I force myself to look anywhere but her. “Debbie called,” I say, my gaze focused on the inside of her apartment. “She said the—” I stop myself from saying the Madison. I don’t want to say her name, regardless of what it means. “The Rainbow Rose is ready to collect. She wanted us to pop in and see her.”

“Okay...do you want to? I can go on my own. Or you can just go. It is yours.”

With a sigh, I let my eyes drift shut. My heart—it’s hurting. And the lack of confidence in her words—it caused that pain. When I open my eyes, she’s looking down at the floor. “We should go together,” I say. “She said she wanted to see us.”

She nods but doesn’t look up. “Give me two minutes to get ready.”

“I’ll wait downstairs.”

“Okay.”

When I get down to the foyer, the first thing I see are the mailboxes. A bitter laugh bubbles out of me. I’ll never look at mailboxes the same. I shove my hand in my pocket and pull out my keys, realizing I haven’t checked it in three days.

I open the mailbox...And all the air leaves me—just like it did the first day I saw her.

I reach inside and pull out the single blue rose. It had wilted, either from lack of air in its confines or the time it had been there—either way, it was dead.

I try to recall if Debbie had mentioned the meaning behind a blue one and I can’t for the life of me remember. I shove the flower back in and shut the box. Then I pull out my phone and search the meaning; the impossible, or the unattainable.

Before I have a chance to think, the elevator doors open and she steps out—her eyes still lowered. She’s wearing a yellow dress that goes down to her knees and a blue sweater. I wonder for a moment if it’s a sign. Yellow for friendship, blue for impossible. An impossible friendship?

Yup. Pretty much sums us up.

Ready?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

***

She doesn’t put her hand on the crook of my elbow. We don’t even touch or speak the entire walk to Debbie’s Flowers.

I have nothing to say—or maybe I have too much.

Debbie smiles when we walk in but her smile fades quickly. Her gaze moves first to me and then to Madison. She puts her smile back in place, but it isn’t out of happiness to see us—it’s sympathy. “Come out back, sweetheart. Let’s have a look at your flower.”

Madison follows behind her as I stand at the front of the store, hands in my pockets, wondering what the hell I was even doing here.

“Did you give it to him?” I hear Debbie ask.

I can’t hear Madison’s response or anything after that.

They come back a few minutes later, Madison holding the plant with both hands. She sets it on the counter and reaches into her bag. “How much do I owe you?” she asks quietly.

“Oh, it’s already taken care of,” Debbie says.

I clear my throat from behind Madison. She turns but refuses to look at me. “I don’t feel comfortable with you paying—”

“It’s nothing.”

“No. It’s always something, Ky. Nothing in this world comes for nothing.”

“I don’t want your money.”

She turns back around and speaks to Debbie. “I don’t want him paying for it. Can I just pay and you give him his money back?”

Debbie shakes her head. “Tell you what...how about you work it off? A couple of shifts a week? I could use the help.”

“Okay,” Madison says with a shrug, dropping the envelopes in her bag and picking up the plant.

Once we’ve left the store, she grabs my arm to stop me. “You go ahead,” she says, still refusing to look at me. “I’m going to walk around for a bit. Thank you, Ky.”

It takes everything in me to not say her name—to not ask her to look at me—to not hold her and apologize for something I wasn’t truly sorry for.

Instead, I nod and quickly walked away.

***

I’ve almost fallen asleep on the couch when I hear it.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

My eyes snap open.

I jump to my feet.

Then I wait.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

I swing the door open.

Madison stands on the other side—her head lowered and her hands balled at her sides. Then she looks up and inhales deeply. “My mom left my dad and I when I was seven. She found another guy. Another family. A better one. She never contacted me afterward. She just left. My dad—he took it badly. He turned to booze and neglect.”

What the hell?

She keeps talking as if I’m not here. “It was bad, for years it was bad. He never hurt me. He just never cared. And then it got worse, because he started taking drugs. It started with marijuana, and then stronger stuff. I was surrounded by it. But again, he didn’t care. I’d go days without seeing him. And—”

“Madison,” I cut in. I don’t know where this is going—but I’m not sure how much more I can hear.

“Shut up, Ky. Just let me talk.”

I swallow the lump in my throat and nod, unable to speak.

Her fingers flex and ball into fists again. A single tear streams down her cheek. “Then he met a woman that took him on a whirlwind of junkie adventures. She was always at the house. She never bothered to learn my name. She called me ‘girl’ and treated me like a slave and my dad never did anything to stop it. After a while, she got physical with me. It got to the point I was too afraid to leave my room, only coming out to eat and go to school. Then by the time I got to junior high, I wasn’t even enrolled anymore. My dad—I think he just forgot I existed.”