roses
0 days before
The moment, when it arrives, comes four months later.
Clara has taken a job in a flower shop, similar to the one Dev used to work in, only much larger, and swan-free. The April rain is launching a fierce assault against the shop's window, and Clara is tying ribbons around the new roses that have come in this morning.
But right at that moment, Dev is making a discovery.
He is sitting cross-legged in the middle of his living room, and the streaks of rain down his window are cast down onto the floor as shadows, cutting across him like prison bars. And he is smiling.
Dev has been cleaning as a means to procrastinate. He should really be reading up on a new drug that the pharmacy was set to stock, so of course he decides that it is imperative that he cleans his flat. It cannot wait. He clears everything out, and spends ridiculous sums of time gazing nostalgically at them before sorting them into KEEP and BIN piles.
Currently in his hands is a book. 50 Greatest Love Letters. This is his first time reading it – really reading, not just flicking through it absently – and now he knows why Clara never stayed in contact all those years. Now he knows why she was too scared to come and see him.
Scrambling to his feet and seizing his coat, Dev hurtles through his door and down the stairs, out into the rain. With his coat pulled hastily on, he sprints through the streets clutching the book tight in his hand. His shoes slap against the wet pavement as he runs through Leeds, and he catches sight of the flower shop. Dashing inside, he shuts the glass door behind him and faces Clara.
The bell rings.
"You!" Dev declares, his face fixed into the biggest grin Clara has ever seen. He is soaking wet, and panting, and there is a little puddle of rainwater forming by his feet at the entrance of the flower shop.
Clara stares at him, and she puts down her roses. "Me?" she asks flatly.
Dev realises that he never actually finished his sentence. He's too busy wheezing. He's never really had the best cardio. Dev holds up a finger in to say give me a second, and he leans against the door until he gets his breath back.
Some customers are staring.
"Wow," says Clara slowly. "You're a real man of action, Dev Nair."
But his smile doesn't falter and he triumphantly extracts the book.
He brandishes 50 Greatest Love Letters like a bouquet of flowers, and when Clara's eyes fix onto it, they grow as wide as a cartoon's. It's as if every word they never said is being wielded in that one gesture, soggy from the April storm but just as new as ever.
Because there are 51 love letters in this book.
"Holy shit."
"Holy shit indeed!" he manages. "Clara Monroe, you were in love!"
"That's an...exaggeration," she says, fumbling with her words. "I mean, I never used the word love. I love you, but I mean, I never said I was in love with –"
Dev flips the book open at the last page. There, in Clara's messy scrawl, is the 51st love letter, titled Dear Dev.
"Oh my god." She screws her eyes shut, but she's smiling. "You only just read it now."
"I did," nods Dev, and a few drops of water fly off the edge of his nose.
"I thought you read it when you got it but you never mentioned it so I thought you –" She opens her mouth to say something, but she closes it again. "You idiot! You didn't read my letter!"
"I read it now." His breath is still jagged from the spontaneous exercise. "Do you still...?"
"Do you...?"
"I mean, I kind of do," he grins, feeling more light-headed from this exchange than from the run.
"I think I do too," Clara says, and she's grinning just the same, and her voice is creaking as if she's about to cry. "Shit, Dev, I really do." Then she stops. "Wait, why did you run?"
Dev hums. "I don't really know, I just kind of felt like it was the sort of thing you do, you know?"
"What?"
"You know, running. In the..." He nods outside, still panting. "Rain. Pouring rain. That's a thing, right? Running in the pouring rain because of...love. It's a thing."
"I think it is," Clara affirms, trying her best not to smile at that brand new use of 'love'. "But I mean, my shift ends in half an hour. You're going to get a cold."
"I maybe probably didn't really think this through."
"You're an adult man."
"I definitely didn't think this through."
Clara grins. Her eyes travel from her rain-soaked best friend to the sodden little second-hand book clutched tight in his grip, and she says, "I love you as a friend. Don't get me wrong, that's the first and foremost thing, and that will never, ever stop. But I mean...there were feelings."
"Feelings," Dev sympathises. Those things are the worst.
"What I mean to say is, there are feelings. Sort of..." She wrings her hands and scrunches up her face as she tries to pick a word without embarrassing herself completely. "Sort of non-platonic feelings."
"Oh yeah," Dev nods emphatically. "All sorts."
