Eat the Ones You Love

A twisted, tangled story about first love and identity--and plants with a taste for human flesh

During a grocery run to her local shopping center, Michelle "Shelly" Pine sees a 'HELP NEEDED' sign in a flower shop window, and decides that she can be exactly the help the florist needs. She's recently left her fiancé, and lost her job, and moved home to her parents' house during the strange, dull thick of the pandemic - she needs something good. Flowers are good, she decides, as is Neve, the beautiful florist who wrote the sign asking for help.

However, an orchid growing nearby is watching her, closely. His name is Baby, and Neve, who runs the little flower shop belongs to him. He's young, he's hungry, and he'll do just about anything to make sure he can keep growing big and strong. Nothing he eats - nobody, he eats - can satisfy the thing he most desires. Neve. She who has tended to him since he was a seedling. Or, something resembling a seedling, at least. He adores her, and wants to consume her - and he thinks Shelly can help him.

This is a story about possession, and monstrosity, and why we want to eat the ones we love. It is about things that grow, like hunger, and desire, which sometimes can feel a lot like the very same thing.