Page 15 of Sunflower

Wow. She was really going to start things off like that, was she? Okay, then.

I stood there silently, not moving except to raise an eyebrow.

She stormed up the steps of the porch and started stabbing me in the chest with one of her sharply pointed fingernails. “You abandoned me in bumfuck nowhere, you prick!”

“It wasn’t bumfuck nowhere, Amelia,” I said calmly, but still not moving a muscle. “It was Houston, Texas.”

“You still abandoned me!”

“No, I didn’t.” I looked behind her at all our neighbors with their phones out, recording the latest gossip. I shrugged and sighed. If it was gossip that they wanted, Amelia had no one to blame but herself for them getting it. “I left you grinding away on the cock of a hotel worker. You didn’t even realize I was there for most of it. I wouldn’t call that abandonment. I’d call that cheating on your loyal two-year boyfriend who’d done fuck all to deserve such treatment.”

She reared back like I’d slapped her, her jaw dropping wide enough that she could probably fit three cocks in it easily. Hell, she probably had at one point.

I was so tired of it all.

Voices erupted around us as gossip started generating over what I’d just declared. At one point, I overheard, “Wait. I thought it was a groomsman she fucked?”

The color drained from her face as she finally realized her error. She hadn’t expected me to call her bluff in such a public way. She’d obviously thought I wouldn’t want the attention and would usher her inside and away from prying eyes and ears.

She’d wildly miscalculated my degree of caring about what people thought of me. And I no longer gave two shits about what people thought about her.

She’d done this to herself.

Once she got over her shock, she started the waterworks. “You don’t care about me at all, do you?” She started sobbing the crocodile tears I’d seen dozens of times before. “I’ve never been so upset, Joey! How could you?”

Glancing across at Marshall, I pursed my lips and then sighed. Time to end this production. “Amelia?”

“Yes, baby?” She sniffed, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“If you were really upset about me leaving you there, why did you continue to stay there the entire weekend and not try to contact me once?”

Her gaze turned murderous as she curled her fingers into claws and took a step forward to try to stab me in the eyes with her nails.

Thankfully, Marshall grabbed her around her waist and hauled her off the porch. “Alright, Amelia. Time to go.”

“No! You can’t make me!” She fought like a wildcat in his arms, never taking her eyes from mine. “I’m the wronged person here! I did nothing wrong!”

Holding onto the edge of the front door, I waited until Marshall deposited her with some of our neighbors and speed-walked back to our front door before letting out another long sigh. “Goodbye, Amelia.”

I turned around and, for the second time in three days, shut the door on her and didn’t look back.

Six months later...

Chapter Six

Joey

Fourblissfuldaysoff.

I had four days where I could forget about my coursework and how much I hated it. Four days where I could escape the seemingly never-ending tedium of my college life. Four days to switch everything off.

God, I needed this.

Cruising down the freeway between college and home, I gripped the steering wheel with one hand and ran my fingers through my hair with the other. The window was down and the wind blowing into the car was making my hair fly everywhere.

A tiny pang of regret hit me at the fact that I hadn’t done something with my hair before I’d left the frat house. I’d let it grow out a lot since the wedding to experiment with a new look, but I felt like I’d finally reached the limit of my hair experimentation. It was now at a point where it was long enough to blow around and impede my vision but not long enough to get tied back. I needed to decide whether I wanted to keep lettingit grow or get it cut. But that was a decision I could put off for another four days.

The nineties grunge I was listening to cut out, replaced by the sound of my phone ringing. I checked the display to see who was calling before I hit the power button for the window then the call button on the steering wheel to answer. “Hey, Jacob. What’s up?”

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