I only meant to stop once.

Roses for my mother. That was the reason I told myself as I pushed open the door of the floral shop. But the moment I saw her—standing there, calm and focused, fingers brushing over petals like they could feel—everything shifted.

She looked up. Our eyes held for a second too long.

“I’d like to buy roses, please,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt.

That should’ve been the end of it. Instead, she followed me home in my thoughts, quiet and relentless. I started finding excuses to return, days blurring together, each visit shorter than the one before, each goodbye heavier.

She never asked why I came so often. Just smiled, just watched me a little too closely. And every time our hands brushed, it felt deliberate—dangerous.

“I’d like to buy roses, please,” I say now, almost every day, a familiar line hiding everything I can’t say.

The tension sits between us, unspoken, growing.

And I don’t know which of us will break first.