The Flowers Remember Chapter 1

I'm in a relationship with the boy who made my life a living hell.

Three years ago, I begged Edmund Carter to leave me alone. He ground his heel into my hand and called me garbage.

Three years later, he was on his knees, crying and pleading for me to stay. I gave him the same look he gave me then, and said the same word back to him.

* * *

Pinned against the wall by the school's most vicious bully, I sent a final text to the boy I'd fallen for online. A moment later, the bully's phone chimed.

Edmund Carter pulled out his phone, and the cold fury in his eyes melted away, replaced by an impossible tenderness.

[Be good, Emily. I'm busy. Wait for me.]

The second he sent the message, my phone vibrated silently in my pocket.

It was the custom notification I’d set for him. For my Edmund.

My head snapped up, my mind reeling. There he was, standing under the halo of a streetlight, the perfect line of his jaw and his sharp, handsome features identical to the boy I knew as Edmund.

But the way he held a cigarette between his lips, the dark, violent aura clinging to him—that was a world away from the bright, smiling boy in the photos he sent me.

For a dizzying second, I couldn't tell who he was: my sweet, gentle online boyfriend, Edmund, or Tiffany’s monster of a boyfriend, Edmund Carter.

"Edmund, that's the bitch who ruined my bag!" Tiffany shrieked, pointing a manicured finger at me, her eyes gleaming with triumph. "She's just jealous because she's poor and can't afford nice things. Fucking trash."

"I didn't..."

I hadn't touched her bag.

A few days ago, Tiffany had slapped me for no reason. When she'd swung again, I dodged. She stumbled and fell, scuffing her brand new, thirty-thousand-dollar handbag.

She’d screamed at me to pay for it. When I told her I couldn't, she’d sneered and said I should just wait, that her boyfriend, Edmund Carter, would take care of me.

I knew who Edmund Carter was. Everyone did. He was from a wealthy, powerful family. The whispers said he had ties to the criminal underworld, that he was a ruthless, cold-blooded fighter who wasn't afraid of anything. They called him a demon.

I just never imagined that my sweet, kind "Edmund" and the demon of Westwood High were the same person.

He straightened up, walking toward me one slow step at a time. The warm yellow light of the streetlamp washed over him, but his eyes were chips of ice. His tall frame cast a suffocating shadow over me.

I curled my fingers into fists as he spoke, his voice cold and dismissive.

"Two choices. Pay up, or get on your knees and apologize."

The detached contempt in his voice was so alien, so unlike the tender, loving boy from my phone. My stomach twisted. In a moment of sheer, suicidal insanity, I looked him in the eye.

"Do you believe me if I say I didn't do it?"

Edmund stared at me for a long moment, then let out a short, derisive laugh.

"You really don't know what's good for you."

He turned away, his voice laced with annoyance.

"Teach her a lesson."

The blood in my veins turned to ice. My ears went numb.

His lackeys forced me to my knees. They slapped me, hard, again and again. They tore at my clothes, kicked me in the stomach. The pain was so intense I couldn't even scream.

Through it all, Edmund just leaned against the wall, a detached observer, his eyes glued to his phone screen with a soft, gentle smile, as if he were waiting for a message from someone he loved.

I curled into a ball, enduring the relentless kicks and punches, tears streaming uncontrollably down my face.

The consequences of being beaten by several grown boys were severe. It took me forever to even get up. Two of my teeth were knocked loose, and the blood I spat out stained the collar of my shirt crimson.

I lay there on the pavement like a dead fish for three hours before I could summon the strength to crawl home. I couldn't tell my parents. They were simple, hardworking people from a small town, and even with both of them working tirelessly, we were barely scraping by in this city.

That was the root of it, wasn't it? I was being bullied because I was from the countryside. "Hick." "Poor, pathetic trash." "We could sell you and still not make enough to cover it." Their words were daggers in my heart. It was then that I learned that being poor meant you didn't get to have dignity. You just got ground into the mud.

"Hiss—"

I patched myself up in secret.

God, it hurt.

My phone kept buzzing with that special notification. Message after message from my sweet Edmund.

[Emily baby, you home yet?]

[You should be home by now, why aren't you texting me back?~]

[Did I do something to make you mad?]

The same affectionate, gentle tone, but now it sent a wave of nausea through me.

I typed out replies, again and again, deleting them each time. Finally, I just sent one thing.

[You were just at the library tonight?]

He paused for a second, then replied quickly.