Flight Risk

Capitulo Diecinueve

The days following Rissa’s midnight escapade to my house were among the oddest and surreal of my life. I’m still not sure what made me look down the following morning, but as soon as I walked outside to shovel the freshly fallen snow, I noticed a single white lily lying on my porch in the snow. It was a minor miracle that I didn’t step on it, since it didn’t exactly stand out in stark contrast to the snow. Glancing around, I looked for footprints only to discover there were none in the general vicinity, which meant it had to have been dropped off before the current snow had fallen. A small red tag was attached that read, “Please.” That was it; just one word. Unsure of what else to do, I tossed it inside my door so I could shovel a path to my garage and officially start my day.

That one word lingered in my mind all day as I meandered about the diner taking and serving orders. Every time I managed to forget about it, someone would say, “Coffee please” or “Hot chocolate please” thereby bringing it right back to the forefront of my mind.

“What do you think it means?” I asked Derik during one of the slumps.

“How the hell should I know? Have you been overly friendly to Brian?”

“No?” I asked, uncertain about whether or not my lack of hostility toward Brian could be misconstrued as something more. “I don’t think so. I mean I’m pretty sure he understands it’s over between us.”

“If you can’t even answer that, how am I supposed to make an educated guess? I’m sorry Trini, but I’ve got nothing.”

Honestly, I mentally complained, who leaves vague one word messages? 

When I fell asleep that night, even my dreams were persistent in repeating the word.

The next afternoon I found a picture of my special clearing with my hollowed out tree on my doorstep with the word, “forgive.” Again, I went about my business with two words floating around in my head. I wracked my brain for who could possibly wish for my forgiveness. Did this mystery person wish for forgiveness for themselves or a loved one?

Whoever it was must’ve heard my questions, because when I got home that night, I discovered yet another token, though this time it was a flyer to a college with courses available online for my bachelors in education that had a sticker that read “me.” This particular token demanded my attention because it was clear that whoever was leaving this for me could only be one of four people: Brian, Ashley, Sam, and Brad. They were the only ones that could possibly have something to apologize for and also knew about both my hideout and my plans to go back to school. I doubted that it was Ashley because being a selfish, unrepentant whore seemed to be her lot in life. The amount of animosity that stirred within me just thinking her name made me laugh. Hopefully it wasn’t her asking for forgiveness, because I had a feeling that she would be a difficult one to forgive.

It would be a bold faced lie, if I said that I wasn’t completely and totally curious as to which of the three it could possibly be. I set my alarm for five sharp and went to sleep hoping I could catch whoever it was in the act of leaving me the next token. My disappointment at the butt crack of dawn was palpable, but I tamped it down when I realized that whoever had left me the three tokens must have already said what they meant to say. The three words together were a coherent thought, therefore additional messages were not necessary. Still, one would think the person would at least tell me who they were. Unless, my mind reasoned, they assumed you would figure it out.

The sound of my phone in the dead silence scared the living daylights out of me and I jumped a good two feet in the air before I ran over to answer it. I could not have been more grateful to take the call since it turned out to be Bill, my next door neighbor and real estate agent requesting to meet me in town because he officially had a buyer for me.