AllFreeNovel
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“What?” I scowl. “I haven’t. And I won’t. And I hate him and, actually, our love is dead—”
“—Oh!” sighs Mum’s BOTM remorsefully.
“No-no, Enzo—” I shake my head at him, flashing him a quick smile. “It’s not a sad thing, it’s an empowering thing.”
“Is it?” Henry tilts his head and I elbow him quiet.
“I’m very empowered. It’s like that part in that film, with the love fern? And it dies. And she’s fine. Relieved, even—”
“Your plant die too?” he asks, a bit devastated.
Taura shakes her head. “Doesn’t she go mental when the love fern dies in the film?”
I shoot her a look.
“Uh — no. No, everyone listen. I, metaphorically—” I try to clarify just for him, “dropped the — metaphorical — plant of our love into the desert and willingly abandoned it there. So, to just elucidate — not sad—” I give Henry a stern look. “Very empowered.”
I give Taura an exasperated look.
Bridget thinks for a few seconds. “Out of curiosity, what sort of plant was it? Your metaphorical love plant?”
I blow a raspberry and shrug off her stupid question before giving her a stupid answer. “I don’t know — something super boring like an ugly shrub. Like a… like a Sprinter Boxwood. Super ugly.”
“Oh.” She squints over at me. “You mean an evergreen? The plants that never die?”
I look up at her, alarmed.
“What?” I shake my head. Hen glances at me, amused. “No! I mean— no, that’s no — I understand the implications of that and no.” Fuck. “I’ve changed my mind. It’s an English rose. Very fragile, stupid flower. Can’t survive shit.”
“Oh.” She nods sarcastically. “So the metaphorical plant of your love is only the most iconically beautiful flower… ever.”
I blink at her.
“What the fuck, Bridget? Are you a fucking botanist in your spare time now?”
Taura starts laughing.
“And also no... Even though yes, but no.” I give my sister a stern look. “Sure. Maybe it’s very pretty on the outside but it has a lot of thorns. Very thorny. Also it’s in the desert now. Where no one can see it. Or water it. No chance in the desert. It’s done for out there, for sure. One-hundred-percent dead. And there’s no such thing as rose ghosts, so that’s great.”
I drink my wine quickly and then Henry’s too and keep my head down for the rest of dinner.
•
My room is how I left it.
Preserved perfectly and it feels like a hundred paper cuts all over my heart for a second — all the ways my room makes me think of him — and then I throw back some more wine and it washes those feelings away.
Or drowns them out.
Bridget lies down on my bed right where he used to.
“You okay?”
I blink a few times, probably a couple too many because probably I’m not, but I lie anyway because it’s easy.
“Grand.” I nod.
She nods back and I know she knows I’m lying.
