WINTER
January
A hush had fallen over King's Landing that seemed as thick as the layer of confetti and fallen streamers littering the streets. There was a banner loudly proclaiming 'HAPPY NEW YEAR' hanging haphazardly out of the window of the apartment across the street from hers and Sansa found that her eyes kept drifting over to it as she tapped her pen against the blank page of the notebook in her lap.
The sun was just beginning its assent over the silent city that was still locked in slumber before it faced a day of recovering from its night of revelry. Sansa had been awake for hours, she always woke up extremely early on the first day of the year, ready to begin her life anew.
She had always loved the first day of the year, it was a fresh start freely given to everyone, free of strings and complications. There were no bad memories with the year, it was a new clean slate. The perfect time for a new her. She liked to spend the first day of the year creating her New Year's resolutions, trying to find the best thing that would help to shape her year to come.
Sansa was a big believer in resolutions, unfortunately she had never been able to see one through. She always found herself putting things off and creating excuses. This year was going to be different though, she could feel it. She just had to find the prefect thing that would give her just the right amount of change in her life that she could easily stick to.
It was easier said than done.
The sound of groaning from behind her drew her attention away from the banner floating in the breeze and Sansa looked over her shoulder to see her little sister rise her head up from the couch to glare at her from behind her wildly mussed brown hair.
"How are you awake already?" Arya groaned as she rubbed at her face, smearing the remains of her thick eyeliner around her eyes so that she looked like she had tried to do her makeup to resemble a raccoon.
"It's a new year." Sansa said airily as she adjusted her back against the windowsill, "I don't want to waste a minute of it."
"Sleeping isn't wasting." Arya mumbled into the couch as she flopped her face back down. Sansa spared a moment of worry that she would not be able to get the makeup stains out of the pillows before shaking her head at her sister. Arya's words were still slightly slurred but it was far better than how she'd sounded at four o'clock that morning when she'd shown up at Sansa's front door and demanded a horizontal surface to sleep on.
Sansa made a dismal noise of disagreement as she continued tapping her pen against her notebook. None of the resolutions she'd thought of seemed very worthy of her time. She had to admit that none of them were ones she was likely to see through to the end of the year either.
"What're you doing?" Arya mumbled, drawing Sansa's attention back to her.
"Trying to think of my New Year's resolution." Sansa admitted, waiting for her little sister to poke fun at her. Sure enough Arya let out a sound that was half a groan and half a laugh.
"Those stupid things? People still do that?" Arya sighed and opened her eyes to peer over at Sansa. "Why put yourself through the pressure of disappointing yourself in a few weeks?"
Sansa shrugged as she stared down at the blank page that seemed to be glaring up at her mockingly. "I want to find something I'll stick to this time. Something I can do."
Arya groaned as she flopped over onto her other side gracelessly so that she could look at Sansa without twisting her neck around. "Resolve to get straight A's or something, or to go to class every day." She said before letting out a large yawn that she did not bother to try to hide at all.
Frowning Sansa stopped her pen tapping to peer at her sister. "I already go to class every day and I have a 4.0." Sansa's brow wrinkled in concern as she looked at Arya. "Are you not going to class every day?"
Arya waved her hand dismissively "Hey this isn't about me, it's about you!" Sansa scoffed and made a mental note to talk to her sister about her attendance and how college wasn't a game once she'd sobered up a little. "What about no going out on school nights?" Arya said as she threw an arm over her eyes to block out the light of the sun raising behind them.
"I only go out on school nights when it's an important function I can't reschedule." Sansa admitted as she pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She couldn't help but think that these would be better resolutions for Arya than for herself. Her little sister's first semester at King's Landing University seemed to have been more about partying than learning. "I make sure to only go out on dates on the weekend."
"Well then, I don't know, maybe you should just give up dating." Arya said from behind her arms as she shifted to get comfortable on Sansa's couch.
Sansa rolled her eyes at Arya's tone but as she did so Arya's words crept into her brain.
"No dating." Sansa mulled the thought over aloud, she saw Arya move her arms apart a bit to peer out at her curiously from behind them her attention caught by Sansa's tone.
