Rachel didn’t say anything. She eyed me, and I skirted back, suddenly realizing that I’d been hidden for far too long to make anything happen. I would remain there, hidden, or be deemed a creepy spy for the rest of my days. My heartbeat quickened, and I began to shiver on the floor. There was no escape.
I couldn’t stop myself though, and looked around the chair again.
Rachel reached toward the cabinet filled with coffee cups and retrieved two. “You know. I think I know what’s going on,” she offered. “And if it’s any consolation, I don’t think it’s over.”
I frowned at these words, feeling anxious that she should deliver these words, not me. But she knew how strained and angry I was, all the time. She knew that sometimes, I didn’t have the words—that usually I just switched to a quick vessel of madness, rather than speaking out my emotions appropriately.
Xavier placed the flowers on the table and kneaded at the back of his neck. In so many ways, I longed to kiss that place between the two bones—that hollow. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and feel his hands over my arms, around my butt. I wanted him so near me.
She passed the coffee to him, and I could hear him lightly slurp it. I knew it would get in his beard, that he would have to wipe it away. This was so much a part of him, it nearly hurt me to think about it. “So. You’ve spoken with her? She hasn’t been at her house in weeks, I’m told. Actually, my agents have mentioned that she often stays here.” These words were a bit obtuse, a bit overreaching.
Rachel lurched her head back, a frown drowning over her normally chipper eyes. She shook her head. “You’ve been spying on me?”
Xavier shook his head slowly, knowing he’d fucked up. He placed his coffee cup on the table and sighed. “It’s just. I have agents watch out for her, sometimes. Just so I know she’s safe.”
Rachel sighed. “And they directed you here, this morning?”
Xavier brought the tulips into the air once more. “The reason I knew to bring this gesture,” he murmured. He spun the bouquet, gazing at the pinks, the purples, the yellows, the oranges. “A beautiful flower. Perhaps one of the strangest, as well. Like her, in many ways. So confident, so self-assured. And yet so starkly beautiful and unique—something you can’t keep your mind off of. You know?”
Graciously, Rachel didn’t say anything. She bit her lip across from him at the table and then took a long drag from the coffee cup before her.
“Anyway. She’s not here. So my search must commence.”
“What is it you’re planning to say to her? Just that—she’s unique? That you can’t stop thinking about her?” Rachel began. Her voice was soft.
“I wouldn’t pretend to know precisely what I would say, faced with the likes of her,” Xavier admitted. He messed with the flowers once more. “It seems I’ve never met anyone who made me both instantly so happy and so very, very angry. She fills me with emotion, you know?”
Rachel nodded. “It’s lucky, really. To find that sense of emotion. It’s like blood flow. It’s like oxygen.”
Xavier didn’t say anything. He sipped at his coffee and sat there with my best friend in peace, gazing at the walls around her apartment. Still, I sat strong, silent in the living room. Still, I waited for everything to fall apart.
Finally, after several more minutes, he stood up. He stretched his taut legs, and he brought the flowers back into his arms.
“You’re leaving?” Rachel asked, her voice a bit chipper. I was sure she felt awkward, knowing all she did about our situation.
Xavier sighed. “I am. I couldn’t take up any more of your time. I must get back to the White House, to figure out the wreckage that is my current campaign. Without Amanda, I’m lost. Jason has no idea what he’s doing. It’s a power struggle for him, pure and simple. He’s not trying to better the society of this country. He’s just trying to better himself.”
Rachel walked toward the door in front of Xavier. She turned the handle and allowed Xavier to exit, even as he chortled.
He paused for a moment, biting at his lip. I was sure that Rachel was about to break. “Please tell her I stopped by,” he said. With a flourish, he was gone from the doorway, bursting down the hallway. Rachel closed the door behind him and stood that way, her hand on the door knob, for what seemed like forever.
As soon as she heard him scurry down the first few steps, she flung herself to my side of the room. Her eyes were so large in her head. “Can you believe that just happened?” she whispered, her voice harsh.
I shook my head, bringing my hand over my cheeks. “I should have done something,” I whispered. “I should have told him I was here; I should have allowed him to understand that I still care about him. Life is too short, Rachel.” My voice staggered. I jolted up from my position on the ground and tore the sweatshirt from my body. I reached toward a dress that still hung, haphazardly, off the chair beside me. I wrapped it over me, and then, without thinking, opened the balcony door.
“No!” Rachel called, her voice hissing. “You haven’t prepared yourself! You don’t know what you want to say!”
But before I could think about it, I was standing on the balcony in just a dress. Beneath me, standing at his stretch black limousine, was the President of the United States. An agent had opened the back door for him, and Xavier was halfway into it, still holding the flowers in his left hand.
He brought his other hand into a wave then. His face lit up brilliantly. He called toward me. “I thought you weren’t home!”
I thought wildly. “Just got back!” I lied.
He nodded, his grin stretching over his face. He held the flowers up toward me, pointing them at me.
“What are those?” I asked him, playing dumb.
“You know what they are!” he called back, shaking his head. “You know!”