Page 38 of Letters to Lily

“I’ll call you later, Sasha,” Mason tossed back over his shoulder as he started to walk away. I knew that was a lie, because I’d never given Mason my number, but I guess his point all along had been to give his idiot friend the shove he needed. In that singular moment, he managed to show Kade that I wouldn’t always be around when he found me convenient. Mason couldn’t have realized that in that moment, he had also set something free inside of me. My self-worth had taken a huge tumble after being brushed aside so often by my best friend, and the weight of that crushing down on my spirit was lifted with one single kiss. It didn’t matter if Mason really liked me, and I am sure he did, but he was also Kade’s friend when push came to shove. I believe, it was his loyalty to a friend that day, even one who was obviously being stupid, that made Mason walk away and give Kade the chance he really didn’t deserve anymore.

“Sasha,” Kade whispered as he watched my reaction to everything. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“Because I shouldn’t have to,” I told him before I turned and walked up the stairs to my apartment. I think my words must have stunned him because I was almost at the third floor before he caught up with me.

“Sasha, please, we need to talk.”

“I’m pretty sure everything that needed to be said already was. Mason was spot-on with everything.”

“You’re not going to go out with him, are you?”

I rounded on Kade then, so angry I could barely think straight. “What does it matter, Kade? You go out with a different girl almost every night. You have skanks hanging off of you every time I see you throughout the day. What does it matter to you if I go out on a legitimate date with a guy who actually appreciates having me around?” My hands were shaking, and he stood staring at me, stunned once again. “You don’t want to be any more than friends with me, and he was right today, you haven’t even been a good friend lately. So, really, what do you care if I’m dating Mason or the whole damn school? It’s not your business, and you haven’t cared about me in a long time, so I’m not sure why you want it to be now anyway.”

I turned to put my key in the lock and open my door, but there was a hand on my arm spinning me back around before I could accomplish my goal of getting away.

“It matters,” was his breathless response right before he kissed the ever-loving hell out of me.

Maybe, in someone else’s life the love story would have started there, but no. I pushed him off of me and wiped my mouth off with the back of my hand. “Gross!” I growled out. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Gross?” He was as flummoxed as I was frustrated.

“Yes, gross. You just had your tongue shoved down Skank three’s mouth in the union and you think you’re going to impress me by shoving it in mine next? I don’t know what happened to the sweet boy I was friends with for all those years, but you are not him, and you need to go away right now.” I huffed out as I managed to unlock my door with shaky hands.

Kade stood there, stock still, with obvious unshed tears shining in his eyes. “If you manage to find my Kade again, I’ll be more than happy to talk to him. This person,” I flapped my hands in between us to indicate him and the distance between us. “Is not someone I wish to talk to now or ever.” Then I walked into my apartment and shut him out of my life for the first time ever.

Your Aunt Kristin was there. I hadn’t known that before I entered the apartment. She was standing there in our living room, jaw agape, having heard every word, and if the bent up window blinds were any indication she’d seen everything there was to see too. Well, everything that happened once we were upstairs. “Did that just happen?” She asked me.

“Yes, it did.”

“I am pretty damn sure I missed a lot, so you’re going to have to sit down and start from the beginning.” Kristin moved me over to the couch and I poured my heart out to her. I rehashed everything that happened, and she simply hugged me and told me she was proud of the fact that I had finally put him in his place.

Well, I went to bed having those stupid prom nightmares after that, only in the end, he didn’t just refuse to dance with me he said goodbye to me and we never spoke again. I had a rough two nights, because that whole scene took place on a Friday, and I didn’t hear from Kade again until Monday. I figured he was out partying and celebrating the fact that he didn’t have me in the way of his debauchery anymore.

On Monday, during my first class, the door to the lecture hall banged open loudly and someone stepped inside yelling, “Delivery for a Ms. Sasha Garrett!” He yelled it three times before the girl sitting next to me got my attention and pointed.

About the same time, I looked back at the delivery guy, my professor was fuming over his interrupted lecture. “Ms. Garrett, if you could please put an end to this invasion, the class and I would be so grateful.”

I stood with flaming red cheeks and walked to the back of the lecture hall to take the offering the man had for me. “The perfect flower, for the perfect girl,” the man said as he handed me a white lily whose tips bled out into a vibrant purple color. There was no doubt who the lily and the message was from, although the delivery person never left a name or a card. Mason was actually in the class and I watched as he grinned and shook his head.

I, of course, walked still red-faced and embarrassed back to my seat. The girl sitting next to me gushed as quietly as she could. “Oh my God, that was the sweetest thing ever. Who is it from?”

I just shook my head and told her I didn’t know. Obviously, I knew the importance of the lily, but I doubted Kade would care enough to set that up. I allowed my doubt in him to fester until my next class rolled around, and another delivery showed up. As had happened previously, my class was interrupted about 15 minutes after it started, so that another delivery guy could hand me yet another lily with the same message. Again, there was no name, no card, just the symbolism from way back when my Kade was a sweet boy who won my heart without knowing it.

After the third lily was handed to me in my final class of the day, word must have spread about the ridiculous spectacles. Kristin was waiting for me outside of class and once again her jaw dropped when she saw the three lilies in my hand. “It’s true?” She asked.

“I guess so, if you mean a delivery guy has interrupted all of my classes and embarrassed me while delivering these, then yes.”

“What did the notes with the flower say?”

“There were no notes. Each delivery had the same verbal message. ‘The perfect flower for the perfect girl.’”

“Oh my God, they’re from him?” She asked.

I just shrugged my shoulders as we continued walking into the student union to grab our usual coffees before heading back to the apartment and getting started on whatever assignments we had to get done.

“Did you doubt the message?” A bold, deep voice called out from just behind us. I turned to see Kade standing there with one more lily in his hand along with an envelope. “The perfect flower for the perfect girl,” he repeated the same message the delivery guys had been calling out to me all day. Then he handed me the fourth lily. “The heart of a boy who has always loved the girl,” he said as he also handed me the white envelope he had in his other hand. As soon as I took it, he flicked a quick, unsure smile at me before he turned to leave.

“Oh my God, what does it say?” Kristin asked as she reached for the envelope that I quickly snatched back before she could grab it.

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