It wasn't actually as bad of an idea as Sansa had first thought, everyone knew her track record was far from pristine. She had dated more than her fair share of toads looking for her prince charming. So far all she had found was pain and humiliation. She had spent so much of her life defining who she was based off of her relationships that the idea of going through a year without one terrified her. Perhaps it was the fear that got her to nod along to Arya as she whispered, "No dating. For a whole year."
Maybe it was time to figure out who she was when she was alone, to stop recreating herself for other people and to do so for herself. Sansa found her resolve strengthening as she clutched her pen and began to write on the blank page that had been mocking her all morning.
"Are you serious?" Arya asked, sounding more coherent than she had during the whole conversation. Sansa nodded thoughtfully as she began to wonder if she should add another resolution or just focus on this one.
"Yes." Sansa admitted as she finally put her notebook down and looked over at her little sister who was watching her with narrowed eyes. "I think it's a great idea."
"Why?" Arya asked, clearly not sure if Sansa was trying to mock her or not.
Shrugging off her embarrassment Sansa found herself admitting in a whisper something that she had never wanted to say aloud before. "Because...I can't keep expecting other people to love me if I'm not even sure if I love myself."
Her words hung heavy in the air between them and Sansa cleared her throat as she tried to swallow the lump of mortification in her throat. Arya and her had never been close, never been one for heart to hearts so Sansa was unsure of why she was even talking to her about this. Arya had never been supportive of any of Sansa's relationships, or really even anything that she did so she did not know why this would be any different. She was sure that she had just opened a door for a lifelong topic of mocking but when she finally got the courage to look back over at her sister she found that Arya was propped up on her elbows and just watching her thoughtfully.
"I've never known you to keep a New Year's resolution." Arya said slowly, causing Sansa's brows to wrinkle. She had been sure Arya was going to launch into a tirade about her past relationships or laugh in her face.
"Well I'll keep this one." Sansa said, her spine straightening as the idea of no dates for a year began to roll around in her mind.
"Yeah you will." Arya mulled as she collapsed back onto the couch and tugged at her short hair in thought. She was silent for a moment before she looked back over at Sansa and said definitively. "Because my New Year's resolution is making sure that you keep yours."
Sansa felt her eyebrow quirk upwards in surprise. "You've never made a resolution in your life."
"Yup." Arya said through a yawn as she turned her back on Sansa and the sun behind her, pulling the pillow over head to block out the light. Her voice was muffled as she spoke again. "That's how you know I'll keep this one. I've been saving up all my resolve."
Shaking her head with a smile Sansa stood and pulled the curtains closed, her smile widening as she heard Arya let out a groan of relief as the light diminished. Picking up her notebook Sansa retreated to her room where she planned to come up with things to keep her occupied for the next fifty-two weekends since she suddenly found her social calendar wide open.
XxX
Sansa had thought that this would be the easiest resolution that she ever had to keep. All she had to do was say no whenever someone asked for her phone number or for a date. She would just say that she had plans or that she was focusing on herself, anything to avoid breaking the resolution that Arya had taken to texting her a reminder of three times a day.
Two weeks into the new year and Sansa found herself still holding strong, she didn't even have a desire to break her resolution. She had spent the last two weekends getting an early start to the upcoming semester's workload, she'd already read most of her textbooks and started outlining topics for her term papers. She found herself thinking that this was going to be the easiest year of her life, no drama, no hassle. No other person demanding all of her spare time and attention. She would get the best grades and have the most relaxed time of her life. She might even catch up with old TV shows that she used to watch as a kid.
At least that was what Sansa thought until the third weekend came. By now all of her friends and classmates had returned to campus as school had started earlier that week. Friday night steadily approached on Sansa amid a plethora of chimes from her cell phone as friends texted her to come out and join them at the bars. It was the first weekend back at campus and Sansa knew that most, if not all, of her friends were celebrating their return to the freedom of college away from their parents.
She herself had spent the holiday in King's Landing as Arya had a project for her class that lasted over the weeks of break and their family did not want their youngest daughter to face the holiday alone. So, Sansa had volunteered to pass up three weeks of knee deep snow and conversations with her mother by the fire and making endless Christmas cookies with her younger brothers so that Arya would not spend the holiday by herself. But Arya did not seem to understand what Sansa had sacrificed for her and other than seeing her for a few hours Christmas day the only time Sansa had seen her during the entire three-week period was when she'd stumbled onto her doorstop drunk.
