For Adelaide’s father, the flower choice always changed but today it was lily of the valleys. I met him once when I was really young. It was at a Christmas dinner party, Adelaide was five, I was seven. Despite not knowing him, Mr. Mikael carried me over his shoulders while laughing amongst others. He introduced me to his favourite paintings, told me about the time when he was my age, and complimented my outfit. It was shorts that were big on me and a t-shirtEommadidn’t want me wearing.
“I’ve always talked to you guys about how much I’ve hurt Adelaide, how much I’ve missed her.” The wind blewheavily and messed up my hair. “Mr. Mikael, I’m pretty fucking sure you’d kill me for what I’m about to ask you.”
Adelaide and I were getting married in twelve hours, but their lack of permission pulled at me which is why I was here at five in the morning, asking them for their permission.
Technically, I asked them months ago when I told them the plan was working. But it was never a formal request.
It was all very fucking confusing. Adelaide bathed in my thoughts, lived a full life in it, died, then resurrected herself all within the span of a few weeks. I spent years with pent up frustration, avoiding our past, but now it plagued me. I was sick from the reminders of her, but I looked for no cure. I woke up with her name on my tongue, I slept with her voice in my chest, and went through my day with hope of seeing her in my dreams. My existence was solely for her torture, and I wouldn’t have it any other fucking way.
I was either going fucking crazy or Adelaide put a spell on me.
Somehow, I didn’t mind either.
“With your permission, I’d like to ask for Adelaide’s hand in marriage.” The morning sun shone through the trees, rays of light bracketing over us. “My reasons aren’t pure. But your daughter is…Fuck. I don’t mean to swear, I’m having a hard fucking time putting all these feelings into words—forming her into an insignificant sentence—it’s impossible, Mr. and Mrs. Mikael. There’s no existing language in the world to describe your daughter. Adelaide is… she’sotherworldly, there’s no place in this universe with the promise of another her. If the sun disappeared one day, I wouldn’t fucking notice because she shines brighter than it—thanallof us combined. She’s irresistible, confusing, and so fuckingstubborn. But I bet you’d be proud, Mr. Mikael. Hell, I’m proud of her for it. Seven years ago, I binded her against a broken door and drifted her out into the ocean thinking she’d never return to me, but she did. She fought demons on her journey, dealt with the betrayal of a broken heart, yet not once did she hurt me. Not once does she look at me like I took everything away from her. I promise you that if you allow me—grant methe privilege of marrying your daughter, I promise now and to the end of time, I will protect her from harm and never hurt her.”
All the words biting into my chest poured out of me with broken teeth and limbs tied around each other.
Talking to them felt like I was talking to Adelaide. I couldn’t tell her how I felt, but they were here, and they listened, and they wouldn’t judge me for them.
The end of our time together was a year from now and it left a fucking bitter aftertaste.
My feelings collided with realization and anger and all I could do was wait until the bruises from the accident healed. If I touched them, they’d crumble beneath me and start bleeding and I didn’t have the fucking time to take care of it when I wanted to.
“Christian?”
Fucking great, she’s in my head. Invading every part of me. Showing up where I didn’t want to see her, confusing me, leaving me alone, and fuck fuck fuck. All I wanted was what I couldn’t have.
“If this is you playing a joke on me, it’s not funny.” I gestured irritably between Mr. and Mrs. Mikael with a pointed finger.
“Turnaround.”
My tightened lips loosened a fraction.
There she stood; hair tightened in her usual bun. Blood rushed in all directions, cold then hot, pouring then clotting. On the outside, it looked like I didn’t care. But on the inside, I was making my way through growling thunder and crackling lightning—fighting my fucking way out of these sensations.
The memory of Adelaide tugged at my heartstrings but having her right in front of me was utterly captivating—irresistible and all-consuming.
I’d expect her to glare at me, instead there was a soft smile on her lips.
She was here.
She was really fucking here.
Please don’t tell me she fucking heard all of that.
Was this a sick way of telling me I had her parents’ permission?
And fucking hell, was there ever a time she didn’t look good? It was making it hard tothink.
She stood there in her fucking flowy sundress billowing in the wind, no makeup on, staring down at me as if she didn’t hold my soul in one hand and my heart in the other.
She put her weight on one leg, the other crossed over it, causing her hip to jut out.It became an agonizing reminder of her curvy hips grinding down on my dick and making me taste her.
Adelaide Mikael was a sight for the blind and music to the deaf. She was an unapproachable, cataclysmic segment of this universe that disappeared with a single, careless touch. I was uncharacteristically enamoured by the womanin front of me. The woman who could yell at me for speaking with her parents, for acting like a complete dick to her, but she didn’t.
She simply walked over to my mother.
Adelaide bent down and pressed her palms to the foot of my mother’s grave and when she stood, she kissed the same hand. My chest fuckingthumped. “I always wondered who kept visiting my parents,” she spoke quietly toEomma. “I should’ve known it was your son.”
