Fade Into You

Bunches

I woke up on Monday morning to the second bouquet of flowers outside my front door. We got one on Saturday too and now, two days later, a huge pink and red rose bunch sat on the doorstep of our home.

"Another one?" Scarlet asked.

"Yeah," I sighed, picking it up and putting it down next to the other on the kitchen table, "how many of these do you think I'm going to get?"

"Fuck knows, our apartment is only so big," she replied, biting into her apple, "has she messaged you?"

"Six times," I nodded, picking at the petals.

"Saying?"

"A lot of I'm sorry's, I miss you's, I love you's, this mug reminds me of you ... there's a lot of words," I explained, looking up at her and shrugging my shoulders.

"She's really trying here," Scarlet told me like I didn't already know that.

I hummed and nodded, scratching my brow, "she's gonna be on the bus this morning."

"Yeah ... you can't miss another day of uni because of her," she replied.

"I know," I exhaled shakily, "I don't want to talk to her though."

"You don't need to," she smiled sadly, "just put your headphones in and keep your head down."

"That doesn't make me invisible," I laughed.

"I know," she giggled, "do you want me to come with you?"

"No, I need to do it on my own," I smiled softly at her.

She nodded, "at least you look hot."

I decided that today I was going to look better than ever before and just to spite Lizzie, I wore the same outfit as I did on our date night. I just wore my hair down and applied some more makeup with eyelashes and winged liner so that when she saw me, I didn't look like I had spent the past two weeks trying to figure out why I let myself get taken for such a mug.

"I do look hot," I agreed, "does it look like I've slept?"

"I mean... no but it's fine," she smiled, "she's going to be so in awe of your beauty that it's not going to matter that you have under-eye bags."

I laughed out my nose and nodded, "okay, let's do this."

"Go get em," she smirked, snapping her fingers at me in a sassy manner as I walked out of the apartment.

"Go get em," I smiled to myself.

The second I walked onto the street of Dublin; a trail of red rose petals painted a path toward the bus stop under the feet of everyone on their way to work. Furrowing my brows, I looked around and saw no one else was thinking twice about this bizarre situation so I slowly made my way to the bus stop and stood, looking back at the path I had walked as my bus pulled up. I don't know how she did this but my usual seat on the bus had four tulips sitting where I should be, a small note sticking in one of them. I took a seat, picked up the flowers and opened the note to reveal a lipstick-stained kiss mark on the small piece of paper. As I closed it again, I looked around the bus at the small group of people looking at me curiously as the doors opened once more and Lizzie stepped on, tapping her contactless payment and walking straight toward me. She obviously didn't get the memo about dressing up for each other because she was wearing a pair of leggings, MY hoodie and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and in the last five days, she had cut a layer of pretty thick bangs. Dropping my eyes to my lap, I felt the seat next to me dip down and Lizzie's eyes burning into the side of my face. Taking out my air pods, I looked over at her and lifted up the flowers.