Indie

IT’S SPRING. MY FAVORITE season. And four months since I last saw Jem Valentine.

I gave up hoping he would come back a long time ago.

The last I know was that he was in Houston. I didn’t even find out from him. On Kendall’s Instagram page, I spotted him mowing the lawn at the corner of her story. He looked different. His hair was longer.

I missed his twenty-first birthday last night. He missed mine, too. The thought makes my chest ache like I’ve been bit by a freight train.

Last week, Kedar Williams asked me out on a date. And in an attempt to get my mind off things — all I ever do these days — I accepted.

We went to a baseball match, and although he was kind, and charming, I knew it would never work out. When you’ve felt every color of the rainbow, it’s hard to settle for just a few.

I told him we’d be better off as friends, and he just shrugged it off and passed me one of those easy-going smiles.

I figured I can’t spend forever sad. Wrapped up in my blanket and just let the world run past me. I can’t allow boys to dictate my life anymore. I can’t keep making the same mistakes. First it was Kade and now it’s Jem. I loved him, but it didn’t work out, and it’s fine. It’s completely fine.

I can’t forget him. He’s like an invisible tattoo on my mind. The only thing I can do is try and cover him up. Try and fill my schedule up so that I have no time to think about him, and all the time we spent together.

So I get my shit together. I throw myself into my classes. When I think of him, I pick up a textbook and focus on it instead. And since he floods my thoughts often, I’ve been studying for hours on end to stop thinking about him.

It’s like I’m in survival mode. And it works.

And now I’m passing everything — and not just scraping a pass, I’m getting A’s. My scholarship is safe, and my professors are happy.

I also finished my last dissection for the year. And I develop a newfound appreciation for life. For all these fragile little things. An acceptance that everything has to end, someday.

Nothing worth anything lasts forever.

It’s the only thing that keeps me going.

The only thing that makes me cherish the time I spent with Jem and accept it for what it was — something that was too good for me, and something that simply had to end.

But it’s as if the universe is conspiring against me because at work, Kat calls me into her office while I’m working the counter.

I follow the path to the room and stand in front of her, and she passes me a look I know can mean nothing good. My palms grow clammy and my heart kicks up a beat in my chest. I’m half thinking she might fire me for all those times these last few months where I’ve spaced out, staring at those pink tulips that Jem used to come for.

The reality is so much worse.

Finally she breaks the silence. “I’ve decided to sell the shop.”

My heart sinks. “What do you mean?”

This was the first place I felt accepted and heard as a kid. My gran was everything to me. She taught me the meaning of love, that there was courage in kindness and strength in fragility. Some days, the flower shop was the only place where I felt home.

“That’s exactly what I mean,” she says, “I want to sell the shop. Take the money and travel the world. I deserve a break.”

She spares me a single glance before she drags her gaze back to her laptop.

“Kat,” I say, “You promised that I would have the first option to get the shop.”

“Indigo.” She sighs. “Let’s be realistic for a second. It was a pipe dream. You’ll only have enough money to buy the shop in around ten years. I can’t wait around for you.”

Technically, she isn’t wrong, but I thought I’d have a few years left to save up.

Even if she’d given me more warning, there wouldn’t be much I could do to get that amount of money.

“Thanks for telling me, I guess,” I mutter, steadying my voice as I close the door behind me. I feel my throat clog up, and tears rise to my eyes, but there’s no way I’m giving her the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

Picking up my bag, I sling it over my shoulder and head back to campus for my anatomy lecture. But I’m not paying attention. All I think about is the shop. It’s the only job I liked that was near campus and home, that gave me the opportunity to be involved in the acquisition of the shop that once belonged to my grandmother.

I wonder if I’ll still be able to keep the job. If not, I guess I can always just beg Mae to ask her uncle for a position at the ice cream shop. I wouldn’t even mind a night shift.

The professor drones in the background about what research and work we have to cover before the next lecture and dismisses us.

I head to the local cafe. The plan is to get something to eat while I attempt to work through some assignments. If I go home now, I’ll think about it all day and that’s the last thing I want.

Settling with a sandwich, muffin and coffee in a corner table and I crank my laptop on and push through the work. But someone grabs my shoulder and spins me around, giving me a heart attack.

I’m left staring up at the familiar green eyes, framed by dark hair.

“Kade.”

How could I forget? This was his favourite cafe. In my aim to avoid the places I’d find Jem, I forgot to avoid the places I’d find Kade. He’d bring me to this place often when we were together.

He’s wearing his navy hoodie with Columbia written across it. I spot his friends behind him in the booth on the opposite side of the cafe. He drops his hands and tucks them into his pockets. “Can we talk?”

Apprehension settles in my stomach. The last time I saw him, he was leaving my apartment with a bloody nose. It took two weeks for the bruises he left on my arm to fade. Granted, I bruise easily, but he knew this and still gripped my arm and refused to let go.

He slides into the seat opposite me. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

When he sees my expression, he stops and stares at me, tilting his head to get a good look at me. “He broke up with you, didn’t he?”

