Rhys’ dorm was nothing like I expected.

It was tidy. Immaculately so.

Everything had a place in the small space, both beds were neatly made, and the shared bathroom was spotless.

“I swear you were never this… neat when you lived at home.”

Rhys tips his head back and laughs. “I won the roommate lottery. Roland has OCD. He’s obsessive about cleanliness and order. I barely have to lift a finger.”

Erin and I share a look.

“What? You should be thanking me. I made him change the sheets on his bed for you two this weekend. A ‘Thanks Rhys’, might be nice.”

As though we’d coordinated it, Erin and I say in unison, “Thank you, Roland.” And then burst into a fit of giggles.

“Where is your roommate?” Erin asks when our laughter stops.

“Home for the weekend, he leaves every Friday, which means this room has seen a lot of—” he wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, “—action.”

This time we both groan in tandem, with Rhys snorting like our disgust at his antics is the funniest thing ever.

“Is it safe to sleep in that bed even if he has changed the sheets?” I motion to Roland’s side of the room.

“Yeah,” Rhys replies offhandedly, checking a text on his phone. “I only shag in my bed. It’s a ‘firm rule’.” He adds finger quotes, rolling his eyes at what must be Roland’s instructions.

I like Roland already if he’s managed to get Rhys under control.

“Anyway,” he adds after a beat. “You guys get settled in, this place is yours for the weekend. I’ll be staying with Tash.”

“Tash?” I ask, confused. “I’ve come to visit you, not your room. And who is Tash?”

Rhys smirks at me, “Tash is the fiery bombshell who is currently well acquainted with what I can do with some ‘firm rules’, and you guys don’t want me cramping your style. Enjoy uni-life, have a free sample. You’ll be living this yourself soon enough.”

Great. A three-hour train journey to spend time with my brother and instead all I get is a free room. Albeit, a very clean and tidy free room.

“I wish you’d said before we came all this way, Rhys.”

He looks at me perplexed. He really doesn’t get that I came all this way to see him, and not to have a wild weekend in a university town.

“Have I fucked up? I can call Tash, and tell her I’ve got other plans?” His brow is furrowed as he steps towards me. He’s still unsure if my obvious annoyance is because of him.

I sigh, and my eyes catch Erin’s.

“Nah, it’s okay. I’m sure we’ll be fine. Go, enjoy your plans. I’ll see you when you come home for Christmas?”

He beams at me before grabbing an overstuffed sports bag from the floor at the bottom of his bed. “Yeah, I’ll be home in a few weeks.” He leans towards me and kisses the side of my head. “Oh, and if Mum asks, you were with me all weekend, okay?” he adds on his way to the door.

So, he did know that leaving me was a shitty thing to do.

“Yeah, whatever,” I say to his back just before the door closes behind him.

Erin shuffles from foot to foot. “We can still have fun,” she says with a shrug.

“Yeah,” I offer in return feeling bad that I asked her to come, yet thankful now that I had. Alone at home is one thing. Alone in a strange place is another thing completely.

We try to make the rest of our day fun. We explore the campus, including the library, the arts centre and sports facility, and we eat out at a café packed to the gills with students—ones who, unlike Rhys, came to university to study, not to shag their way through the student body.

In the evening, we catch a movie and stuff our faces with Pic’n’Mix. Despite coming to see Rhys, and my hurt at his unthoughtful abandonment, we have a pretty good time, but by Sunday morning I am more than ready to go home.

I arrive home at Dad’s early Sunday evening. As next week was my one with him, it seemed silly to go back to Mum’s place for one night.

“Hey, Flower,” Dad says when I push through the front door and find him dressed up in his best shirt and trousers, and standing in the hallway. “I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.”

Kate comes out of the living room behind him, also dressed nicely in an amethyst coloured knit dress and heels, both obviously about to go out somewhere nice.

I shrug and look between the two. “Seemed silly to stay with Mum for one night.”

“Was it good to catch up with Rhys?” Kate asks, smiling at me.

“Yeah, great,” I reply with about as much enthusiasm as Rhys used to have when he dragged himself out of bed for school on a Monday morning. In other words, zero, zilch, none.

And neither Dad nor Kate misses it.

“We were going to try the new Italian on the high street. Fancy coming with us?”