Now with the combined weeks of solitude of break and her own self-imposed isolation of her resolution Sansa was going on nearly a month of hanging out by herself. Her mind was already beginning to implode with boredom and she did not think she could spend another weekend reading about post-modern femininity in political campaigns if she did not get out of this apartment for a bit first.
The problem with that was that Sansa had never gone anywhere alone. The thought of seeing a movie by herself made her cringe and whenever Sansa saw people dining alone in restaurants she never knew whether she wanted to cringe at them being alone or applaud them for their bravery of eating out when they knew people had to be judging them or assuming that they had been stood up. Or at least that's what she did.
This no dating resolution did not mean that she was not allowed to go out and do things with her friends of course. But Sansa knew her friends, she knew that they would spend the night asking her about who she had spent the holidays seeing and pointing out cute people at the bars and telling her to go and get their numbers. While Arya and her had only made the resolution for Sansa not to date she felt that flirting or sleeping with people was breaking her resolution as well. She had resolved to spend this year single and she was going to do that, no matter how bored she became.
Sansa was halfway through her third movie of the night when there was a sharp knock on her door. Raising from the couch Sansa couldn't help worrying on her bottom lip as she approached the door, she had already told all of her friends that she couldn't come out that night, making up some excuse about homework. But she knew her friends and sometimes they wouldn't take no for an answer. Sansa was still trying to come up with excuses to not join them bar hopping when she opened the door.
Arya's gray eyes met hers and Sansa breathed a sigh of relief that made her little sister's eyebrows raise. "Expecting someone else?" She asked breezily as she stepped into the apartment and kicked the door shut with her faded combat boots. Sansa frowned at the dirt left on her door by the kick as she shook her head.
"I was worried you were one of my friends." She admitted as she followed Arya back to the couch where she'd flopped down like it was her apartment as well. "What are you doing here?" Sansa asked curiously.
"Just checking on you." Arya said through a mouthful of popcorn that she had grabbed from the bowl on the coffee table. Sansa silently marveled at her sister's ability to make herself feel at home wherever she was. "First weekend school was back in session, I was worried you'd break the resolution already."
"Already?" Sansa asked, her spine straightening at the insult. "What makes you think I'll break it at all?"
Rolling her eyes Arya shoved another fistful of popcorn in her mouth causing Sansa to wrinkle her nose in disgust. "Your track record isn't exactly the best with this kind of thing."
Sansa chose to ignore that (as it was true after all) and decided to focus on a different part of Arya's statement. "I'm fine. Just watching a movie."
Arya looked over at the paused image of the romantic comedy Sansa had only been half watching and snorted. "These things shouldn't even count as movies."
Rolling her eyes Sansa shoved Arya's hand away from the bowl long enough to grab some popcorn herself. Unlike Arya she didn't shove the whole thing in her face but rather ate only a few pieces at a time.
"I can't even remember the last time I saw you watch a movie." Arya mused thoughtfully, peering at Sansa through her hair that had grown out from what Sansa thought was a disastrous haircut to be just long enough to fall into her eyes all the time. Sansa had offered her clips to pull it back from her face and Arya had stared at her like she had offered to dye it blonde and paint her nails pink.
"You're bored out of your mind, aren't you?" Arya asked, the barely concealed amusement in her voice drawing Sansa's attention back to her.
"No." Sansa snapped automatically, crossing her arms over her chest in a huff. "I'm finding all of this spare time to be nice actually."
"Liar." Arya said with a grin as she tipped her head back and tossed a popcorn kernel high into the air before catching it in her open mouth. Sansa didn't know whether to be impressed or disgusted.
"It's a little disconcerting to have this much free time, yes." Sansa admitted through gritted teeth. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to give up on this resolution!" She said stubbornly. If anything, Arya's certainty that Sansa would fail at this was only making her resolve stronger.
Her sister peered at her thoughtfully as she looked up from the now empty bowl of popcorn. "Why don't you get a job?" Arya asked, tapping her greasy finger against her lip as she looked around Sansa's apartment. "It'll keep you from being cooped up in here all the time. Even you can't study twenty-four hours a day."
Sansa leaned back against the couch as she mulled over her sister's words. A job would certainly keep her mind from becoming a blank slate from boredom and it would get her out of the apartment a few times a week. She wasn't even a month into the year and already she had organized everything in her apartment, she'd even alphabetized her cereal boxes for Seven's sake!
