Page 74 of Petals and Plot Twists
I need to tell him.
Ihaveto tell him. I can’t keep standing here, holding his hand, with this giant thing hovering in the air between us. If I don’t tell him, I won’t stop thinking about it. And if I can’t stop thinking about it, I’ll never be able to let it go.
I open my mouth to speak, but Peter beats me to it.
“Did you know I was going to ask you to senior prom?”
I close my mouth. “Really?”
He nods. “I bought a cake,” he says. “The icing on the top saidWill you go to prom with me?” He lets out a disbelieving chuckle. “I bought a cake, and I had this whole plan where I was going to invite you over to watch a movie and then get up to make popcorn and come back with a cake instead.”
My heart hammers painfully in my chest. I don’t have to guess what happened next.
“But then you texted and asked if you could come by,” Peter says. “Said you had some exciting news.” He meets my gaze.
“Jack Larson had asked me to prom,” I say, and he nods.
“I waited too long,” Peter says. “I planned and I practiced, and I put it off day after day because I was so scared to tell you the truth. To admit that I—” He gives his head a little shake. “Anyway. When I saw you standing at the top of the stairs with David, I thought of Jack Larson. That’s why I was acting so weird. I was thinking about him swooping in because I was too chicken to tell you how I felt.” He drops my hand and runs his fingers through his hair. “It’s stupid that I’m telling you this now, when you’re standing here shivering, but I just didn’t want you to think I was jealous or angry or anything else. I was just caught up in my head because a part of me still thinks this is too good to be true. And now I’m rambling and you’re still freezing, so we should?—”
“Peter, the flower bloomed,” I blurt out, cutting off his words.
He stares, his frown making his forehead wrinkle and his eyes turn down. “What?”
“It bloomed,” I repeat, voice trembling. “When I was on the roof with David. The flower bloomed.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Peter
I haveno idea how I made it back to Sophie’s apartment.
How I kept it together while I started a bath for her and made her some tea and promised we would talk as soon as she was warm and dressed.
Now, I’m pacing around her living room while she’s in the bathroom, and I want to scream at the entire world.
The freaking flowerbloomed.
It bloomed for astrangerwhile I was down here organizing the seventy-five million kinds of tea Sophie has in her pantry.
A part of me wonders if, had I not been so stubborn, the flower would have bloomed formeand Sophie. Had I just gone up on the roof with her, we could have avoided all this drama. But it’s too late for that. Too late to know what might have happened, because now, the flower has bloomed for someone else.
I drop onto the ottoman in Sophie’s living room and reach for a basket of my laundry. I fold it wordlessly, thoughts spiraling the entire time.
In a perfect world, the flower blooming for David wouldn’t matter. Sophie would feel confident enough in what we have together that she wouldn’t hesitate to ignore the bloom, opt not to see David again, and continue what we started.
But is it selfish to wish for that? To assume that, despite magic or fate—or whatever the flower is—saying otherwise, I’m truly the best option for Sophie?
What if I’m wrong and David whoever-he-is actuallyisbetter equipped to love her like she deserves?
What if I’m not—and never have been—destined to be herone true love?
After I finish my laundry, I set it aside and reach for my phone. I got an email late yesterday afternoon suggesting I take a trip down to Charlotte this coming week to meet the team I’ll be supervising should I take the offered promotion.
My travel, of course, will be on the company, and they’ll put me up in a nice hotel downtown, right next door to the corporate office. I think they’re beginning to worry I won’t say yes, and this is their attempt to wine, dine, and woo me to Charlotte.
I was planning to tell Sophie about the job offer tonight, but now it feels like it will only complicate things. Whether I want to admit it or not, she has a choice to make. She believes in the flower—in the magic it holds—and she’s been chasing the assurance of its bloom for weeks now.
That’s an assurance I can’t give her—especially not now, when the flower has already bloomed for someone else. It’s not that I want to walk away. But if she chooses to be with me, I want it to be without any hesitation, without any doubts or questions lingering in her mind.
