Careful What You Wish For

Chapter Three

Sophie watches the milk swirling in the jug, growing hot beneath her palm. Her mind is far, far away. The noisy clamour of the coffee shop takes over all her senses, and she sinks into it, her awareness growing fuzzy and calm.

"Sophie." A man's voice abruptly disrupts her thoughts. The emphasis on her name makes her realise this is not the first time he has said it.

She looks up at a faintly familiar face. "Jonas." She says, almost involuntarily. The name forms on her lips a moment before she really recognises the boy before her. He is leaning in toward her slightly, trying to catch her eye. How long has he been there?

For one moment Sophie feels nothing but the pain of her breakup with Evan. How ridiculous that she should associate her painful breakup with two men instead of one! She is immediately transported to the memory of Jonas and that day. She sees his checked shirt, his sunglasses resting on the table beside him, his earnest face. They are by the river, sitting side by side atop a picnic table with their feet resting on the seat. An enormous gum stretches its branches above them and the only smell in the air is eucalyptus.

Sophie can't remember exactly what they said to each other. But she remembers Jonas's intense discomfit, and she feels her own desperation all over again. Heat starts to creep up her neck. How humiliating this all is now...

Jonas suddenly looks as uncomfortable as she does. He has noticed the blush. "How are you going?" He asks, somewhat uncertainly.

"I haven't seen you since you broke up with me." Sophie blurts out, jokingly. It is an attempt to regain her composure, although as soon as she says it she realises it's a mistake.

Jonas winces. Sophie feels the heat strengthen in her cheeks. She's made it worse.

Sophie focuses all her attention on the coffee in front of her and tries her damn hardest to get a handle on her emotions. Right now, she feels exactly like the pathetic ex-girlfriend, and the very last thing she wants is for Jonas to relate this to Evan.

"So..." Jonas begins, and Sophie hears a question in his tone. She glances at the docket before her, calls out the customer's name, and then hands the tall flat white to the middle-aged man who steps forward. She brings her gaze back to Jonas slowly. "I hear someone broke into your house?" He asks her, when their eyes meet again.

Sophie's heart skips a beat. If Jonas knows about the roses, then it's pretty likely that Evan knows as well. Did Evan send Jonas to ask if she was okay? Or did he send him to see if she realised it was him? Was it Evan? It has been four days now, maybe he was expecting a reaction. She had thought about it, contacting him, although Brianne sensibly talked her out of it.

The fear of going back into the house had begun to fade after her housemate returned home, and Sophie went back to sleeping in her own house and her own bed. After Brianne helped her rid the bathroom of petals the next day, Sophie enlisted the help of her father in removing the trellis from the side of the house, although she didn't tell him why she wanted it gone. No more climbing up the wall of her house!

"They did." Sophie finally says. "They left rose petals all over my bathroom."

Jonas looks rather shocked. "Are you alright?" He asks her.

Sophie is momentarily caught off guard by his concern. Also, she had secretly been under the impression that the entire thing was a practical joke engineered by Evan. Of course, she didn't actually think Evan himself scaled her wall with roses in his mouth, but Evan was the kind of guy who had people do things like that for him. Ridiculous as it sounds, that was Evan's world. Maybe Jonas just wasn't in the loop on this one. Or maybe she was just completely pathetic.