SMELLING ROSES

Chapter Four

When I was a kid, I begged my mother to tell me the same bedtime story. It was about a baby bird named Chick. She was the eldest of fifteen siblings. While most of them were wild and unruly, she was docile and trained. And though Mama Bird worried for her, Chick never thought she was different.

Until the second oldest learned how to fly.

"It was magnificent!" my mother would shout, and the bedroom walls creaked as if startled. I'd snuggle into bed, making myself home. And for a few minutes, I'd be transported to another world. I guess you could say that's where my love for storytelling began.

In the story, Chick didn't know babies could fly. But watching in terror as her mother pushed her sibling off the ledge, left her in awe. The way her sibling flapped their wings until they were high above the ground enthralled them all. One baby bird after another, they jumped, they fell, and they flew.

And when everyone had proven flying wasn't designated for one, but for all, Chick jumped, fell, and kept falling.

Until she hit the ground.

Determined, she got Mama Bird to hoist her up and tried again. And again. And again. And the more she tried, the more she failed.

"Something's wrong with me," Chick whispered.

She realized she was different, but more than that, she was incapable of doing something her entire family could do. So, she ran away.

But on her travels, she met a hummingbird named Cheetah. He found her at the base of a tree and asked why she was crying.

Chick whimpered, "I can't fly. I can't do it. I'm not good enough."

With a hum, he threw his head back and laughed. "Flying isn't about being good enough. It's about not being afraid."

Chick had never heard that word before, so he explained. But she was still confused. She wasn't afraid of falling. She had fallen many times that day and although it left her with a few bruises; she was okay.

"You're afraid to fly," he hummed. "Because falling is safer."

Chick still didn't understand and returned to her pity. But the feisty hummingbird wasn't finished. "If you fly expecting to fall, then you will. Because when you fall, that's it. Your journey stops there. But when you fly, your journey is just beginning. And if you're afraid of that journey because you don't know what to expect, you'd rather fall. Because falling is safer than flying."

I never understood why I loved that story so much. Maybe my mother knew it was something I needed to hear, or maybe she liked that I liked it. But when Shae started finding their way, and Zacari and Nadia came into the picture, I thought of Chick more and more.

It hadn't been a story I could recall as I got older and my mother stopped telling it, but on the bus ride home, it drummed through my mind. And I knew the reason why.

I met my hummingbird today.

And he was nothing like I expected. It was like my mother foreshadowed our meeting. Or simply guided him to me while she was sleeping. I wish I could wake her up, and tell her about him. She'd beamed like she always did when I told her about something that made me happy. Wren made me yearn for more. Something I was perfectly fine dealing with on my own. Like a secret, I tried to ignore. And now, I couldn't.

A summer. Three months chock-full of my dreams. I wanted to pretend I said yes, that I never left his side, and we got on it right away. But I was tired, and when I was tired, I didn't think straight. The same things I wanted tonight wouldn't be there in the morning. And so, that was that.