“So,” I echo.
“Do we believe him?”
Do I?
I hadn’t given him a chance to explain that night. I hadn’t wanted to.
“I don’t know. If I’m being honest, it’s not even just whether or not he’s married. It’s the lying. And what if this isn’t the only thing he’s lied about? I don’t know anything about them, not really. It feels I’m sitting on the outside of their little circle,” I admit. “And he has no intention of letting me in.”
Jade reaches across the counter, squeezing my hand. “It’s okay to take time to figure out how you feel, Syd. You don’t have to figure everything out right this second.”
Her steady gaze holds mine until I nod, some of the pressure in my chest loosening.
I don’t have to figure it out this second. I can take my time, I can?—
“Delivery!”
The front door swings open, and a man shuffles in, juggling a long, flat box. I recognize it instantly from the shape.
Great. More roses. I swallow a sigh. Ash probably ordered them the second he got off the phone with me.
The delivery guy doesn’t even make eye contact with either of us. He just walks toward me, and before I can thank him, he drops the box unceremoniously on the counter, takes a photo of it with his phone, and leaves without a word. The door clicks shut behind him.
“Wow.” Jade stares after him. “Rude much?”
“Maybe he’s late for another delivery?” Unlike the other boxes, this one is gray, the cardboard cheap and thin. There’s a card on the top, and I pluck it off, palming it. “Or he could just be having a bad day. You never know what someone else is going through when?—”
I lift the lid and stop.
Stop, and stare.
I was wrong. They’re not roses. Inside the box are lilies. A dozen of them.
And all of them are dead and desiccated, black from age.
My stomach twists unpleasantly as the smell hits me. Not just dead flowers, but something musky, almost cloyingly sweet when mixed with the roses. Something likerot.
“…Sydney?” Jade’s voice comes from far away.
There’s something else crammed down into the bottom of the box. I shift the tissue paper to get a better look at it. A stuffed animal. A cat. Once white, and now…
Torn up the middle, covered in dirt and grime, and…
There’s somethingmoving inside it. Writhing in the white of the stuffing, wriggling...
“Are those …?” My voice doesn’t sound like my own.
Jade moves before I can. She snatches the lid away from me, slamming it back into place so hard she crushes a corner of the cardboard box.
Maggots.
The stuffed animal was full of maggots.
“Don’t,” she says, her voice fierce, commanding. “Don’t look again.”
“Was there something dead in there?” I ask. My heart is hammering in my chest. I feel dizzy.
“No,” Jade says, a little too quickly. “No, it was just…it was just meat. Raw meat.”
