[POV: Venezia Casadei]
"You really are something, huh," Auden said strolling over to me, a dangerous glint in his eye. The look on his face was one of hunger. I'd seen it before on the bloodthirsty faces of Made Men just before they'd shot someone i...
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Seven roses.
That's what greeted me when I opened the door to my three-bedroom apartment. I didn't need to count how many there were to know the exact number. The moment I saw them sitting in a crystal vase on my entry table, I knew three things.
One, a single rose had been added to the count since the last time I had received them.
Two, they were thornless.
Three, he had found me again.
Seven roses. Seven times. Seven new places in the last fourteen months.
"Jesus Christ, Jason," I grumbled under my breath. "You sure know how to woo the ladies." Forgoing routine, I walked into the apartment without removing my heels at the doorway and reached into the foyer closet to pull out several flattened cardboard boxes. I'd long since learnt the value of not throwing them away, rather keeping them within easy reach for faster packing. Picking up the roses, I moved to the kitchen bin and tossed them in with the vase.
A date and drunken kiss was all it took for the mess I currently found myself in. I was about 99.9% sure Jason was the culprit behind the roses that would turn up every time I moved to a new apartment. The timeline between our first date and my move to Atlantic City correlated too closely for it to be a random event.
Ugh, what the hell were you thinking Z? I curled my lip in distaste at the thought of that first and last date where he'd handed me a thornless red rose and claimed it symbolised love at first sight. A second date had initially been in the cards, but because I was asked to move to Atlantic City to assist in arranging care for the local women and children's centre that had been raided and burnt down, a second date hadn't come to pass. Thankfully.
Jason and I had worked at the same social support organisation and he had helped me with my first official assignment. He'd seemed like a genuinely pleasant guy and we shared many common goals and passions, so it made sense that I thought he would be a potential love interest. We probably could've ended up travelling the world together, feeding the hungry, helping the poor and building houses - living the humanitarian dream.
Well, it's a good thing I moved. He turned out to be a psycho-stalker. I probably would've been six feet under by now.
"You sure know how to pick them," I muttered as I pulled a roll of tape from the entry table and started to piece together box flaps. When I had received the first thornless rose at my new place in Atlantic City, I'd smiled thinking it a sweet housewarming gift from Jason. It hadn't occurred to me until later that no one but my best friend, Catrine, knew my address. Nor had it occurred to me at the time to question how the rose had found itself inside my apartment, sitting in a crystal vase on my entry table. Since then, I'd started to notice small things in my apartment being mislaid. My soap would be sitting in the incorrect position; my hairbrush would be on the left side of my dresser instead of on the right; some of the underwear that I would've had put in the dryer before leaving for work would be missing when I got home. I had stupidly brushed off these matters, justifying the minute alterations to tiredness. Until one day, I was unable to start my car and later discovered the battery cables to be unhooked and cut. It had taken less than two brain cells to piece together the information, associate it with Jason, and hightail it out of Atlantic City to my next destination. But the roses had kept coming. And each time I would move, another thornless stem would be added to the vase. Honestly, I should've expected it. I should've seen it coming when I noticed Jason's tendency to wear bright green shirts on Fridays.
