A Single Daffodil

The shrill of the phone on my bedside table was what woke me up first thing the next morning. My head felt heavy, my eyes struggled to open and my mouth was dry. I tried to ignore the continuous ring, but by the third or fourth, and maybe possibly sixth, ring, it was no longer possible.

Without opening my eyes, I retrieved my arm from underneath my blanket and reached for my phone. I slide my finger across the screen and dropped the phone onto my ear. “Hello?” My voice croaked.

“Vita! Finally!!”. Sophia’s voice shrieked on the other side of the line. “I’ve been calling you all morning, huh! It’s almost 12 o’clock! Where have you been?”

“Sleeping.” I yawned, already toying with the idea of hanging up on Sophia and going back to sleep.

“Listen, you have to check-AY, GET OUT OF MY WAY ASSHOLE!- sorry, I’m driving to my mom’s house. You have to check your e-mail right now, okay? You and Harry are all over the internet!” I could hear honking and loud shouting on Sophia’s side of the phone. “Ay dios mio, no one can drive in this town. Okay listen, I have to babysit my cousins for a couple of hours, but I’m coming over later to talk about everything! I have to go! Adios, mi amore!”

I hung up easily, throwing my phone back on the bedside table and pulling the covers back up to my chin. Just as my brain started to flirt with the idea of falling back into a deep slumber, I suddenly began to register every single word Sophia said on the phone.

Harry.

With my brain now kicking into full gear, I rolled over and expected to see a sleeping Harry next to me.

But he wasn’t there.

In fact, the other side of my bed was completely made up and empty, like there was nobody even there to begin with. But I was sure Harry slept over last night. I was positive.

I cleared my throat before sitting up and staring at my bedroom door. “Harry?” I called out. Maybe he was in the living room watching television, or making breakfast in the kitchen.

My house responded with completely and utter silence.

I pushed the covers back and pulled myself out of bed for further investigation. I walked out of my room and into the kitchen/living room area, trying to find signs and evidence that I didn’t just completely make up last night’s events in my head.

When I peered out the front window of my kitchen, my heart dropped. Harry’s Range Rover was gone. I bit my lip and continued to inspect the house. Maybe he left a note? He probably left a note around here somewhere. That would be the courteous thing to do, right?

But there was no note to be seen. There wasn’t a note stuck to the fridge, or on top of the counter, not even one on the bedside table.

I tried to stay neutral with my feelings as I walked back into the kitchen and reached into one of the cabinets for a bowl. I wasn’t going to over think this. There was probably a good reason he wasn’t here. I refuse to let my very rigorous brain try to dissect why he wasn’t here when I woke up this morning.

Instead, I tried to stay distracted by turning on the tv in the living room and getting myself a nice, huge bowl of Captain Crunch cereal. By the time I poured a bowl and sat down at the breakfast bar counter, E! News was just starting.

And right when I turned around in my seat to watch it, that’s when it all started.

“Well, we’ve got some exciting breaking news to tell you this morning, folks!” Ryan Seacrest’s teeth gleamed underneath the studio lighting of the E! News stage set. “E! News can officially report that Harry Style’s is officially taken! Giuliana Rancic reports.”

I completely spit out the mouthful of Captain Crunch cereal onto the counter when several pictures of me and Harry from last night’s Heat game showed up on the screen. I immediately jumped up from the seat, brushing off the soggy Captain Crunch cereal from my shirt, and moved closer to the television to get a better look.

“Hot new couple alert! Harry Styles is officially off the market!” A female narrator’s voice was now booming while the dreaded blurry pictures from our first date popped up on the screen. “The One Direction cutie was spotted cozying up to another famous face last night at the basketball game, with no other than Vita Spoelstra, the daughter of the Miami Heat basketball’s coach! Sources claim Harry and Vita have been dating for quite some time now, and it appears that the boy-bander is absolutely head over heels for the blond beauty. Check out what happens when the two lovebirds were caught on the Kiss Cam during the break between the third and fourth quarter of the game!”

Now they showed a video clip of Harry kissing me inside the heart of the Kiss Cam. My mouth practically dropped to the floor, trying to take all of this in. They had everything.

“Styles and Spoelstra were seen leaving together with friends at the end of the game, including Niall Horan, Liam Payne, and X-Games Dirt Biking extraordinaire, Jayden Hall!”

I found the remote and shut the tv off, not wanting to hear another second of all the bullshit. Now, I was furious. Fuck trying to keep my feelings neutral, everything was wrong! Harry Styles and I were not dating! Harry didn’t even have the goddamn decency to leave a note, telling me why he left without telling me. I was pissed. I thought last night was a breakthrough for us, that I had finally found someone I liked. Shit, I even told him I liked him. And now he’s gone and fucked everything up.

