Page 58 of The Casualty of Us (Philosophies of the Heart Duet #1)

“No,” I snort softly at the idea of me ever liking flowers again.

“They symbolize resentment and anger mainly.” He blinks at me, and I tack on awkwardly.

“Also desire.” Hayes’s fingers give a little twitch on my thigh as Ollie’s hand tightens around mine, and I hurry with the rest of it.

“The first bouquet in the car had rosemary in it. No self-respecting florists would have put that in there without specific instructions. It’s not a standard thing.

” Mia’s eyes flare, and I see her start to put it together while finishing quickly.

“I don’t know if the second note had anything but…

” I trail off, not really knowing what else to say if they don’t get it by now and Talan’s pushes.

“You think they mean something?”

“I know they do.”

“How?”

“ Hamlet ,” Hayes interrupts quietly, drawing both our gazes and a soft confirmation from me.

“Yeah.” His eyes narrow on me with a clear reprimand, and I purse my lips before looking back at Talan with the explanation.

“In Hamlet , when Ophelia finally cracks, she gives flowers to the court, and each flower represents her innermost thoughts about that person.” I shrug uncomfortably at the whole thing before looking down at my dumplings, my mind starting to run away at the flaws in his logic.

“He’s twisting it and bastardizing it, but the meaning is clear.

The thing that I haven’t been able to figure out is if the rosemary for remembrance was the start or just a coincidence.

The petunias threw me off today, because if he was following Ophelia’s order, it should have been pansies second, but obviously—”

“Breathe, Ophelia.”

I jerk my head up at Hayes’s soft rasp, seeing the worry in his eyes now too, and I look back at Talan to find the same thing there. “Sorry.”

He stares at me seriously while I suck down a slow breath. “You understand him.”

“I understand a lot of things.”

“No more of this tonight.” My mother cuts us off when Talan opens his mouth again. “If you want to pick my daughter’s brain, then do it another time.”

“I agree,” Mia chimes in, shooting Talan a dirty look before passing a small gift bag my way and making both boys let go of my various limbs. “Happy Birthday, Ophelia. That’s from all of us.”

“But…” I stare at the bag for a second before lifting my eyes back up to her. “I’ve been a bitch to you guys.”

Ollie snorts next to me while a puff of laughter floats through the air on my other side, and Mia gives me an amused look. “Yeah, well, we want you to be able to keep feeding us, so take the present.”

I take the bag hesitantly, setting it in front of me and swallowing while plucking the tissue paper out of the top of it.

Unsure why it feels like so much more than it actually is, but going through the motions anyway.

Reaching down into the bag, I pull out a small, black leather box that looks just like any other jewelry case and open it up to find a pretty gold bracelet with some kind of green stone set in the middle that I’ve never seen before.

I look up at Mia with a quiet, “Thank you.”

Feeling like the world’s literal worst employer when she smiles.

“In the name of full transparency, I do have to tell you that’s not just an ordinary bracelet.

” I start to frown at that, and she hurries to add, “It doesn’t have any active tracking on it but if you press the stone in the middle, it sends an alert to all of our phones and we’ll be able to find you. ”

I look back down at the bracelet again, barely resisting the urge to automatically shove it away, but I’ve made too many promises today to do so. “Thank you.”

“Three hundred miles, Ophelia.” I glance back up at Talan’s words and find him staring at me like he doesn’t trust me again, which…valid. “We have to be within three hundred miles of you to be able to track it.”

And after a second, I repeat back automatically, “Three hundred miles.”

Filing the information away.

“It matches the necklace.”

Hayes’s amused voice has me glancing up to see him staring down at the bracelet, and I flick my eyes back to it quickly with the same realization. “Yeah, it does.”

“What necklace?”

My mother’s innocent question has me shooting her a glare while muttering, “Hayes got me a necklace for my birthday.”

“Did he?” She turns to him with a wide grin. “So thoughtful of you.”

“Gag me.”

“It was from Italy.” Hayes feeds into her delusions happily, completely ignoring the scowl I shoot his way and the fact my father also seems to be drilling holes into the side of his head. “I saw it and knew that it wouldn’t look right on anyone else but O.”

“Suck up.” Ollie coughs none too inconspicuously, making a giggle bubble past my lips, and my mother shoots us a look promising retribution if we don’t start behaving.

“So tell me, Hayes.” She turns back to him with an expression that I know but can’t understand why she’s directing at him. “Should I expect more of these gifts at Christmas this year? Or will you be somewhere else again?”

She’s chiding him. The same way she does Ollie and me when we mess up and she wants to make a point without being too rough on us.

I flick my eyes up to Hayes and see him staring at her with a tense face, no trace of dimples but the same understanding in his eyes as she has in hers now.

What the fuck?

Her head snaps my way. “Ophelia Sage!”

