12.57PM, Friday, Dec. 25th
400 West 37th Street, New York
I was sitting on my bed, staring out of the window onto the snow-covered street. It’d stopped sometime last night, but the weatherman said it just might pick up again. But I wasn’t here for the view, no matter how dazzling and rare mushy New York snow was. No, I was here to stare out of the window as I waited for Blane to come. I sipped my coke, feeling my hands shake. The prospect of having to break up with someone made me jittery. I was kind of hoping the caffeine would help.
How should I do it? I didn’t have enough experience to know. At one point, I’d even debated whether to call and ask Oscar about it, but he hadn’t called me since I saw him that day in the library, so I was guessing he was busy. Plus, asking him for relationship advice was just plain awkward, since the other guy I was dating happened to be his roommate.
So I just settled for some internet research. It basically told me to be honest, and place most of the blame on me to stroke his ego or whatever. But still, the actual words I would have to say were almost impossible to come up with… Whenever I started to plan the conversation in my mind, it would become stupidly clichéd – straight from a bad rom com – and all I could picture him doing was laughing, crying or something equally annoying.
But it was way too late now. The doorbell rang, and I knew that he was here. Finishing my coke in one gulp, with my eyes watering at the resulting brain-freeze, I grabbed a jacket and made my way towards the door.
Sammy gave me a quick hug on the way out. I took it as a sign of encouragement. Even though he probably had no idea what I was going out to do, I appreciated his support. Today, I needed all the support I could get. Taking a deep breath, I reached out and opened the door –
Immediately, the intense scent of flowers dominated the air around me, filling my lungs. It took a while for my eyes to focus on the blurry blood-red mass in front of me. I blinked, and suddenly it was a cloud of red roses. Behind the cloud was Blane. He held out the ridiculously large bouquet out to me, smiling. Oh, God. This just got a whole lot harder.
“For you,” Blane said, sounding almost nervous. He passed the flowers to me and I took them gingerly, not wanting to invoke my allergies. Now he wasn’t half-hidden, I could see that Blane was wearing a suit. My mind was vaguely confused for a few moments, before I remembered again. To Blane, this was just a date. He had no idea I was going to do this.
And now it was infinitely more difficult.
“They’re beautiful,” I said truthfully. Because, to be honest, they were. They were spectacular. Gems and pearls hung out from the bouquet, gleaming as they caught the light. It was lined with lace, the very petals decorated with delicate silk bands. It must’ve cost him an absolute fortune.
Why was he giving this to me? Wait…The surprise he was talking about…It was going to be big, wasn’t it? There was a sick knot in my stomach.
And now this was completely impossible.
“Not as beautiful as you.”
My heart stilled. Not because I was flattered. No. I was sad. Blane seemed to really, honestly like me and I knew it would hurt him so much when this ended.
“Blane,” I said quickly, going in headfirst. “I’m glad you called me yesterday, because I’ve been meaning to –”
“I’m glad as well,” he gushed. “We haven’t talked for so long I was getting worried about you. Do you want to go somewhere to talk? I have something I really want to tell you.”
