Love At First Text ✔️

Her

Eden did not want to just be friends.

Her nameless text recipient was not around to see the way she blushed at his messages, the way she giggled at his stupidly awful jokes, or how she dived for her phone every time it went off. To him, she was a girl completely uninterested in him, with no wish to date or sleep or even see him in person. So, of course, with that stupid request of hers, he had stopped probing to take her out, and they had settled into an entirely platonic rapport.

He still flirted occasionally, but she figured that was the type of man he was, but they had become exactly what she asked them to be. She hated that.

Yet, as much as she hated it, she knew it was likely for the best. Whoever he was, he was not good for her. He was not a viable option. She hadn't lied when she said she didn't date anymore – after so many miserable attempts, it really did seem futile. To date him was an even more ridiculous idea, because he was exactly the type of guy she should avoid as though he carried some sort of infection disease. He was a man that did not want a relationship or stability, he wanted flings and wild sex just for the night. He wanted freedom and promiscuity, and while most women could probably handle that, for the sake of one night with a guy as attractive as he was, Eden could not.

Eden fell heart first, every time, no matter whether they were honest with their intentions. No matter whether they hid their phone, because they always took pictures with her on hers. No matter if they had to reschedule dates, because they always tucked her hair behind her ear when they did see her. She could not manage being let down and left behind again. If her heart managed to survive it, her hair definitely would not. She was one more post-breakup dye job away from it all falling out.

The copper ginger was here to stay, and for a while, because she would not, at all, fall for this man, just to heartbroken for the hundredth time.

Except, she was a fool, because she could already tell she was headed that way. It was his fault, really. Eden was completely innocent. Between every flirty text, there was a genuinely curiosity about her day. A concern into why it had been shitty, or what had made it great. He asked what she had eaten, and whether she had plans. He was so nice – so fucking nice – and that made it all the more difficult.

How does one stop themselves falling in love, when the person is the very type they had always hoped of?

There was only one flaw. His aversion to commitment. The one single flaw she clung to so tightly, so stop her from plucking the petals of the flowers at her work, singing that children's tune of 'he loves me, he loves me not'.

"Eden, you are supposed to say grace." Her mum scolded

Eden blinked back her daydreaming. "I did it in my head."

"The Amen, too?" Her father asked.

"Sorry." He only rolled his eyes, and the three of them begun to eat. The fourth chair remained vacant, and the table setting before it empty, because her brother had, again, refused to turn up for dinner. While Eden had too deviated from religion, she still joined her parents on a Sunday afternoon. Her brother Noah, older only by a year, had no such tolerance.

Their parents, though they never outwardly admitted it, hated that their children had stepped away from Christianity. Eden did not mind saying grace before every meal. It was still her parents' faith, and therefore she would respect their simple requests. Noah, however, while he had no qualms about his parents' faith to God, could not withstand the way they continually pushed them to return to such a path. Neither child had the desire to go to church, or take the time to pray, or save themselves until marriage – an impossible feat now, Eden suspected, for the both of them.