"That's not a bad idea." Sansa mused thoughtfully as her brain already began to think over what places she could apply to that wouldn't cut into her class schedule or her studying. School would always come first after all.
"When will you realize that I am full of great ideas?" Arya asked as she licked the popcorn butter off her fingertips. Sansa chose to ignore this as she pulled her notebook off the table in front of them and began to write a list of places to drop her resume off in the morning. She'd already decided to do the resolution her sister had suggested, she didn't have to give her the satisfaction of telling her she was right about something else in her life as well.
February
"And this is the cappuccino machine, careful you don't burn yourself. These things get hot." Alayaya explained as she ran Sansa through a quick tour of the equipment behind the counter.
It was her first day at King's Cup, the locally owed coffee shop that marked the halfway point between Sansa's apartment and campus. It had been the place that she had applied to that she had been hoping the most would hire her, solely for the convenience of its location. When they'd called her for an interview Sansa had nearly jumped for joy in the middle of the student union.
Standing behind the counter-top Sansa couldn't help but shiver as she listened attentively to Alayaya's instructions. Winter in King's Landing was much milder than the winters of Sansa's youth but that morning had dawned gray and bleak with a sharp wind that cut through all of Sansa's clothing as she had walked to her very first day of work. The chill had yet to leave her bones as she listened to her new manager explain the intricacies of making shapes out of foam to her.
"Sorry I'm late!" A sweet-sounding voice suddenly interrupted Alayaya's lecture and Sansa turned to peer over her shoulder curiously at the new comer. A pretty girl with shiny brown hair looked at Sansa with curious brown eyes as she tied an apron around her waist. "This must be the new girl." She said with a smile, stepping forward with her hand outstretched as she finished tying off her apron. "I'm Margaery. It's nice to meet you."
"Sansa. It's nice to meet you too." Sansa replied and she shook Margaery's hand and tried to ignore the softness of the other girl's touch. Shaking her head at herself Sansa turned back to Alayaya who was speaking again.
"It's just the two of you today. I've got to run to the bank later to take care of some paperwork so Margaery will be showing you the ropes."
Sansa and Margaery both nodded as Alayaya took what must have been yesterday's deposit from the cash register and headed out the back door. Sansa looked at Margaery and waited for her to tell her what to do; this was her very first job and she found herself wondering if it was apparent on her face.
"All the equipment is on already right?" Margaery asked, as she began to check each piece before Sansa could even nod in response.
"Yes." Sansa said, clearing her throat. "And we already have coffee brewing."
"Perfect." Margaery said grinning over her shoulder at her. "Then all we need to do is turn on the stereo and unlock the front door. Have you ever worked in a coffeehouse before?" She asked curiously as she walked out from behind the counter towards the front.
"No." Sansa admitted, certain that her newness at all of this was obvious with just a look. Margaery didn't seem too concerned with this as she fiddled with a few locks on the door.
"That's okay, it's pretty easy to catch on too. You seem like you handle early mornings well and that can be the hardest challenge some days." She said with a laugh as she flicked on the 'Open' sign and came back to the counter. Margaery leaned back against it as she surveyed Sansa who shifted nervously under her gaze. "The morning rush is my favorite part of the day. I have nothing to focus on but coffee orders and everything else just sort of floats away." Margaery admitted just as the bell above the door rang out.
For the next few hours Sansa made more cups of coffee than she thought that she had ever made in her entire life combined. She hadn't considered when she had applied for this job that since it was on the way for her walk to campus it would be on the way for other students as well. Not only did they get the student crowd but also faculty and tourists on their way to see the remains of the ruins of the Red Keep. There was an endless stream of customers and by the end of the first hour Sansa had already developed a deep hatred for the bell over the front door. It's constant ringing was like a drill pressed against her temple, try as she might she could not get it to fade into background noise like the rest of the sounds in the shop. She supposed that might have been the point of it but that did not stop her from glaring at it every now and again.
