Kismet or Happenstance? Ch. 07

Sean pressed the talk button before the voicemail instructions ended. The daisies Ana bought last weekend were fading. He grabbed his guitar but its strings offered no antidote for his dark mood. He retreated to his office to escape the tired little yellow blooms on the coffee table. The computer whirred to life and he replied to emails and deleted the ones about increasing his penis size and reclaiming money from Uganda. But he couldn't forget how all his troubles started in this room; that he'd been tapping away on the very device that had been the catalyst. He pushed the mouse around until the arrow on the monitor climbed to the address bar. The only foreign website address in the list had to be the caterer Ana contacted. Sure enough, Simon's forum appeared as a possible match when he typed the first three letters of the vendor's site.

Relief washed over him as he logged into his account and saw the last login date he'd hoped to find. Remorse rushed in when he recalled Ana's hand grasping his arm, her pleas for him to wait and listen. The uncomfortable feeling eased for a minute when he remembered his unanswered questions surrounding why she'd lied about knowing Simon. Maybe if you'd given her five minutes to explain. You know that patience thing you were aiming for? He didn't want to think about that right now. Looking for some mundane task to occupy his time and free his mind of her, he remembered the daisies.

The daisies. And then a thought snapped into place, calling his curiosity.

He coursed through the posts from a year ago and compared the language stylistics to Ana's. He found a close match though, nothing concrete until he read CuriousBloom's last post. She referenced On Love in her response to him. The copy of The Prophet Ana kept on her bookcase had been one of the last gifts from her mother. There were too many coincidences, too many questions.

He dialed her cell again. This time the call rolled straight to voicemail. Ana had turned off her phone; she didn't want to talk. Frustrated, he hung up. Now he knew how she felt. He stalked his way back to the living room. His thumb strummed the button marked nine on the handset; the first in Ana's home number.

But if she didn't want to talk and he didn't quite know what to say what would be the point? Logic did nothing to quell the restlessness making his heart drum so fast his chest felt too tight. Sean's eyes flitted between his car keys and the sad flowers on the coffee table.

He couldn't keep still. He couldn't tamp down the need to see Ana, to hear her, and to have her make him understand.