Lovers at War - (A.R.)

Chapter 23

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The Crumpled Daffodil

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Present Day, 1965

I STOPPED ATTENDING that mysterious church months ago. It wasn't because of my uncertainty around that preacher, but mainly because of how I'd gotten due to work. For the longest time, there was me and one other girl working at the flower shop, but after she'd decided to call it quits one day, I had started getting a lot more shifts. Sometimes, they would even happen on the weekends.

Glancing up at the clock on the wall, I noticed that it was way past 1:30 now, and Lenora hadn't yet shown up this week to pick up a fresh bouquet of flowers yet. Now, it wasn't that I had been keeping tabs on her arrivals, it was more like I'd gotten used to the younger girl and her naturally carefree personality, and to see her suddenly not come by this week after such a long time of following the schedule, it slightly worried me.

Sighing, I shut my eyes momentarily, a brief flashback returning to me of when Lenora came over to my house the other day. We'd been eating some dinner and conversing about nothing in particular when she'd suddenly hurried for the nearest bathroom.

"Len?" I asked cautiously as I opened up the doorway to the bathroom. The girl was kneeled down in front of the toilet, looking sick to her stomach. Coming over to her, I crouched down to her level. "Are you feeling -"

Before I could even get the next words out, Lenora was puking her innards out into the toilet bowl, and I patted her back gently. My first reaction was that the food I'd served today was clearly not as great as I thought it would be when I initially cooked it, but then I'd remember how Arvin, her older brother, seemed to enjoy my cooking just fine.

Maybe it was the dairy. God, I'm so dumb! It's always the dairy!

"I'm sorry you have to see me like this, Faye," Lenora apologized, glancing down at her hands with embarrassment.

"No, no, you have nothing to apologize for," I quickly said. "I should've known that you were allergic to dairy products, so serving mac 'n cheese was a bad idea."

She looked up at me, nodding a moment after. "Right, dairy. . ."

I don't know, call it a sixth sense or some other trait, but something didn't sit well with me that day. No, it wasn't because I felt sick myself, far from that - but more like I had a terrible feeling that Lenora was hiding something from me. "You okay?"

"Uh . . . Yeah." She tried to give me a convincing smile, but it looked more forced on her end. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"You're, um, awfully quiet all of a sudden."

"You can't possibly expect me to be happy-go-lucky all the time, huh?" she shouted, causing me to flinch. Shaking her head, Lenora sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm just . . . not feeling too well these days."

Without even acknowledging her apology, mainly because she had no need to give me one in the first place, I changed the subject, "Have you checked with a doctor?"

Gulping, Lenora looked at anywhere but me. Instead, she wiped her mouth with some toilet paper. "N-No. . ."

"Want me to take you?"

"There's no need," she quickly said. "It's um, probably some sort of sickness. It'll be gone in a few days."

I put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it once. "Len . . ." She didn't meet my eyes. "You know you can tell me anything, right? I won't judge."

Lenora muttered something incoherent under her breath, and I'd realized that if there was something bothering her, she wasn't ready to tell me just yet. I was okay with that as long as she was taking care of herself.

Lenora flushed the toilet and pulled the seat down, but we'd remained seated.

"I have to tell you something." Bingo. I slightly smiled at her, nodding at her to continue. "Where do you see yourself in, say, ten years' time?"

That I wasn't expecting, but I replied nonetheless, "Hm . . . Maybe owning a bakery somewhere downtown with Wesley while also continuing my education. And -"

"No, I meant . . . Other than all of those things. Something more personal. Like . . . love?"

"More personal?" I repeated, frowning in question. Truth be told, I'd never really thought about that because, for the longest time, I was all work and no play, so it took me a moment of thinking to come up with some other answer. "I don't know . . . Maybe I'll be married, but I have Wesley to think of as well, so I

don't think. . ."

"What if you found someone that was willing to take care of the both of you, and love Wesley like he was their own?"

"I mean, I don't want to be a burden, but I suppose that that would be nice, mainly because there's, like, nobody like that around anymore."

"How about someone you already know? Like, um, I don't know . . . Uh, Arvin, for example?"

"Arvin?. . Wait." I glanced at Lenora suspiciously, and she quickly averted her gaze. I cleared my throat but the damage had been done: my cheeks were reddening without my consent.

"I thought you were going to tell me something," I said, changing the subject.

"Yeah, erm . . . h-how do you feel about my brother?" Lenora asked, leaning in slightly from curiosity.

"Your brother?" There it was again, my stupid emotions were playing practical jokes on me again. The blush crawled up my neck and Lenora snickered knowingly. It couldn't be the emotions, right? I meant to say face. "Arvin . . . um, he's not a bad person, but he's not that nice, either? Like, um, sorry, I didn't mean to insult your brother by any means. I just, he's kind of . . . Serious?"

"You haven't seen him around me then." Trust me, I have, I wanted to say, but remained silent. "He's a completely different person when he's around me. A lot more open and . . . less serious."

I groaned, covering my face from embarrassment. "I really didn't mean to say that, you know."

"I know." She nodded. "But I also know that he thinks about you a lot, Faye."

"Probably because of how annoying I am," I remarked sarcastically, to which she shook her head.

"Oh, it's definitely for a good reason, rest assured . . . He's in love with you."

This had gotten my undivided attention, and I looked up to see a genuine smile on Lenora's face. My eyes widened, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe. She tilted her head slightly, almost as if searching for something in my eyes. "The real question is . . . do you feel the same way?"

Opening my eyes, I navigated the still empty room. Heading over to the blackboard, I signed off my name for taking my lunch break. Before leaving the shop, I picked up the same bouquet of purple orchids that I had initially set together for Lenora earlier today.

I was going over to the Russell house.