She messed up a few orders at the beginning but Margaery was a patient teacher and she did not let the grumpy moods of the customer frazzle her so Sansa tried very hard to copy her cool and calm demeanor. A few of them snapped at her to make their drinks faster and Sansa fought down the urge to snap back that if they were in that big of a hurry perhaps they shouldn't have stopped for coffee. Instead she would nod along as Margaery apologized and explained to them that it was Sansa's first day. She didn't know if it was understanding of the harrows of the first day on a job or the way Margaery would lower her voice to tell them like she was sharing a secret that would get the customer to stop glaring at her while she made their coffees. Whatever it was Sansa made a mental note to keep a close eye on the way Margaery dealt with irked customers, she had the feeling she would need the pointers in the future.
By the time Alyaya returned back to the coffeehouse Sansa felt like she had learned how to make every drink in the place. Her head was swimming with ingredients and the sound of that damned bell. She graciously accepted the free latte Margaery made her as a welcome to the store before she waved her goodbyes and headed off to class. It wasn't until she was halfway across campus that Sansa realized that she hadn't had a second all morning to even think about dating or flirting or anything other than coffee really. Biting down a smile Sansa shook her head, surprised to find that Arya had been right about another thing in her life. For a sister she wasn't that close too Arya sure seemed to know what Sansa needed.
XxX
Falling into her new routine was a lot easier than Sansa had anticipated. Her life quickly blended into a schedule of work and school. In the time when she wasn't studying or brewing coffee for strangers whose faces she was beginning to recognize Sansa had taken up knitting. It was something her mother had taught her back in middle school and Sansa had taken in up again with the intent that she would be making everyone scarves for Christmas this year. Arya would drop by unannounced every few days and whenever she saw the pile of yarn in the basket by Sansa's couch she always got a pleased look on her face. It was apparent to both of them that Sansa was holding strong to her resolution because she was. But what neither of them had counted on was Sansa's own thoughts betraying her.
It had started as an accident, Sansa had been working the register while Margaery brewed the coffee behind her. She had fallen into an almost autopilot of taking orders, telling totals and counting out change. It was before sunrise and the people in line were yet to be caffeinated so she wasn't seeing very many smiling faces, which she had already gotten used to. Most people couldn't smile an uncaffeinated smile during the light of dawn.
But then a girl with long blonde hair came up to the counter and ordered a green tea. Sansa had to force herself not to stare at the unusual color of her eyes, she couldn't quite tell if they were blue or purple. The girl had caught her staring and smiled at her, the corners of her mouth stretching up like the rising sun. Sansa was strong enough in her resolution to only smile back, she did not flirt nor draw a smiley face on her coffee cup like she had taken to doing for particularly grumpy customers. No Sansa had contented herself to a smile and watching the girl's backside as she had walked away (to which Margaery had caught with a knowingly raised eyebrow that made Sansa blush as bright as her hair).
The smile shouldn't have been a big deal, all it should have done was make Sansa smile in return because for once someone was showing her a bit of cheer in the mornings. But Sansa hadn't been on a date in months and she had just spent Valentine's day curled up on the couch with her little sister and her recently dumped best friend Jeyne eating enough chocolate to fill a bathtub in their pajamas. Sansa had never spent Valentine's Day without a date since she had hit puberty, it was beginning to sink into her just what not dating for a year meant. It meant no kisses, no flowers, no one to laugh with about stupid little things only they understood. That one little smile should have been just a nice moment of the day but instead it festered into something dangerous.
Sansa could stop herself from flirting, from going out on dates but she could not stop her mind from imagining. And that's what it was doing. It was imagining that pretty blonde girl holding her hand, laughing at her jokes, waking up next to her. She would walk to class and imagine the girl was there beside her. Sansa would come home and pretend that the girl was there and talk about her day to an empty apartment. She worried a moment for her sanity as she told her couch about her classes but Sansa excused it by reminding herself she was still keeping her resolution this way. It was better to talk to an empty room than admit defeat to Arya.
After all, pretending she was in a relationship was not breaking her resolution. She had resolved to not go on dates but she had never resolved to not imagine dating.
The blonde girl never came back into the shop that week although Sansa kept a sharp eye out for her. She caught Margaery looking at her with a strange look on her face a few times but Sansa chose to ignore it. She knew that it had to be apparent to others some of what she was thinking because Margaery was not the only one to be giving her that curious look. Add in to that the fact that Arya had started texting her nearly ten times a day reminding Sansa about her resolution, reminding her in all capital letters that she was NOT ALLOWED TO DATE or that Arya would never let her live it down.
