Roses
Operation Find-out-who-bought-me-this-necklace now in motion, I thought, looking down the hallway as a certain Australian man sauntered out of a classroom, his arm casually draped over a blushing girl's shoulders. I took a deep breath and approached quickly, my heels clacking on the polished wood floor. Finn heard the noise and looked my way, his look turning thoughtful.
"You've met me before, Finn," I said, for what was probably the thirtieth time since I had actually met him. "I actually wanted to ask you something."
"Well, I don't know you," Finn said, his eyes sweeping up and down my form to the distaste of the girl next to him. "But I guess you can ask me a question. Ask anything ya like."
I nodded, and held up the diamond necklace. Finn whistled. "Do you recognize this? And if so, do you know who sent it?"
I saw a look of indecision in Finn's eyes and knew I was closing in on an answer. Finn looked around to make sure no one was watching us before letting go of the girl and stepping forward to whisper in my ear, "You should ask Logan that, he'd know."
Then, he stepped back and let the girl pull him away down the hallway. While I hadn't exactly gotten a straight answer from him, his answer seemed to be pointing to Logan.
Upon entering my dorm, I jumped at Paris' sudden yell at the TV and said, "Paris, maybe you should get out of the dorm. You've gotten way too attached to CNN."
"I'm ignoring you," Paris said without looking away from the TV.
"Terrence is probably right," I continued.
"Still ignoring you!"
I moved on to my bedroom, opening the door wide and throwing my parka and accessories on my desk chair before looking at myself in the mirror. The diamond necklace sparkled in the light and went perfect with my wide-necked top, showing all the different threads and diamonds, and the hawk in between.
It took me two seconds to realize that my room was not the way I had left it. I turned from the mirror and surveyed the room and, with a fair bit of surprise, I found multitudes of rose petals covering my bed from the pillows to the foot.
"Oh my…" I whispered.
At the foot of the bed was a sheet of white paper where 'Merry Christmas' had been printed in a large font and festive colours. I picked up the sheet and stared at it, as if it would give me the clues to who had done this. Then, I looked at the window to see if the person had used it to sneak in and found that the window was unlocked.
"Paris, why are there rose petals on my bed?" I yelled in frustration.
Paris came jogging in and looked in surprise at the petals. "Why the hell would you put rose petals on your bed?" she asked, either not getting it or trying to be difficult.
"Paris!" I exclaimed. "I wouldn't put petals on my own bed! What I'm trying to figure out is who did it and how did they get into my room and how did you not notice it?!"
"They must have used the window," Paris mused, checking it. "You know you should keep it locked just in case some nutso tried to come in here and do this again."
"Paris, it was locked," I told her impatiently.
"Well, I didn't let them in," she went on, defensively. "And your door was shut, so I wouldn't have been able to hear it." She suddenly saw the necklace. "Where did you get the rocks?"
"I don't know."
Paris looked sceptical. "How could you not know? You're the one wearing them."
"They came from that package that arrived yesterday."
"Oh." She seemed to be thinking of something. "Perhaps it's that guy I saw you kissing in the newsroom the other day."
And just like that, she left, leaving me to steam in my frustration. I soon sighed and sat down heavily on the bed, feeling the softness of the petals on my fingertips as I lightly brushed them. I lay back, letting my hair spill out over the petals, and began to play with them with my hands.
A necklace on the doorstep—much like the time Logan had left me that gorilla mask, champagne, and my camera—and rose petals on my bed. Was Logan Huntzberger trying to woo me or was he just messing with me? Half of me wanted to interrogate the hell out of him, while the other half just wanted to see what was next. I opted for the latter and closed my eyes to fall asleep.
