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Oh man, he chuckles. His chest shakes and his head pitches back a little and those three lines around his eyes, the ones that I thought were a myth but weren’t really, appear and I forget to draw in a breath.
I swear the sound of it – rusty and delicious and thick – hits me in the chest. No, scratch that. It hits me in my tummy, making it suck in a breath.
Making something flap inside of me. Wings and petals and flames.
I dig my toes into the leather couch and tighten my arms around my knees to stop my body from going haywire over something so simple.
And come out with the first question. “So, do you?”
He shifts, turning his magnificent body toward me and propping his back against the arm like me, as if he’s committed to this whole chatting thing. “Do I what?”
At this, I can tighten my entire body until the world burns down around me, but I still won’t be able to stop the flapping and fluttering and clenching of my stomach. “Pick up women at bars a lot?”
He narrows his eyes. “Next question.”
I raise my eyebrows and rock in my spot. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Actually, I knew this already. Mr. Edwards doesn’t date or does it very rarely. Brian told me that his dad just fucks and doesn’t do relationships because he doesn’t want to bring that kind of complication into his son’s life. I actually coughed out the watermelon juice I was drinking at the time but that’s beside the point.
“What’s your favorite color? Mine is pink.”
Again, I know the answer. It’s not a mystery why my sneakers are red, my suitcase is a mix of red and maroon and my fat hobo is red leather.
He gazes at my lips for a second before answering, “Red.”
I smile. “Tell me a dream of yours.”
He looks… confused. “What?”
“Yeah.”
More confusion and it’s silent and frowning.
“Uh, okay. So let me break it down for you a little,” I explain. “Tell me a dream. Like somewhere you want to go or something you want to do. Or oh! Something you want to have.”
My eyes are wide and excited for him.
He watches my enthusiasm with both a blank expression and an expression that indicates that I’m crazy. “I think I’m a little too old for dreams.”
“No, you’re not. You’re never too old for dreams.”
They could be toxic though. Like my dreams were. But I don’t wanna think about that right now.
“Sure.”
“What, you think people in their thirties can’t dream?”
“Next question.”
“Fine. Tell me a dream you had when you were a kid, then.”
“I didn’t dream,” he says.
“You didn’t?”
“No.”
Now, it’s my turn to watch him, watch his impassive face. How is it possible that he didn’t dream? Everyone dreams. Everyone has wishes.
Right?
“But that’s… not right.” I shake my head. “I mean, you must’ve wanted something, right? Maybe you wanted to be a big football star or something like that.”
“Yeah, that.”
The way he says it, the way he jumps at my suggestion makes me think that he’s lying. He’s making it up.
And gosh, that’s so sad.
So fucking gloomy that I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to think other than the very melancholic fact that Mr. Edwards – the man I dreamed about for two years – is dreamless.
This beautiful, isolated man doesn’t have any dreams.
It makes my eyes water and since I don’t want to cry in front of him and turn this into a depressing chat session, I ask him an easy question. “How do you know so much about roses?”
He keeps looking at me intensely as he replies, “My dad.”
Okay, good.
That was an easy answer.
It brings back the smile on my face. I didn’t expect his answer at all, actually. I thought he learnt it off the internet or something but this makes everything so personal, so intimate and meaningful.
“Was he like, into gardening and stuff like that?”
At this though, his features ripple, going all tight and strained.
Shit.
How do I keep doing that? Maybe I should’ve stuck with superficial questions.
But the truth is that even though I know so many things about him, there’s so much that I don’t know and tonight, I’m hungry.
My heart is ravenous, my stomach starving.
I’m all famished for him, for all the things that I don’t know about him.
So I plead with him, mutely. I bite my lip and look at him with all the need that I’m feeling, every tiny bit of it.
I do it even though I know he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care what I want or what I need.
Even so, through some miracle, some divine intervention, he gives it to me.
He looks into my eyes, takes in my need and says, “No. Not gardening and stuff. My dad was just into my mom.” When I frown, he explains, “Her name was Rose and he grew roses for her. When she left him for another man, he continued doing that in her memory. And no, he didn’t teach me. Not that I can remember. He was too drunk to teach anyone anything. I just took care of them when he got sick. He didn’t care. All the while I was growing up, he never cared about anything except getting drunk and talking about my mother. I don’t know why I did it. I just did.”