The text messages worked a little and Sansa tried to get her mind to stop imaging that she was dating the blonde girl and after not seeing her again for a few weeks Sansa was finally able to shake her image from her mind. But all that did was make her start imaging she was dating other people. She made a silent promise to herself that she would not imagine that she was dating anyone that she actually knew, even if all she knew about them was their name. But when she saw a cute stranger on the street or in the shop she let her mind wander and imagine all the things that they could have together in a relationship.
Sansa was in the middle of imaging she was dating a man with dark skin and muscles like coiled rope who'd ordered two shots of espresso despite the fact that it was ten o'clock at night when the cursed bell went off again and Sansa jerked her head up from the table she was wiping down to look up and glare at the door.
Margaery grinned at her as she flipped the open sign off next to the door she had just locked. "Relax jumpy. It's just me."
Forcing aside the thoughts that Margaery's crooked grin gave her Sansa smiled back as she reminded herself of her promise not to imagine relationships with people she actually knew. She had made that rule entirely because of Margaery who she spent three shifts a week with trying not to wonder if her hair was actually as soft as it looked and how it would feel to wrap her hands in it. Shaking her head at her hatred for the bell, Sansa went back to cleaning the front of the shop as Margaery shut down the machines and began to count out their tips for the night.
"Someone left this for you." Margaery's sweet voice sounded amused as Sansa looked up from where she was sweeping to see Margaery waving a yellow tulip at her. There was a thin scrap of paper tied around the stem and as Sansa approached the counter she was surprised to see her name written on it in an unfamiliar script.
"Who left it?" Sansa asked in surprise leaning on the counter to peer at the flower, her mind wheeling over who had been in the shop recently. She never actually looked at the tip jar because she did not want the amount of its contents to affect her mood. She felt like she would have noticed if someone slipped a flower in there but truthfully she was so lost in her own head lately that she didn't know if that was true.
"No idea." Margaery said with a shrug, fingering the piece of paper tied to the flower. "Yours is the only name on this." She leaned her elbows on the counter so that she was only a few inches from Sansa as she whispered conspiratorially. "Looks like you have a secret admirer."
Sansa swallowed hard at Margaery's closeness. Her ponytail had fallen over one shoulder and it's tip was dangling just inches above Sansa's hand. If she turned her palm upwards her fingers might just be able to brush the ends of her hair and find out if it was as soft as she thought it was. She was so focused on Margaery's hair that it took her a moment for her words to sink in.
"A secret admirer?" Of all the years for that to happen to her for the first time in her life it had to be during the year she wasn't dating? Sansa was just cursing her luck when a thought occurred to her. She had been imaging relationships for the past few weeks and she had vowed not to date all year. This was way too coincidental of timing to be anything but one person. "My sister didn't come in here today did she?"
Sansa looked up in time to see Margaery's face fall but then she blinked and Margaery was grinning at her curiously. Supposing she must have imagined it Sansa shook the thought from her head and focused on Margaery who was speaking again, "Your sister? I don't think so, why?"
"She likes to prank me sometimes." Sansa lied quickly, she was not about to get into her resolution and all of her history that had led to it. It was bad enough that Arya knew about it, she didn't want to pull anyone else into this.
Margaery made a noise of understanding before she smiled and waved the tulip under Sansa's nose. The sweet smell of it blended with the rose scent of Margaery's perfume and Sansa swallowed hard as she realized that Margaery hadn't moved away, they were both leaning over the counter and their faces were less than half a foot apart as Margaery whispered conspiratorially, "I didn't see her today, I don't think this flower was left as a prank."
"Did you see who left it?" Sansa asked curiously in spite of herself, her voice lowering to match Margaery's tone. Her heart was beating a bruise against her rib-cage and she wasn't sure if it was due to the flower or Margaery's closeness.
"No idea." Margaery breathed, tilting her head to peer at Sansa curiously. As she moved her ponytail dipped down and the very ends of her hair brushed against the top of Sansa's hand. The touch of it made Sansa jerk back like she had been burned. Her sudden movement made the broom she had propped against the counter fall to the floor with a crash that sounded deafening after the softness of the last few moments.