And he stumbles awkwardly to the counter, and she drags him into a kiss. He's hunched over from the awkward angles, the countertop is digging into his stomach, and his face is soaking wet and clammy from the rain, but it's finally happening and he's with Clara and that's all he can think of.
When it finally ends, she looks at him, and she pulls him into a hug. This is almost better. It's like before, when they were eighteen and they were friends. It's the same, familiar, comfortable hug, only this time nothing is secret.
Clara lets go at last, and she says quietly, "You're always the second one to let go of a hug. I like that."
All Dev can do is smile. Because it's finally happened, and they're surrounded by roses and rain, and it's the most beautiful thing he can imagine.
"Um, hey," says a man standing behind Dev with a bunch of lilies. "Can I maybe, er, pay for this?"
"Oh!" Clara says suddenly. "Yes, of course, sorry!"
"I mean, I'm happy you realised your true love or something," he says politely. "But I'm going to miss my train."
As Dev steps aside for the man to buy his flowers, he doesn't feel fireworks, and he doesn't feel like he can lift a truck. He just feels like he never needs to lift a goddamn metaphorical truck ever again, and that's better. That's so much better.
When the man leaves, Dev slides back to the counter, grinning. He nods at the roses. "I'd like to buy one of those."
"Hm," Clara says approvingly. "What's the occasion? Are you in trouble with the wife?"
"Yeah," he says, pulling a face of exaggerated worry. "She caught me sleeping with the mailman."
"The male man?"
"The postman," he corrects. "But sure, he can be a male man."
Clara hums. "I'm sorry, it's company policy not to sell flowers to adulterers."
"Come on! It was on our anniversary! Our children – Percival and Quinoa – will be devastated if we divorce!"
She opens her mouth in pantomime shock. "On your anniversary? Well, there's nothing we can do for you, sir."
"Fine," he says. "I met this girl – years ago, actually. And I really like her. And I think we're going to date sometime in the near future, so I reckoned I'd start this off with some roses...? Because she's really great."
"I'm going to throw up."
Dev snorts, and this tumbles into laughter. "You can't be cynical! Talking about the girl you like in the third person to the girl you like is my favourite rom-com trope!"
"What an oddly specific thing to say..."
"Clara," he whines. "Embrace the weird."
"Maybe tonight," she promises, and then she pulls a face at how smug she just sounded. "Okay, let's not be that couple."
"Let's."
"I'm vetoing against it."
"We can be that couple part-time," he compromises, and she shrugs a 'why-not?'.
Then Clara pulls out a packet and slams it onto the counter. It reads: DOUBLE MIXED ROSE SEEDS.
"I'm contractually obliged to let you know that these exist," she says.
"I'll take them."
Clara rolls her eyes, smiling. "Only you would impulse-buy rose seeds. They don't even work properly, we've had complaints."
"You're a terrible saleswoman," Dev jokes. "But seriously. We'll make them work. We'll be like floral magicians – it'll be great. Seeds are romantic."
He briefly regrets using the phrase 'seeds are romantic', but the feeling passes quickly.
Grudgingly, Clara relents. "That's a fiver, then," she tells him.
When they meet for takeout and a movie at Clara's flat, they will spend an hour looking for a reciprocal for the rose seeds, and then a further hour stealing soil from the park down the road. Eventually, they will scoop some soil up into a beheaded plastic milk container and sprinkle in a few seeds. It won't grow. But they will keep trying until eventually a sapling emerges from the proper plastic pot that they'll buy from a DIY shop.
Clara will continue planting roses in an assortment of makeshift pots – bowls, teapots, cartons – until July, when Dev will suggest renting somewhere with a real balcony garden. They will bundle all their assorted things into their new home, and they'll live out of boxes for seven months before either of them thinks of assembling a wardrobe. They'll spend a good three hours lamenting over the flat-pack before eventually admitting defeat. Luckily, Rebecca has always been good at DIY, and she'll only be a phone call away.
When they decide to actually get round to painting the place, Alice and the Changs will offer to help, but spend the whole time sitting around contributing nothing but conversation. In their defence, the Changs will come over with proper, home-cooked meals and eventually a baby, and Alice will sometimes bring them souvenirs from her travels.
Slowly but surely, the flat will begin to fill with their memories, and it will take on the distinct smell of microwaved meals, scented candles, and all the damned plants they keep growing.
And they will be happy, and there will be flowers.
end.
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Thank you for sticking by and dealing with my horribly slow updates! Your comments are all so kind, and I appreciate each one of them so much. <3
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