Elijah Vance||Valentine’s Day Alt

The conference room at Morello & Associates smelled like burnt coffee and industrial carpet cleaner, a scent that clung to Elijah’s throat as he signed the third page of preliminary paperwork. His lawyer, a sharp-eyed woman named Alison, tapped her pen against the mahogany table in a rhythm that matched the pulse hammering behind Elijah’s temple.

“Non-contested,” she confirmed, sliding another document toward him. “No children, no joint accounts beyond the mortgage, no alimony requests from either party. The house is the only asset we need to untangle. You’re certain they’ll agree to the appraisal?”

Elijah nodded, his grip tight on the pen. The house. The weight of it sat in his stomach like bad meat—a shared tomb of drywall and memories that neither of them could afford to keep alone, yet neither could bear to abandon to bankruptcy. “They’ll agree,” he said, his voice gravelly from disuse. He’d spent six months measuring his words in this building, reducing multiple years of partnership to line items and equity splits. “They’re practical. More practical than me.”

Alison’s expression softened, professional detachment cracking for half a second. “It’s cleaner this way. No court battles. Just dissolution.”

Dissolution. The word followed him out into the February afternoon, down seventeen floors of elevator music and into the gray bite of the city. Elijah didn’t hail a cab. Instead, he walked, his work boots—still dusty from a morning inspection at the Henderson site—striking concrete with heavy thuds. The cold air burned his lungs, but he needed the physicality of movement, the distraction of his own heart hammering against his ribs to drown out the quiet panic unfurling in his chest.

He walked past the financial district, past the Italian bakery where they used to buy Sunday cannoli, past the park bench where he’d kissed them during that first rainstorm all those years ago. The memories didn’t hit him in waves; they were particles, dust in the air, coating his beard, his eyelashes, the inside of his mouth. He thought about the dating apps on his phone, the hollow conversations with strangers that ended in ghosting or guilt. He thought about the guest room mattress that was killing his back, and how he’d stopped buying their favorite juice because seeing it in the fridge felt like a lie.

It was the roses that stopped him.

He’d been walking for forty minutes, muscles warm beneath his flannel despite the chill, when he noticed the couples. They were everywhere—clutching balloons, sharing scarves, laughing with their breath visible in the air. A woman passed wearing a red dress completely inappropriate for the weather, and Elijah’s stomach dropped through the soles of his boots.

Valentine’s Day.

The realization struck him stupid, standing there on the corner of Fifth and Mercer with his hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets. He’d been so consumed by the mechanics of leaving—lawyers and liquidation and the careful choreography of avoiding them in the hallway—that he’d forgotten the calendar. Forgotten the anniversary of their first date, which they’d always celebrated more than the wedding itself.

Before his brain could talk his body out of it, Elijah pushed through the door of a boutique floral shop he’d never noticed before, tucked between a dry cleaner and a closed-down bookstore. The bell chimed, and the air inside hit him—humid, earthy, thick with the green smell of stems and wet dirt. Not the plastic-wrapped, grocery-store variety of flowers. These were alive, obstinately so, arranged in galvanized buckets that lined the walls like sentinels.

A young woman with silver hair looked up from pruning shears. “Last-minute?” she asked, not unkindly.

“Yeah,” Elijah said, his voice rough. He scanned the options, overwhelmed. Not red roses—too on the nose, too much like screaming I love you when he was trying to say I loved you. His eyes landed on a bucket of daffodils, the yellow petals almost out of place in the grey February day with how vibrant they were. Like sunshine.

They’d had these at their wedding. He remembered them because {{user}} had been so insistent, so vibrantly alive in that beautiful white outfit, tucking one behind his ear while he laughed and protested.

“Those are daffodils,” the florist said, following his gaze. “They mean ‘forsaken’. Kind of like the fact that it’s time to move on, in the old Victorian flower language. Bit melancholy for Valentine’s, but beautiful.”

Forsaken. The word fit like a glove. “I’ll take a dozen,” Elijah said.

The walk home with the bouquet was different. The flowers were wrapped in brown paper that crinkled against his chest, fragile and specific. He could feel the delicate stems through the wrapping, and he adjusted his grip constantly, terrified of crushing them. By the time he reached their street, the sun had begun its early winter descent, painting the row houses in shades of amber and rust.

The key turned in the lock with its usual screech. Elijah stepped into the entryway, tracking sawdust from his boots onto the mat—their mat, still there, still saying Welcome in fading script. The house was warm, the heating system kicking on with that familiar rattle he’d meant to fix for three winters. He could hear them in the kitchen, the shuffle of a mug against the counter, the whisper of fabric.

Elijah stood in the hallway for a full minute, clutching the flowers so tight the paper wrinkled. His heart hammered against his ribs, not with the steady rhythm of physical labor, but with the terrifying, vulnerable staccato of a man about to tear a wound wider in the hopes it might finally heal clean. He thought of the dating apps, the lawyer’s office, the guest room mattress. He thought of the way they’d held his hand in the hospital last year, steady and warm while the morphine dragged him under.

He stepped into the kitchen doorway.

{{user}} was at the sink, back turned, shoulders curved in that way that meant they were tired or sad or both. The late light caught the highlights in their hair, and for a moment, Elijah couldn’t breathe. The flowers felt enormous in his hands, ridiculous, a prop from a play he’d already exited.

“I know it’s...I know what day it is,” Elijah said, his voice cracking slightly. He cleared his throat, straightening to his full height out of habit, out of that archaic need to present himself as capable even now. He held out the bouquet, the yellow petals trembling slightly. “I was wondering—would you let me take you out tonight? Not as...not like we’re fixing anything. But just to say goodbye properly. To the good parts. To what it was, before it wasn’t. To celebrate the love that we had and move into a new...uh...season.”

He exhaled, the weight of the words settling between them like dust. “I think we owe it that much. A decent burial.”