“Who, ah, sent them?” Aberto asked.
“We don’t know,” Scarlett said. “The flowers didn’t come with a card.”
“Send them back!” Maggie Beautiful stopped, the act almost abrupt. Her hands were balled into fists, her feet itching to move. “Send them back to hell!”
I turned to glance at the remnants of the arrangement. Hard to send them to hell, or wherever they had come from, when she had killed them already.
“Are you going to do it or not?” she hissed at me.
“Yeah, I’ll do it.”
She swallowed hard, nodded once, and then flew up the stairs. Scarlett touched my arm before she went after her. I went into the kitchen to get a broom and a dustpan.
“Give that to me,” Aberto said, reaching out for the cleaning supplies. “It is my job.”
We stared at each other for a moment before I held my arm out to him. He took the broom. I set the pan down. The rhythmicswooshof the bristles against the floor seemed to clear the fog from my mind but sent me on a different track.
“Is Maggie allergic to those, ah, things?”
It took me a second to answer. “Not that I’m aware of.” In case of an emergency, she had once instructed me to tell the hospital that she was allergic to love.
He nodded, continued toswoosh,swoosh,swoosh.
“Wildflowers,” he said, as though he were making a mental note. Then he finished cleaning up her mess.
* * *
I stood with my back to the wall, arms and legs crossed, waiting for Scarlett out in the hall. Aberto had waited with me, but after a while, he had decided to go in. Scarlett came out a minute later.
We said nothing as we entered our room and I watched as she brushed her teeth.
“Nothing,” she said, finishing up. “She refused to talk to me.”
I nodded and we headed to bed. The fireplace had been lit earlier, but I didn’t bother kindling it. Being so packed in ice, the house had a claustrophobic, almost suffocating feel, overly hot and stuffy. I was struck by a sudden urge to go for a run in the cold, sharp air.
“What could make her so upset that she refuses to talk about it?” Scarlett asked in the darkness, staring up at the ceiling.
I opened and closed my hands and let them fell against my chest with a soft thump. I had no clue why Maggie Beautiful had reacted the way she had. That ride had left without me long ago. It was Aberto’s turn to hold on tight.
As quiet as we were, Scarlett’s thoughts were loud. Her feelings were talking to her, and she was responding.
“Is there a reason roses are ‘our’ flower?” she asked.
I turned on my side to face her. Her profile was hardly visible, but I could make out her shapes. “Roses are your flower.”
“A representation of me?”
I had no idea where she was going with this, but I decided to play along.
“Yeah.” I held up a hand, though she didn’t turn her eyes from the ceiling, before she could ask another question. “Give me a minute to think.”
She smiled and gave it to me.
“Roses are classic. Romantic. A reminder that all beauty comes with a price—their thorns can make you bleed.”
“They represent something to us.”
“Yeah.”
