Chapter 4
Dear Nazareth,
I've been thinking about the flowers, what they mean. Not what they're supposed to mean—not the official language of flowers or whatever Ian would say if I tried to explain it to him. What they mean to me. What they actually are.
They're the only version of you I get right now. That's what they are.
Six days of silence and then this… this deliberate thing that required you to think about me, to choose a color, to make sure someone was there to bring them to a door in a city you’re not supposed to know I'm in.
Every bouquet is a decision. Every bouquet is you deciding, again, that I'm worth the risk of the gesture.
I don't know if you know what that does to me. Maybe you do, I don’t know.
Sometimes I think the flowers aren't for comfort. I think they're for keeping. Like you’re leaving pieces of yourself somewhere safe while you can't be safe yourself. Like I'm the place you put the things you can't carry.
I'll keep them. Every single one.