Valentine's Day

Most women probably considered receiving flowers on Valentine’s Day as the ultimate display of love and devotion. To Karah it was more like a threat. As soon as the delivery man stepped out of the lift, her heart sunk. Hoping the flowers moved straight past her, just like the last three deliveries that day, Karah turned away and sat back down at her desk. But there was something different about these flowers. They were not the traditional red roses, and it was with a sense of doom that Karah looked up to see the delivery man standing in the doorway of her office.

“Karah Valent?” Karah nodded grimly. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Karah reminded herself that this man was just an innocent party in this debacle, so thanked him politely while silently cursing him.

The delivery man was quickly replaced by a gaggle of workmates. Karah was amused that the cooing wasn’t limited to the women in the office. Just as many of her male colleagues wanted to know who the flowers were from.

“Don’t know,” Karah lied. “No card.”

“Oooh, secret admirer,” was the cry that laughed across the office.

Most people left it at that, heading back to their own desks, but a couple stayed to decipher the mystery.

“You really have no idea who sent them?” asked Mary, smelling the flowers.

“How’s that even possible?” queried Jesse. “Seriously, no guy’s going to spend that much money on a girl if she’s never going to work out they’re from him.”

Karah tried not to groan at Jesse’s insight. She knew exactly who’d sent the flowers, but it was a game she was determined not to play. It was the very reason Karah was working in this office – far away from the sender of the flowers – and she had no intention of bringing that baggage into her new workplace.

“Well, if a guy’s going to assume he’s so memorable or is just too chicken to write his name on a card, then he deserves to waste his money,” smiled Karah, making Jesse and Mary laugh.

The smile slid from Karah’s face when she was left alone in her office. She reached for her phone and had the message half-written before she took a deep breath. This was exactly what he wanted. A reaction. Any reaction. And angry was as good as infatuated.

It was hard to believe it had gotten to this point. It had all started so innocently. When Karah first met Andy, her first reaction had been one of disappointment. He would be an unwanted test of her rule never to date anyone she worked with. But that test was shorter and much easier than Karah ever expected.

In the beginning, Karah and Andy had good chemistry. They worked well together. Shared friendly banter. It was a good working relationship and Karah found contentment in that. After all, there was a limit to how long she could stay in her job. If she wanted to further her career, then a role change would be due in a couple of years.

It took less than six months for Karah to realise she would not need to change jobs to take a chance on Andy, but rather a necessity to avoid seeing more of him. Andy’s interest in Karah’s life had slowly morphed from friendly to possessive. Karah only had to mention a person once and Andy remembered who they were and what role they played in her life. Within a year, he was speaking about her life as if he was an active part of it outside of the workplace. It was a perception believed by everyone they worked with.

Karah confided in a couple of workmates how odd the situation was, but instead of receiving support, what she got was a critique of her behaviour and how it might have contributed to Andy’s. She could hardly blame a guy for being interested when she was so friendly. And it wasn’t like she had a boyfriend. If she didn’t want him to know so much about her life, then she shouldn’t have told him stuff or spent so much time with him.

Taking what her workmates said to heart, Karah tried to distance herself from Andy. While she still chatted to him, she kept personal stories to herself and tried to only speak about work, but it felt unnecessarily harsh. Karah wasn’t like that with anyone else in the office, so when Andy asked if he had done something to annoy her, she pretended she had just not felt like herself lately.

Over the next few months, Karah struggled to get the right balance in her interactions with Andy. It put a strain on office relations as, one by one, more people were dragged in to give their opinion on the situation. Karah found few people on her side, particularly after she turned down Andy’s request for a date. Everyone thought she had been leading him on and her excuse of not dating people she worked with was deemed unacceptable given her behaviour.

When Andy found out Karah was dating someone outside their workplace, things descended into farce. Andy became angry and spiteful. Then remorseful, begging to know how he could be the one she dated instead. He offered to quit his job. Move departments. Karah tried to put him off. Any feelings she’d once had for Andy had well and truly gone, but what Karah wanted had little impact on Andy. He wanted to be her boyfriend and that was all that mattered.

Looking at the flowers, Karah sighed as she found a vase and placed them on the reception counter on her way out of the office. Her boyfriend was waiting for her at his apartment, ready to erase her agitations. It made Karah unprepared for the addition of the teddy bear and box of chocolates to her desk the next day. Before Karah could throw them out, she received a message.

You can’t ignore me forever.