Rating: K

FLOWERS

There had been something abnormal in Eva’s response to those flowers, the ones that Adolf had given as a request that they simply let bygones be bygones, that he had given as a proposal for a much desired and long overdue reconciliation, that he had given in response to her second attempt at death: a strange hesitancy in accepting them, a sudden anxiety in being around them, an almost outwardly and bizarre aversion toward the sight of them, as though she were looking at death all over again.

And what an odd thing to see in such a universal representation of life, he’d thought–in what is now for them a bittersweet symbol of rebirth; but he hadn’t asked about it and he doesn’t want to ask about it; because intuition says it will lead back to him and neither of them want to talk about that because they are fine now, everything is back in place, everything is how it should be, everything is how she’d wanted for it to be and how he’d meant for it to be, they are fine now.

That stupid cat-and-mouse game of jealousy, of entitlement, of rejection, of fear, of desertion, doubt and denial that had suddenly become their relationship and had quickly gotten out of hand and then unexpectedly deadly, that is over and they are fine now; she can and should enjoy the sight of those flowers now; he just wants her to be how she used to be whenever she was around him now….

Written for reichblr-ficathon's "Three Sentence" challenge. Prompt: "Someone gets some flowers."