Bury me in Amaranth (reader x Edward)

Chapter 2

04.03.1967

He's here again.

It shouldn't bother me as much as it does, his presence a hazy blur that stands apart in the flow of days. A blemish, one that even my foggy mind cannot forget of, cannot simply categorise as futile. For his efforts to speak to me are in vain. He cannot dictate the course of my fate.

"Still here?" He muses beside me when I don't greet him as he sits. It seems our previous interaction taught him well enough, and he doesn't wait in my silence. "What book are you reading this time?"

I feel capacious eyes on me as I turn the book to its cover, glancing at the title that read, 'Flowers,' before letting it rest on my lap. "Flowers," I say in response, and my gaze doesn't leave the page I was on.

His reaction next was not one of words, but rather a sound of amusement. Laughing. A scoff, a quich exhale that lead up to the erratic breathing as he hunched over the leather seats of the train. Unrestrained and hearty. He was laughing. It struck me so odd that I swear I could hear the ticking stutter for only a moment. Feel the thrum of life pause.

It doesn't take him long to compose himself, sit up and wipe tears that had not gathered at his eyes. "Well then," he meets your eyes. Gold. "Why do you read about flowers?"

A foolish question, but I felt compelled to answer, even if it was a lie. "I like them."

Afterall, I couldn't tell him what they were truly for. What I hoped one day would rest on sleek black stone, my name engraved, a bouquet of flowers settled beside. How the metronome in my head made every movement more fervent, rushing to find what I want. Before I need it.

"What's your favourite flower?"

Broad leaved, red and purple pigments that strike unwithering. "Amaranths."

He leans over to see the current page I was on, frowning when there was no mention of the flower I'd just mentioned. "Why?"

"Amaranth signifies immortality," there was a painful throb in my chest, on my wrist. My heart thudded painfully, the repetitive tapping didn't go away. "I wish I could be immortal."

I didn't get an immediate answer, and I savoured how deep my words seemed to embed themselves into his mind. As if this silence validated my feelings, my worries. As if he told me himself that I was not foolish for letting this ticking guide me.

I want to smile, I am foolish.

"What's your favourite flower?" The words were out before I had time to consider them. Odd, I wasn't the eccentric type.

"Ah," it takes him a few seconds to regain his composure, fix a smile on his face and shrug. "I don't know that much about flowers, much less their meanings..."

My hands hold up the paperback in my hands, guiding the book to his side. An offering. "Tell me your favourite flower," is all I say when he sets the book on his lap.

"Alright."

There is something peculiar about this boy, something that ushers the hourglass that trickles with wasted time a background noise in my head. Something that makes me want to get up, look around, see past my walls of seclusion. Walls I'd built for my own protestion, walls I could no longer see past.

They bound me and confine me, and I am no longer sure if they are for my defence. To protect and fortify, to cage and entrapt.

Does safety feel so vacant?

This question ponders in my mind, and I am not surprised to find it buried in the sound of sand. My hourglass. My timer. Submerged in the relentless walls that tower over me and aid me from my doubts, my fears. Vain feelings, my fate will not change.

"Marigolds."

The boy hands me back my book, standing at his stop as the train doors slide open. He does not leave immediately, and I stare into the fabric of his jacket. "Why?"

His shoulders rise and fall heavy, he's fidgeting with his right hand again. "Hope," he murmurs. "Marigolds are full of light, full of future and aspirations. They also symbolise much... much darker feelings. Not every ending is happy."

Gold hair, gold eyes.

Goodbye Edward Elric.