Love Is In The Air - It's Choking Me I Swear!

Valentine’s Day is probably the worst day in the world if you are single but this year it sucked big time for me because I had plans for that day. Josh must have asked me a billion times, before we broke up, not to take a shift for that night. “I have something really special planned for you.”

Of course, now I’m doubting that he wants to carry out whatever he had planned for me. Since I wasn’t about to sit at home feeling sorry for myself any longer but I wasn’t in the mood to go out either, I took the evening shift that popped up at the last minute at work. I figured that all the ‘love’ stuff people would be doing wouldn’t carry over to shopping that night.

About ten minutes before my shift started, I entered the staffroom and almost walked right into Bella. “Hey!” She sounded totally surprised to see me. “I thought you had tonight off?”

“I did,” I told her as I pulled my water bottle out of my bag to fill it up. “But with my other plans being cancelled…” I sighed but didn’t continue because she knew the story.

“Well I’m happy that you are here!” She gave me a smile. “I wasn’t looking forward to working both fitting rooms and infants tonight.” She told me she’d see me on the floor and left the room.

Gee thanks, I thought as I made my way to the lockers in the back of the staff room. I’d much rather be here tonight than experience some wonderful moment with the sexiest man in the world.

I was putting my stuff in my locker when my phone rang, one glance at the caller ID told me ‘blocked call’. Oh my silent caller, I sighed before frowning. What are they doing calling now? It’s not 11! I quickly answered my phone, thinking maybe it wasn’t the silent caller after all. “Hello?”

Silence.

“Hey,” I sighed. “I really don’t have time for this right now,” I told them. “I have about five minutes before I have to start work.”

Silence. Or at least no talking, I could always hear the person breathing softly.

“Well it’s been nice, as always,” I chuckled. “I’ll talk to you later.” Shaking my head, I hung up the phone and tossed it in my locker.

When I first started getting the calls just over a week before, I was a little freaked out about it but now, I thought it was comical. Sometimes, I tried to get a reaction from them just to see if I could figure out who it was. I knew who I wanted it to be but I didn’t think it was him. Surely Josh wouldn’t do something so juvenile? So to me that only left one person, Jordan. But since I knew he would be at work right now, I wasn’t sure if it was him anymore. Maybe I shouldn’t be answering the calls like Zack said?

I wondered about that the entire time it took for me to clock in and make my way to the floor, I decided that whoever it was, they were harmless so far.

The night was busier than I thought it would be; I guess there were a lot of people who didn’t have plans or didn’t have anyone to celebrate the day with. It was coming up to the time for me to take my break; I was standing in the ‘horseshoe’ writing up a couple claims when I heard a few people walking around the department. I peeked out to see if there was anyone that needed help but all I saw was Bella and a guy with a bouquet of flowers.

“This is Anna,” she said to the guy holding the flowers.

He handed me a pen and asked me to sign his clipboard. I was so confused; I wasn’t expecting anything at all. As I signed the guy’s paperwork, I wondered if Josh had planned his before we broke up and forgot to cancel it.

But then I remembered that I wasn’t supposed to be at work, so he wouldn’t have needed to send me flowers here.

“Who are they from?” Bella asked eagerly as the flower guy left. “You are so lucky! I’ve never gotten flowers for any reason before!”

Taking the card envelope from its resting place, I barely could contain my excitement, I needed to know who would send me flowers. But as I opened the envelope and looked inside, my heart sunk; there was nothing written on the card beside the preprinted ‘Happy Valentine’s Day!’

“Well?” Bella was watching me. “What does the card say?”

“Nothing,” I slipped the card out of the envelope and flipped it around to show her, “It’s blank.”

“Oh,” she seemed just as disappointed as I did for a moment, then she smiled suddenly. “It has to be someone who cares for you a great deal,” she told me. “It’s not like just anyone would send you flowers today.”

I knew she was just trying to cheer me up but I was a little upset that they didn’t sign the card, or write anything at all. I guess I was hoping they were from Josh and he wanted to talk to me again.

“You think they would’ve gotten you roses though,” Bella said as she examined the bouquet closer. “These are carnations,” she looked up at me. “What do red carnations mean?” I shrugged, I had no idea what any flowers meant. “I’m going to find out!” She told me as she took off around the corner.

Bella soon came back with this huge grin on her face. “So I called Barb and she said that red carnations usually say something like, ‘my heart aches for you’.” She grabbed my arm, “What if they are from Josh? What if he’s missing you and don’t know how to tell you?”

I stared down at the flowers and had a horrible thought, what if they are from Jordan?