Page 6 of Sunflower

If he’d stolen a piece of my heart in the middle of the night like a thief, it was only fair that I could steal his leather jacket in exchange.

Served him right for leaving it behind, anyway.

Three and a half years later...

Chapter Three

Joey

“Istilldon’tunderstandwhy they had to have the wedding during the lead up to our exams.”

I felt my teeth grind at Amelia’s incessant whining about my dad’s wedding to Erin. She had been incredibly vocal about her displeasure at having to skip a single day of classes just to accompany me. Swallowing my irritation that she felt like the entire world should revolve around her, I repeated what had been my mantra with her these last few months: “You didn’t have to come with me.”

She glared at me, malice and disbelief warring each other for dominance on her face. “Of course I did, you idiot. I’m your fucking girlfriend. This is what girlfriends do. If I didn’t go with you, everyone would assume we’d broken up.”

Closing my eyes and taking a long breath to calm myself, I leaned back against the economy seat headrests as the plane slowly filled. For the millionth time since the start of the year, I wondered if breaking up with my long-term girlfriend wasn’t theworst idea in the world. We’d been together for a couple of years, and by now it felt like regular sex was the only reason that we were still together.

And it was mediocre sex at that.

“I’m just saying that they could have thought about other people when they were deciding when to get married,” Amelia continued. “And the location. I mean, they literally live an hour and a half away from us, yet they decide to have their wedding in the middle of the fucking country. Who does that?”

I rubbed my thumb and forefinger against my eyes to drown out the headache that was doing its best to form. “We’ve been over this, Amelia. Callum’s still studying in New York. Erin and Dad felt it was best to have the wedding in a central location, so we’d all have to travel similar distances.” Not to mention that Dad and Erin had wanted a destination wedding to both cut down on guest numbers and make the occasion really special.

A pang of longing went through me at the thought of seeing Callum again. It’d been three and a half years since I’d seen him in person at our one and only meeting. Sure, there’d been a few rare times we’d spoken to each other on video calls, especially in the lead up to our parent’s wedding, but every time I thought of him, I’d remembered how he’d left in the middle of the night, taking almost everything with him, including a decent chunk of my self-confidence.

It was still incredulous to me that one single day had affected me as much as it had. Even though I’d gone over that day in my head again and again over the years, I still didn’t understand why I couldn’t get Callum Murphy out of my damn head. He’d burrowed so deep inside my soul, there was no getting him out.

Not that I wanted to.

I lifted the lapel of the leather jacket I rarely went anywhere without and ran my nose down the stitching, inhaling the faint scent of Callum’s sandalwood cologne that lingered even now allthese years later. At this point, I didn’t know if it was only in my imagination that I could still smell it or if it truly was that ingrained in the leather fibers. However his scent remained, I hoarded every sniff like the hopeless addict I was.

“Stupid decision if you ask me,” Amelia grumbled. “They live here. They should have got married here. It’s not like everyone can afford to go to a destination wedding.”

My eyes were still closed, but I raised my eyebrows in disbelief. It was completely outrageous for her to whine about the travel cost of Dad’s wedding when she wasn’t paying for anything. Dad and Erin had kindly offered to pay for all related travel costs for Callum, Amelia, and me, but I was now regretting their kindness in relation to my girlfriend.

God, could this plane take any longer to start moving? It’d been such a long day, and I was exhausted. The sooner we made it to our hotel in Houston, the better.

“What was that look for?” she demanded, poking me in the side with a sharp fingernail.

Bracing myself for an onslaught, I opened one eye to look at her. “What?”

“There was a look. You had a look.”

“It was nothing. I’m just tired, Amelia.”

She sniffed. “You wouldn’t be if they’d had the wedding here instead.”

I sighed and rubbed my eyes again before sitting up and looking around the cabin. They’d shut the doors, and everyone was seated, but we hadn’t moved. Why hadn’t we moved? I looked at my phone to check the time. We’d boarded later than we’d expected, but we could still make it to the hotel around midnight if we took off in the next five minutes or so.

I tuned her out as she continued blathering on about everything, focusing instead on the way the flight attendants were congregated around the galley. One of them had theinternal phone to her ear, and it looked like she was relaying messages to her crewmates. When she shook her head, I knew we weren’t leaving.

“I think the flight’s been delayed,” I said under my breath, cutting Amelia off. I didn’t want to say it too loudly in case it caused an issue with the surrounding passengers.

“What?” she asked, her crisp tone annoyed and far too loud.

I shook my head, still watching the crew. They were heading towards the door. With a sinking feeling, I couldn’t help but mutter, “God damn it.”

Amelia swiveled in her seat to see what I was looking at. “Oh, come on!”

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