She was about to turn around an leave when she looked at the flowers in her hand. It really didn't matter now, so she could just as well say it.
“Sunflowers,” she said.
“Excuse me?” John raised his eyebrows at her.
“Sunflowers. I like sunflowers,” she added, “They're my favourite. But these are really lovely, too. Thank you.”
John smiled at her. “You're welcome.”
Back in her own apartment Clara placed the flowers in a large vase and set them down on her coffee table. They were a lovely gesture and Clara really couldn't hold it against him but if he kept thinking that they could be involved romantically she was going to lose John as a friend.
It wasn't so much that she still held on to her previous engagement. Daniel had died a long time ago and Clara had come to live with that even though the thought of it still made her sad. She missed it. She missed waking up next to the man she loved, she missed surprise kisses and a hand that held her own. Clara knew that she could easily have that again but the price seemed too high. She wouldn't give her heart away only to have it ripped into pieces again when it was still healing from its last wound. John was right – they probably would indeed work as a couple, or at least she could well imagine it. But when her imagination moved on to falling in love and marriage and kids all she saw was that by pure reasoning he would be the one to die first and he would leave her alone all over again, probably while she was still raising their children. It would tear her apart.
All of her dreams about becoming a mother and a wife to a loving husband included the possibility of loss and that was something Clara would never put herself through again. She was safer this way.