Chapter 7: Past

Anne opened the door to find a florist delivery man with a bunch of Sunflowers in his arms.

“Delivery for a Grace Evans?” Said the Deliveryman

“She sleeping at the moment, I take the bunch of flowers for her!“ Anne said happily.

“Oh great! Will you be taking all of them?” The Deliveryman said

“All of them?” Anne said confused

“Er yeah, I got over 600 steams in the van. A customer has brought up the whole city’s supply” The delivery man explained.

Anne rolled her eyes and said “bring them in! I hope they come in vases because I use an old jug for the rare occasions I get flowers.“

“Yes Miss, they come in a crystal vase and each bunch has a handwritten note on from the customer. He was very specific” Said the Deliveryman.

“I bet he was !” Anne murmured as she got her phone out to text James.

Grace awoke and noticed the sun was low in the sky, she looked at the clock on the sideboard and it said 7 pm. “I must have been more tired than I thought!” She said sleepily. She got up and her stomach rumbled and she decided to make her way down to the kitchen. When she opened the door she gasped, as every surface in the hall was covered in sunflowers! She walked down the stairs and there were even more sunflowers! 

“Anne, I can’t believe it! It is what I imagined walking in a sunflower field in the south of France would be like. Thank you so much, I love it!” Grace gushed as she walked into the living room. Grace stopped dead as she saw Anne in the chair and Kurt on the sofa, both drinking coffee. 

A couple of hours earlier when Anne finished finding space for the sunflowers she had another knock at the door. As she expected it was Kurt.

“Hello Anne, is Grace in? Did she get the flowers?” Kurt asked.

 If Anne did not know better, this businessman who had a reputation for hardcore and ruthless, was nervous!

“James told you where she was I presume? I will have to kick his arse next time I see him and she is currently napping. But you can come in a wait if you want?” Anne said in a friendly tone.

Kurt smiled and said, “I am most grateful, thank you, Anne!”

 Anne showed him to the living room and indicated for him to sit down.

“Drink?” Anne asked pleasantly.

“I would love a cup of coffee!” Kurt replied.

Kurt desperately needed a caffeine kick, it had been a very long day and he was starting to feel it! He had hoped that Grace would have opened the door to him, but he was in the same house as her, so it was a good start.

“I am afraid I only got instant, I guessing you are used to the expensive filtered stuff?” Anne said as she put a tray down. Kurt helped himself to milk and sugar.

“This is wonderful, thank you, Anne. I must admit, I expected you to be angry!” Kurt said carefully.

“Oh, I am pissed you upsetting my Best Friend, but Jason is a prick that plays games.! He has wanted Grace for years, but she was too busy studying to notice his advances. My friend is very naive when it comes to men” Anne explained

“Naive?” Kurt said frowning

“She never had a boyfriend or been with a man Kurt. It is a hangover from her horrendous childhood” Anne said simply. Kurt looked shocked at the revelations Anne was saying. Grace was a virgin?

“What do you mean by horrendous childhood?” Kurt said.

“Are you sure you want to hear it? It is pretty deep stuff and I don’t want to scare you away!” Anne asked. She was of course testing his resolve and Kurt knew this.

“Don’t worry, I can handle it!” Kurt said firmly. He wanted to know everything about his Angel, plus it was not like he wasn’t used to violence.

“Well, Grace’s parents died in a car crash when she was young. She has no other family, so was placed into the care system. Some of the foster careers use to torture her, she does not talk about it much for obvious reasons.” Anne said calmly.

“Torture her?” Kurt said trying to hold on to his temper.

“Yes, you know the kind of thing! Putting cigarettes out on her, whipping her with a belt and locking her in small dark spaces. The list is endless, but she survived and worked hard to become a Doctor. She wanted to take other people’s pain away so they don’t suffer as she did.” Anne said waiting for Kurt to process what she just said.

“So by manhandling her, I ..” Kurt was putting two and two together.

“Yes, you triggered some pretty deep emotions and fear! She just expressed it in anger as a lot of people do.” Anne said simply. 

“Is she alright?“ Kurtis asked quickly his face full of concern. How could he be so stupid? He had scared his Angel and caused her pain.

“She is now, but she was very upset!“ Anne said unhappily.

“Why are you telling me this?” Kurt asked suspiciously.

“ Did Anne want money or a favour of some sort?” Kurt thought suspiciously.

“Because she was upset!” Anne said simply. Kurt looked completely lost at this point and she sighed.

 “If she did not care about you she would not have cried, she would just have said fuck it and moved on! I have never seen her act towards a man as she does to you.” Anne revealed.

Kurt slowly smiled at what Anne said, it was true the Grace did like him! If she didn’t then there was no way she would have acted as she had done.

“Don’t think you are out of the woods yet Biro Boy! You still got some serious work to do before she goes back.” Anne warned.

Just then they heard the upstairs door open and Grace thanking Anne for the amazing flowers. Her smile quickly disappeared when she saw Kurt sat on the sofa.

“Oh shit!” Kurt thought.