Free Don't Close Your Eyes by Lynessa James

reason, or have any right-
    My fears were silenced when he stopped and set a large bouquet of lavender roses down in front of me.  Tears of happiness rushed to my eyes, even if I had no idea who they were from.  I gasped when he set down another vase filled with orange calla lilies mixed with white roses.  Orange calla lilies were my favorite flower.  Those had to be from someone who knew me well.  He pulled a large bear, and a group of balloons untangled from the bottom of his cart that were anchored to the lily vase.  He set down several envelopes, and one box wrapped in red and silver scrolling paper like a present before he moved on.  Holy crap!  Look at all this stuff!
    Mr. Miller echoed my thoughts when he walked up and told me that he and the entire class were dying to know what was inside the box.  I chuckled and felt a blush steal over my cheeks at his attention, but I set about opening it carefully.  The paper was so pretty!  Foil.  I wanted to save it.  He found that amusing and in the meantime asked to read the card on the lilies.  I nodded.  He didn’t read it aloud. 
    “Interesting.  Either a poem or song lyrics.  No name,” he told me.  “Rather than butcher someone’s work with my horrid drama, I will leave this to you, Ms. James.  You save wrapping paper?” he asked me with an amused light in his eyes.  I nodded shyly, and he took it to fold it for me so that I could open the box more quickly.  I opened a large, flat jewelry box and gasped.
    “Wow,” I sighed in shock.  I didn’t know what to think of it.  It was beautiful and obviously expensive.  A necklace that didn’t go all the way around my neck, rather it wrapped over the back so that it remained open in the front.  An emerald vine that hooked close to my collarbone on the left, and wrapped around my neck to fall down my chest just before my cleavage.  Small diamonds created flowers in the emeralds, and it was the prettiest necklace I’d ever seen.  I had never had anyone other than my father buy me jewelry before.  Was this from him?  He normally left a card.  No matter what, I was so very humbled by all of these sweet things.  I was sometimes gifted with flowers, a balloon or two.  Nothing like all of this.  I was so very undeserving, considering I’d likely turned everyone of these men down at some point.
    Mr. Miller whistled, and I looked up at him in agreement.  “Beautiful color pallet with your eyes, Ms. James.  Good luck with the rest of those cards and gifts.  This one puts the others to shame.  I’d say you have a man in the midst of little boys pining for your affections.  Coach Walton is gonna be so nervous if you have a boyfriend,” he winked and moved on to the next victim, reading Shakespeare like a pro from another card on some flowers.  He was right about Coach Walton.  I’d only had one boyfriend during my college years, and he’d been helpful, not hurtful to my running, but he’d been nervous my entire career that I would fall in love and slack up.  Fortunately, Coach didn’t have anything to worry about, because this person left no indication of who he was.  Hell, maybe my mother sent it?  She was always trying to urge me to act and look like a lady rather than a tomboy anyway.  Made sense.  After reverently putting that back up as though my life depended on it, I went about opening the cards.  Some were positively adorable the likes of which you would receive in grade school, heart candies with corny sayings included.  I read the poem or lyrics from the card Mr. Miller had read, but didn’t recognize the handwriting nor the source for this one.  Without a tune to go off of, I couldn’t be positive it was a song, and I had no idea where to look.  The lavender roses, three dozen, were beautiful and all different depths and shades of the soft hue.  At first, I didn’t see a card, then I spotted that it had fallen deep between the pretty blooms.  My heart caught