I say nothing. My silence is enough of an answer for him.

Then he leans forward in his chair. “I miss you, you know. I’m sorry about how it all went down.”

He leans forward. “I’m here, and he isn’t. I’ll always be here.”

I clench my jaw and stay silent. And then it comes. The million dollar question.

“Would you ever give me a second chance?”

I take a breath, meeting his gaze.

“The girl you knew and the girl I am now are two different people. Before, I might have gone back to you. Now?” I pass him an empty smile. “I love Jem, and I have no intention of getting back with him. What makes you think I’ll go back to you?”

Kade straightens. He’s not used to this. Especially from me. And he doesn’t know what to say, because he really did expect that because I was single, I was simply going to run back into his arms.

“Okay,” he says, like my reply is just part of a phase. “But if you need me, you know my number.”

I take a sip from my coffee as I meet his gaze evenly. “No, I don’t. Have a nice life, Kade.”

An embarrassed flush creeps up his neck.

Focusing back on my laptop, I don’t watch him as he moves out of the seat and back to his obnoxious friends, who laugh at him and slap his back. I have a hunch he convinces them to leave the cafe, because a few minutes later, the entire group is filtering out.

I let go of a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

After a few hours and two assignments done, I call it quits and walk back to the apartment, a strange feeling of contentment. Yes, I lost Kade. I lost Jem. I lost the flower shop. But somewhere along the way, I found myself.

And I’ll never ever lose myself again.

The fresh smell of blooming flowers in Spring permeates in the air and a cool breeze moves through my curls as I near my apartment.

I’m about to slide my key through the hole to let myself up but I stop. I furrow my brows, my heart skipping a beat. There’s a figure standing on the pavement directly below my window. Playing music.

My heart skips a beat.

Jem.

He looks different. Brighter, somehow. Healthier. Happier. His hair is grown out. I’m itching to run my fingers through it.

He’s playing Let Me Love You by Mario on his phone, singing up to my room, when I’m not even there.

I don’t know whether to laugh or burst into tears. My mind is on overdrive.

When he senses someone is watching him, he turns his head and meets my gaze. “Indie? Fuck.” Jem slurs. “I thought you were up there.”

He’s also drunk. I frown.

Jem glances up at me. “Hey, baby. I missed you.” His gaze washes over me. “I missed you so much.”

I let go of a breath.

“Will you listen to me? Please.”

I pause. I want to give in so bad. I want to check if he’s okay and that he has a ride to get home. But I donʼt move.

“Come to my dad’s wedding with me, Indigo Gallagher!” he yells.

What the hell? I didn’t even know they set a date. Honestly, I don’t know what I was expecting. He’s drunk out of his mind.

Taking one last look at him, I walk past him. Even though I want to tell him that I missed him too. That I missed him so much that I can’t stop thinking about him.

But what the hell?! Seriously. He can’t just pitch up out of the blue after not returning all my messages and calls and leaving me behind.

He probably doesn’t even mean it. It’s the night of his twenty-first birthday. He’s drunk. Tomorrow, he’ll be gone, and he’ll go back to acting like I don’t exist.

***

HE DOESN’T STOP. If anything, it gets worse. Every time I get back from college, he’s waiting outside the apartment with a mini pot plant. He keeps trying, and his attempts get worse and worse each time.

Always singing R&B, always at the bottom of the apartments on the streets. Heʼs even there when it’s pouring outside. Sometimes I check outside to see if he’s alright but he’s there with a freaking boombox above his head.

I don’t mind spending every day, the speakers boom, out on your corner in the pouring rain.

I’m not even kidding. He’s fucking insane. I feel like the two inches of hair somehow hardwired his brain, or something.

It goes on for three whole weeks. Twenty-one days.

I never accept the pot plants, but they always end up outside our apartment. He drops it off before he leaves. So I now have a collection of mini pot plants lining up the hallway to get to the door of my apartment.

One day, I come back with Scarlett, and she picks up one of the tiny pots with a cactus in it, shaking it in my face. “Are you seriously never going to forgive him?”

I push open the door, huffing under my breath. “Are you seriously asking me that?”

She shrugs, following me into the house. “He’s trying.”

Taking the stupid pot plant from her hands and chucking it outside before slamming the door closed, I snap, “That’s too damn bad.”

He wants to talk, but I can’t do it. Because I know that if I let him talk to me, he’ll be too hard to resist. I want to give in, so badly. But I hate what he did. It’s been long enough that I can say that I won’t forgive him for it.

He should have let me in.

I was his girlfriend.

He had no right just letting go of me like that. Especially when I told him that it was delicate. When it hadn’t been that long after I broke up with Kade. It messed me up. It hurt me. And he doesn’t get to come back. He doesn’t get to decide when he wants me and when he doesn’t.

I know him enough to know that he’s stubborn enough to keep trying until I give him and speak to him.

And I’m scared that it’ll take too little for me to give in.