfway across the sidewalk. Jezabel walks past a few stores but sees it's no use to run.
She cups her mouth and shouts, "YOU BETTER KEEP THAT PROMISE DEMARCO I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE!" The only reaction she gets out of him is a middle finger to the air without even a look back at her. Unbelievable.
After he was out of sight, Jezabel made her way back into the store, and there on the counter was the white camellia shining in the moonlight making the white appear slightly blue. It WAS a beautiful flower. The meaning: to show someone that you think that they're adorable. And she knows that Shawn couldn't possibly know the significance of the flower. So, she shouldn't let the fact that he gave it to her hold so much meaning. And yet, there was a small part of her that was happy to receive this flower. A very very small part.