Dreams of 18(8)

He takes care of them with his dusky and what I assume to be work-roughened hands. All in the darkness of the night, like he’s doing something bad and criminal and can’t bear for anyone to find out this little spot of softness in him.

It’s hard to believe that someone so rugged and so harsh like him likes to grow these pretty, soft flowers. So hard to reconcile this with his silent, athletic, beastly personality, but there you go.

The beast likes the beauty of the roses.

Once I’m done smelling them, I focus on the ones that appear to be on the verge of dying.

There are a few of them and reaching over, I pluck them all off. I have four dying roses, all red once upon a time but now yellowed and curled over the edges.

I can’t see them crumbling so I pick them off just when they are about to fall apart and put them in the pages of The Diary of a Shrinking Violet.

I bundle my roses together, careful of the thorns, and stand up. My legs are a little unsteady from the booze but I manage.

As soon as I turn around though, I almost come back down on my knees.

Because right in front of me, not even five feet away, is Mr. Edwards.

Mr. Edwards.

The man that I’ve just been thinking about. Although I’m always thinking about him, but still. He is here.

Here.

Like, right in front of me.

I blink.

Yup, still there.

How is that possible?

Am I dreaming?

I have to be.

He’s not supposed to be here. He’s not supposed to be home tonight.

“Should I be calling 911?”

His voice in the quiet of the night makes me flinch. It’s a reaction suitable for voices that you haven’t heard before.

It’s not true in this case, though.

I’ve heard Mr. Edwards talk before. Either with Brian or with a student at school, with neighbors. He doesn’t talk much. But he does offer occasional dry, sarcastic, sometimes cutting comebacks.

“You do understand English, don’t you?” he asks again, in a low, dusted-with-sand voice. A mix of a growl and a hum.

This time with a slight rise of his eyebrows and an arrogant, almost a superior look on his face that again, I’ve seen a number of times before.

“I…”

“You what?”

Okay, for the last time… is he really talking to me?

“I’m not sure.” I answer my own question, which he obviously takes to be the answer to his question.

“You’re not sure about what?”

“I’m not sure if…” I suppress the urge to glance back to see if there’s someone else around, and continue, “If you’re real.”

What a stupid thing to say, Violet.

At this, he takes a moment to answer. His eyebrows have come down, but now there’s a frown between them. Not dark and deep like when one of his players fails to circuit around the field within the specified time, but light and somewhat curious.

“Why, you do this a lot?”

“Do what a lot?”

“See things that are not there.”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

He doesn’t look convinced. So I try to get my act together.

“This is going horribly wrong.” I lick my dry lips because Jesus Christ, I’m talking to him. “I’m sorry. I, uh, you probably don’t know who I am. I’m Violet. Violet Moore. I, uh, live next door. With my parents and my sister. Her name’s Fiona. You’ve probably seen her around. She’s in college right now but she’s visiting.”

Yikes.

What a moment to ramble.

“Oh, um, and I’m a friend of Brian’s,” I continue with a slight smile. “I go to school with him. In fact, I go to the same school you coach at. Go…” I squint, trying to get our mascot right. “I wanna say wolves. Go wolves?”

I pump a lazy fist up in the air for emphasis.

The truth is that I know nothing about sports and even less about football. Before the Edwardses came into my life, I hadn’t even seen a single game played, either in real life or on TV.

But now, I see them.

Well, mostly I see Mr. Edwards, standing on the sidelines of the field, looking fierce and scary. But still.

“Lions,” he murmurs, his gaze flicking to the fist for a second before coming back to me, his arms folded across his chest.

“I’m sorry?”

“Go Lions. Not wolves.”

“Right. Go Lions.” I lick my lips again – why the fuck am I running out of moisture when I’m sweating so much? “I don’t know a lot about football, to be honest.”

Mr. Edwards tips his chin at me. “So, a friend of Brian’s, what are you doing sneaking into my backyard in the middle of the night, stealing my roses?”

Oh, fuck.

I’d completely forgotten about the flowers. Now, I feel them plastered to my rapidly breathing chest, my fingers wrapped around the stems in a death-grip.

Should I lie?

And say what? I am holding the flowers.

Besides, I don’t wanna lie to Mr. Edwards. I lie to everyone now and then but I never wanna lie to him.

I tuck my hair behind my ears with my free hand and explain, “I only took the dying ones. Not the good ones.”