When Abby heard the story of Kent, she became hesitant to listen to the story. I didn't understand why. I was about to tell her my greatest love story.

"That time you said, Kent saw you as his white rose, I thought that beautifully poetic. Kent is a romantic." She was right. "He's also very much in love with you, though I don't know much about love."

She was keeping her hands busy with the flowers, replanting them in larger pots and plots.

"We aren't talking about Kent right now though," I tell her.

"I'd like to hear the rest of that story first," she whispered back.

Kent and I were close, so close that if he had existed in my daily life, I'd have given him my heart. I probably did. But he never saw me as a girl. I was like a little sister to him, an equivalent to his close cousin. Still, I think he treated me especially to the point that girlfriends have demanded he stay away from me.

Though glad I was to be chosen over petty girlfriends, I also knew they had a point. They weren't so petty. To them, I had an ulterior motive. I did like him.

When I was four, I started to notice the difference between a woman and a man. I didn't like the male species. Older men had no self-awareness. My dad was a disappointment. My brother took away all the attention. Boys my age were rowdy and rude. They were disrespectful and only knew how to play around. They were snot-nosed-faced monkeys. There was nothing great about them. With time dislike turned into fear. Older men had no sense of private space. Is my dad actually my dad? Will my brother hurt me too? Boys my age were mean, inconsiderate, and bullies. They were disrespectful and knew just how to humiliate a girl. I didn't want anything to do with them. I turned that fear into stubbornness. I fought back. I hated them in return.

I didn’t want to be touched by them. In fact, nothing has changed.

Kent was the different one.

My crush on Kent began in pre-school. He was a nice boy but that kindness wasn't exclusively only towards me.

"Kent was your first love?"

Abby stopped fiddling with a sack of soil to look up at me.

“No,” I quickly denied. “My first love went on for seven years and even though Kent took up a good chunk of a set of seven years too, it wasn’t him. Still, I remember the way he laughed and smiled at me. I remember a bit of his voice a lot better than I do my first love.”

"So, why did he call you his white rose?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," I let an awkward chuckle out and brushed my hair back. Why had he?