Not to mention, I was just officially outed on cable television! Now everyone was going to think we were dating.

Oh, but mark my words, Universe. I’ll make sure we’ll never have the chance to date again. I am done with anything related to Harry Styles. I am officially shutting this joint down.



“You know, I gotta say, this job is way better than the one I have at the airport.” Ronnie announced, pulling up a stool next to me in the back room of the flower shop. She dropped a fresh bunch of red roses onto the steel table, and reached over me to grab the scissors. “The airport is always so stressful. Too many anxious passengers leaving everything last minute. The vibe there is totally not appealing.”

I nodded my head, still staring at the bouquet of flowers I made for an order that came in this morning.

“What’s up with you, girl?” Ronnie caught on to my silence. “You’ve been pretty quiet all day. Does it have anything to do with your name trending on Twitter?”

“My name is trending on Twitter too!?” I turned to look at Ronnie with shock. When she nodded, I exhaled loudly, turning back to the bouquet. “My whole life is a nightmare, Ronnie.”

“Aw, Veedz. What happened?” She picked up a rose and started nipping off the leaves with the scissors.

“Harry Styles. That’s what happened.”

I barely saw Ronnie at the shop anymore, due to her working her other job all the time. Unfortunately, that meant I had to catch her up on a lot of stuff she’s missed, so I started from the beginning. I told her everything, not skipping out on any details, including this morning’s questionable mishap.

“Wait, he just left?” She gasped. “After all that professing of how much he’s obsessed with you?”

“Well I wouldn’t say obsessed, per se, but yeah. He just disappeared this morning, without a trace.”

“The nerve of that cute-ass douchebag!” Ronnie exclaimed, thrusting a rose up in the air. “I’m officially pissed, V. Can we egg the Four Seasons tonight? Just out of spite?”

“As much as I would love to do that--and trust me, wow, the idea sounds great --I have to close the stop tonight.”

Ronnie shrugged. “Suit yourself! I’ll be on standby, in case you change your mind.”

I cracked my first smile today. “Thanks, Ronnie. You’ve always been such a great friend.”

She smiled back, patting my shoulder and standing up. “I better get back on the floor before Maggie gets overwhelmed out there!”

I was in a pretty foul mood for the remainder of the afternoon, and it didn’t improve much in the evening either. Maggie offered to close up when she observed how upset I was today, but I begged her to let me do it. I knew that if I left early, I’d just go straight home and wallow in a brand new batch of self-pity.

At one point during the evening, I ended up turning my phone off because it was blowing up with texts, phone calls and voice mails. The majority of them were all from Sophia, but there were a couple of missed calls and texts from my dad, which was rare. I actually read one of his texts, wondering if he was at all concerned about me and my newfound spotlight, but all it said was ‘Call me. My publicists has a plan of action.’ It wasn’t the lack of fury and worry about my well-being that pissed me off about my dad’s text, but it was how anticipated the text felt. Like it was something he was expecting to happen eventually.

Another thing that pissed me off more than most, was Harry wasn’t one of the several calls and texts I’ve received today. That was the worst of all. Yes, I was mad at him, but he didn’t know that. I wanted him to know that. Do you get what I’m trying to say here? I’m pissed at him. I wanted to rip his head off. I wanted to scream. I spent all day at work, coming up with all these things to say to him, with a couple of F words in between.

And then I started to question the conversation we had last night, and if the things he said were even true at all.

The early evening bled into the night, with a couple of thunder and rainstorms in tow. Because of the bad weather, Maggie left an extra thirty minutes earlier than she was suppose to. I didn’t think anything of the bad weather at first, seeing as this was Miami and there were always thunderstorms during Hurricane season, until I realized I biked to work today.

“Today could not get any worse.” I said out loud in the empty flower shop. I was leaning my forehead against the front window, watching the rain splatter aggressively against the empty beach walk outside. My blue beach cruiser was chained up right outside the front door, and was now completely drenched by the rain.

I was seriously so over today.

By the time I sprayed water on all the flowers, trashed the dying ones, refrigerated the pick-up bouquets for tomorrow morning, and cleaned up the back room, it was still pouring rain outside.

I considered a couple of my options as I stood under the tiny black awning above the entrance to the now closed flower shop. I could easily call up Jayden, Sophia, or even my dad to come pick me up and give me a ride home but I honestly didn’t feel like dealing with any of them.

So I ran over to the bike rack and braved the rain.

It took me two seconds to get completely soaked by the rain, five seconds to fiddle with the lock on my bike, and three seconds to detect the blinding lights of a black Range Rover pulling up next to me.