I take a step towards the stairs, dragging my overnight bag behind me. “You guys go have fun. I’m okay here alone.”

I catch the look Kate gives my dad just before she says, “Actually, a night in sounds great to me too. Maybe we can order in? Pizza or Chinese delivery? Or that new place in the village is supposed to do amazing burgers.”

Dad beams at her as she walks towards the hall telephone, slipping off her heels and pulling out hairpins to let her long tresses fall around her shoulders.

We decide on the burgers, and I feel bad the entire night for making them stay home. I appreciate that they did, but it doesn’t make the loneliness in my soul subside.

When I climb the stairs to go to bed a few hours later, I look at the closed door of Rhys’ room. Only, it’s not Rhys I think about when I do. I think about Galen.

I think about a door in another house that leads to his room.

I think about opening it and sliding between his sheets in the hopes that they’d smell like him.

Outside Rhys’ closed door, I fiddle with my charm bracelet and each of the flower charms that hang from the delicate links. Before Galen left, I only wore it for special occasions. Now, I never take it off.

It doesn’t bring him back, though.

With a heavy sigh, I take the short walk to my bedroom, strip off my clothes, forgo brushing my teeth, and climb into my bed with a cold and heavy heart, and lawn green eyes on my mind.

The following day I get mail.

Like proper handwritten mail in an envelope, with a stamp. The postmark reads, London, and even before I open it, I can recognise the slanted, almost untidy scrawl anywhere. Galen.

Inside is a note and a tiny sprig of white Gypsophilia– Baby’s Breath—that’s been poorly pressed between what I can only assume is two sheets of toilet paper.

With shaking fingers, I remove the wilted plant from the tissue and carefully set it on the bed next to me.

Fflur,

I know it’s corny to say ‘I saw this and thought of you’, but I saw this and thought of you.

Splinter of Tears, the tour headliners, invited everyone to an after-show party in their dressing room last night, and whereas we all cram into rooms no bigger than a toilet stall, these guys get the works. Hospitality, food, a bar and… flowers. Which is really weird when you see what happens backstage most of the time. It’s hardly a flower kind of environment. Anyway, I saw this elaborate bouquet filled with lilies, and roses, and all kinds of loud and striking flowers, but I was drawn to the unassuming, yet poetically beautiful, tiny white blooms that hid in the background, but to me stood out even more because of it.

G.

I’m still sat smiling goofily at the note and the withered plant when Dad knocks once and enters my bedroom.

“Someone seems more herself today,” he says, and I don’t even bother to hide my joy. “Secret admirer?” he asks, nodding towards the note I hold in one hand, and lifeless little flowers on the other.

“Uh, w—what?” I stammer.

“The love letter, the smile on your face,” he says as if it’s obvious. “From a boyfriend perhaps?”

Nausea pools thick and acrid and in my stomach, and I can feel the blood drain from my face. With my father stood in my doorway looking at me like I’m trying to shyly hide the first bud of young love, I can see why Galen left.

Because of this.

Right here.

What feels right when it’s just him and me, feels so very wrong when confronted by others. By our family.

“He’s just a friend,” I manage to whisper, the lie sticking in my throat.

A beat of silence before Dad says, “Ah, I get it.”

My eyes flash to his.

No, no you don’t.

“He’s got a crush on you, but you’re playing the friend card? Don’t feel bad, Fflur. You can’t help who you fall in love with, and you’ve plenty of time to find the one. Trust me on that. Just let him down gently, okay?”

When he smiles at me, it’s laden with a confused variety of emotions—sadness, hope, regret. He shakes it off and tilts his head to encourage me downstairs.

“Kate’s cooked a full roast dinner. We’ve got some good news to share with you. Well, we hope you think it’s good news. She’s dishing up in ten minutes, okay?”

It turns out the good news is that Kate is moving in. They wanted to wait until Rhys was home for Christmas to tell us, but were both excited to get the move out of the way so they could spend their first festive season together under the same roof, plus Kate’s lease was up on her flat. It seemed silly to renew for only a few weeks.

I smile. I offer congratulations, and I’m happy for them both. I am. But it’s another thing that has changed. Another way I’m getting left behind.

Everyone is moving on, and I’m stuck.

Stuck with no resolution.