Swallowing hard Sansa bent to retrieve the broom, fighting off a blush as she tried not to look too long at Margaery. She didn't know if it was her sudden overactive imagination about dating or the fact that she had watched far too many romcoms lately but Sansa had felt like a moment had just passed between them. She wasn't letting herself date this year so that probably meant she shouldn't be having moments either.
"Well that's certainly interesting." Sansa said quickly, sparing a glance at the tulip held softly in Margaery's hand. The flower was pretty but she did not want to touch it, certain that it had been left as a trick by her little sister. This was Arya's not so subtle way of telling her to get her head out of the clouds and Sansa suddenly felt the burning urge to get out of the coffeehouse. That flower was a symbol of the fact that she was nearly cheating on her resolution and Sansa did not like the reminder staring her in the face. She felt like she could taste the scent of the flower with every breath she took and she found that she was suddenly lightheaded from it all.
"Are you alright?" Margaery asked curiously as Sansa sped past the counter towards the backroom.
"Never better. Let's get out of here, yeah?" Sansa asked as she untied her apron, her fingers suddenly clumsy on the knot.
"What's the sudden rush? Got a hot date or something?" Margaery asked, Sansa was so lost in her thoughts she barely noticed the look of sadness cross Margaery's face.
Sansa laughed at the absurdity of the question and then she laughed harder as she realized that no one but her and Arya knew it was absurd. Of course, Margaery would assume she was dating right now. Just like she would assume the flower would cause Sansa happiness and curiosity that someone would leave it for her. Instead it was causing her waves of guilt for her thoughts of the past few weeks.
Sure she'd technically kept her resolution so far but her mind certainty hadn't been. She might as well have been going on a date a night for how her thoughts had been lately. Shaking her head at both herself and Margaery's question Sansa hung her apron up and grabbed her bag from the cubby that had her name printed under it like she was back in kindergarten. She pulled her coat on hastily as she tried to swallow her guilt.
Margaery shook her head at her antics and approached her to grab her own things from her cubby. Sansa took a small step backwards, suddenly afraid of what she might do if they got too close. "You're a bit strange sometimes Sansa, you know that?" Margaery asked as she handed Sansa the tulip and her part of the tips so that she could pull her own coat on.
Pocketing the money Sansa stared at the tulip, it's petals yellow like the sun as she wondered if someone other than Arya did leave it for her. She couldn't quite shake the feeling that it was a test from her sister trying to make sure her resolve was still in check. Or perhaps it was from someone who really did admire her and couldn't think of any other way to say it.
Or maybe it was a sign from the old gods and the new that she had made a promise to herself and she needed to keep it, and not just in body but mind and spirit too. She couldn't very well go on dating people in her head for the next year and then pretend like she'd actually kept this resolution. No, Sansa had agreed to this resolution not just to stop dating people who were bad for her but to better herself for herself. Having imaginary relationships with people she passed on the street was not the way to do that.
Sansa ran her fingers over the waxy petals of the tulip as Margaery looked over her shoulder at her, her fingers hovering above the pad for the alarm code.
"You ready?"
Sansa nodded quickly, her fingers closing tightly over the tulip, it's petal crushing beneath her fingers. She was ready, ready to fully commit to her no dating promise. For it wasn't a resolution anymore, this wasn't something she wanted to do. This was something she needed to do. She needed to see this through and not just so that Arya couldn't lord it over her for the rest of her life. She needed to do this for herself.
She followed Margaery out the back door quickly, the beeping of the alarm pad reminding them to hurry so that they could lock the door before the alarm went off. Sansa stood by as Margaery locked the door behind them giving Sansa one last smile as she began to head for her car.
"Well I'm glad one of us has something interesting going on in their lives. We'll have to keep an eye out for your secret admirer." She said with a wave that Sansa returned halfheartedly as she turned in the opposite direction of Margaery to head towards her apartment.
Casting a quick look over her shoulder to make sure Margaery was safely in her car Sansa opened her palm and stared down at the crushed petals of the tulip resting in her hand. "You promised yourself." Sansa whispered, forcing down the curiosity and butterflies blooming in her stomach. She had promised herself a year of no dating to better herself and pretend relationships and worrying about strange flowers was not the way to do that. It was time for her to get serious about this and stop hiding out in her apartment because she was too afraid to do things alone. Walking past a bus stop bench Sansa placed the crushed tulip on the faded metal seat before continuing home, not sparing the flower a second glance or thought as she walked on.