“You have got to be kidding me.” I mumbled, quickly ripping my bicycle away from the bike rack and wheeling it as far away from that damn fucking jeep as possible. I could feel my heart beating aggressively against my chest and the heat rise up into my cheeks as anger filled my whole being.

The distant sound of a car door opening and closing, followed by the puddle splashing of a jogging foot did not slow me down. In fact, my legs started to walk faster.

“Vita! Hey wait, Vita!” I heard his stupid British accent catch up to me. Several seconds later, he was trying to stop me by blocking my way. I didn’t want to look up at him because there was a good chance I’d probably deck him the second we make eye contact, but through the rain, I could see his loose black shirt hanging dangerously low on his chest, and the two tattooed birds above his collarbones. “What are you doing?”

“Ignoring you for the rest of my life! Bye!” I exclaimed over the heavy rain shower. I pushed the bicycle towards the part of the sidewalk Harry wasn’t blocking and continued to stomp away. Harry didn’t let me march too far because a couple of seconds later, he was in front of me again.

“Go away!” I threw my right leg over the frame and nudged my bicycle forward, hoping he’d get the hint and move, but he didn’t budge. In fact, he placed both of hands firmly on the handlebars. I groaned with annoyance, still avoiding his gaze.

“I’m not letting you bike home in this!” Harry leaned forward with his stern expression, reiterating that he wasn’t kidding around. “Why are you so upset with me right now?”

“Why!?” I exploded. “Why?!?”

“Yeah, why!” He looked at me like I was crazy.

“You know what? You’re a real piece of work, Harry. You really are.” I barked louder than the thunder in the clouds above. I pushed my soaked bangs away from my eyes and glared at Harry, making sure I don’t let any guards down this time. “You may be used to the whole sneaking out of a girls house before they wake up dynamic, but I’m not! That’s not how I roll, Styles, so just leave me alone alright?”

“Whoa, what? Vita, that’s not-let me explain-”

“No, actually, don’t. Just don’t.” I said abruptly. “I don’t want to hear it. I’m not about to stand around in this stupid rain just to listen to some excuse you’re about to make up.”

“It’s not an excuse! Listen, I-” He started, but I interupted him again.

“Look, I get it, alright? This is your lifestyle. It’s just not something I’m interest-”

“If you think I’m fucking around with you, then you clearly don’t get it at all!” He glowered, and now I was the one who looked taken aback. I leaned back into my bicycle seat when I noticed how furious Harry looked; it was a look I have never witnessed before. “At what point did I ever give off the vibe that I didn’t want to be with you, Vita? Ever since we’ve met, I’ve practically stalked you. You know that! And I was so fuckin’ ecstatic when you finally started warming up to me because, finally, I could see just how lovely you were when you weren’t about to shoot a cannon off in my arse!”

I sucked my lips in between my teeth to resist from laughing at that last part. I folded my arms across my chest and looked sideways because I knew if I looked into Harry’s dark eyes, I’d crumble.

Harry pushed his now drenched locks aside and continued. “Look, this morning I wasn’t trying to sneak out of anywhere. I swear I didn’t want to leave. There was a band press event all the way in Tampa today and I had to get back to the hotel to meet the band. I was already over an hour late so I rushed out of there. That’s why I left. I’m sorreh! I didn’t know you’d be so upset. If I had known you’d be like this, I would have bloody brought you with me!”

I observed him as he let out a noise of frustration. I could feel my whole tough act soften as I let his words set in. Everything he said sounded right, and it did make sense. I never pegged him as a person who would lie or intentionally hurt me.

“Well you could have at least left a post-it note...” After I said it, I cracked a smile, lifted my chin, and finally looked up at Harry from beneath my eyelashes.

His once distressed expression changed and immediately mirrored mine when it was clear I wasn’t mad at him anymore. How could I resist him? It was impossible.

Without warning, Harry tugged the handlebars of the bike closer to him. I momentarily lost my balance, letting out an embarrassing yelp and instantly reaching for the handles for stability. Now Harry was closer and looking down at me with a cheeky grin.

“I meant all that stuff I said last night, yeh know.” He let out an adorable laugh. “Even if I was completely bonkers off that drink.”

I laughed too. “You even remember the part about telling me you sleep with a teddybear every night? And that you like putting on your mom’s makeup when no one is home?”

A look of horror fell onto Harry’s face, making me laugh harder. “That is NOT true!” He exclaimed.

“Hey, they don’t call Sizzurp the ultimate truth serum for nothin’.” I shrugged casually.

Harry shook his head, the playful grin not shaking from his lips. “You’re so frustrating.”

“Yeah?” I asked, biting my bottom lip with a new sense of excitement. I knew what would happen next.

“Yeah.” Harry confirmed. Finally, he leaned across the handlebars of my bicycle and caught my lips with his.