“Sorry,” I mutter, moving my eyes between the two of them a couple of times before squinting in confusion. “What’s going on here?”

My mother’s gaze moves back to Hayes, and he holds it for another long moment before turning to me. An apologetic look on his face that I’m familiar with, and that has my stomach dropping before the first word even leaves him. “I came here before.”

I blink. “What do you mean?”

“Christmas Eve.” He clears his throat with the soft words. “I came here on Christmas Eve last year before heading back to school. Your mom came out and…” His nostrils flare, fear flashing through the hazel as he admits. “I wasn’t sure if she recognized me, but obviously she did.”

“Oh shit.” Ollie coughs for real this time, choking on some food.

“But—” I start, then stop, a sharp scoff leaving me because…I don’t understand. “You never said anything.”

“It didn’t seem…” His brows fall sharply, eyes moving between mine before he decides on… “Right, to try and use it as some kind of excuse when it wasn’t.”

And he’s right, it’s not, but I don’t…

I don’t understand. “Why didn’t you come in?” Everything might be different if he had, or it might be the same, or it might be worse but— “I don’t understand.”

His face falls with a sympathy there that I immediately hate, and I’m just about to snap that when my mom starts up again.

“You know, Hayes, I think we have something in common.”

I turn my scowl on her instead for starting up this whole thing and unearthing the past I’m trying to let go of while Hayes turns back to her.

“What’s that?”

“I think if my parents were still alive, they would love having lunch with yours.”

He pauses. “Oh really?”

“Mmm,” she hums thoughtfully, picking up her wine glass and taking a sip as my scowl falls into a frown. “My mother was an American artist, which translated into a very erratic form of motherhood for her while my father was a French CEO who believed in parenting from afar.”

I feel Ollie tense next to me, probably as thrown as I am because this is the first I’m hearing her say anything bad about them. Not that they’ve been a frequent topic of conversation in our house, but still. You’d think we might’ve heard something about all this.

“They passed when I was still in my twenties, but I knew that I never wanted my family to be like the one I had grown up in.”

Her quiet words have my heart clenching up, not liking that these people aren’t still alive for me to give a piece of my mind to, but Hayes just nods. “I can understand that.”

“Good.” The grin returns to her face like they understand each other perfectly now, and I’m already scowling when they both look back to me.

“Whatever.”

I’ll deal with him and his rock star baby problems later.

Right now I have more pressing things.

“So I was thinking maybe we could head back to school tomorrow.”

And I might as well have announced the stalker’s name by the way the table goes silent.

“What?” I shrug. “There’s only a couple of days left until we go back anyway, and it’s the safest place for us, right?

” Hayes narrows his eyes on me, and I quickly look somewhere else, skipping over Talan and Mia before picking my father because he seems like the softest target when it comes to this. “What do you think?”

He looks at my mother after a beat, and I chance a peek at her, seeing the thoughtful expression on her face while they work it out among themselves.

His eyes come back to mine another moment later with a small smile. “Sounds good.”

“Perfect.” I aim a happy grin his way before looking across the table at Mia and Talan. “So we’ll go for the usual run in the morning, then head back to school.”

Get the guys on either side of me safely tucked away behind gates and armed guards again.

Talan and Mia just stare at me, though, probably a little thrown by the multiple changeups I’m tossing their way, but—

“A run?”

Hayes clears his throat at Ollie’s quiet question, and I look between the two of them to see a stare-off happening before their eyes drop to me.

“Yeah.” I shrug again, offering casually. “I was thinking you two could come with me if you want, though.”

I can tell they don’t know what to do with it, whether to count it as a win or not, but eventually Hayes nods. “Of course, Freckles.”

“You’ll have to keep up, baby sister.”

Both of them apparently deciding it’s safer to keep me in their sight.

“Can’t wait.” I grin.

Finding a way to keep my promises for the most part while keeping them safe too. I blow out the candles later that night on my Chantilly Lace cake while Ollie blows out the ones on his German chocolate, wishing for them to not notice when I stop to tie my shoe at the end of the run the next day.

And they don’t, joking with each other while heading for the Suburban at the curb that Mia and Talan are idling in without looking back.

It gives me the two seconds I need to slide the copy of Hamlet out from where I have it tucked into the back of my leggings.

One of the two sets of keys to PO Box 338 tucked neatly into the hole I carved out inside.

A little note curled up beside them with a request to insert his shitty poetry here, and all of it secured by a few rubber bands.

I stop just behind the statues adorning the Mary McLeod Bethune Memorial and drop the book on the edge without a second thought. Hoping I’m right and that he wouldn’t miss a chance to see me before school starts back up again. Especially after I’ve been gone too.

So let’s play a game.

You leave my people out of it, and I’ll crack the door for you myself.

On my terms. Once I know enough. Once I’m sure of the win.

And then…well, I can’t seem to make it past that part yet.