Petal [h.s.]

FIFTY-NINE - PINK PAINTED FLOWERS

I dreamt about her almost every night. Arabella.

Each dream was different and yet the same. It was all her-laughing with her, tracing my fingers down her back, brushing her hair away from her face, passing a cigarette from my lips to hers. The dreams were all tinged with swirls of pink and red and orange. They felt less like dreams and more like an alternate reality. One where I was loved deeply and thoroughly. The dreams focused so much on her eyes, gazing at me from different flashes of what felt like memories. Then I'd wake up and what felt like memories suddenly just felt like nightmares. Everything felt like a nightmare when I was awake.

I didn't see Arabella again for the duration of my stay in the hospital. I knew that she tried to come see me because I heard her in the hallways having shouting matches with my father day after day. Every time I heard the arguments start, Jessie would get this strange look on her face like she might be sick. I realized then that she must be well aware of my relationship with Arabella. Guilt took over, eating me alive for being the type of person who flaunted a mistress in my fiancée's face. My fiancée who I had been with for nearly eleven years of my life, who I had known since childhood. I didn't know how I could be that type of person.

The guilt kept me quiet whenever I heard Arabella go toe-to-toe with my dad in a way that nobody had ever before. I didn't think anyone ever fought for me in such a way. I'd hear her voice and I'd feel this automatic primal urge inside of me to call out for her, to open the door and let her come inside. I never did, though. I knew I couldn't do that to Jessie, but it didn't make the ache for it shrink down any smaller.

Adjusting to life in the Highlands was difficult, to say the least. From the moment I arrived at my father's summer house, I felt as if my skin was on too tight. I felt mismatched and misplaced. I felt absolutely no sense of home when I looked around. I remembered the house, remembered my bedroom, but it all felt so far away from me. I didn't know what to do with myself the first few days except sleep nonstop and aimlessly wander around.

My dad gave me a new phone as mine was destroyed in the crash, but it had nothing in it. The only contacts programmed into it were my father and Jessie. When I connected it to the cloud to restore everything, I discovered that my cloud was empty. I had no messages to go through, no one to call or text, no photos to remind me of my life before. I blamed myself, thinking I must have not been syncing my phone with my computer to back it up. I had always been horrible with that.

My father wanted me to do nothing but lay in bed and rest to get better for my return to work. He told me the last few years I had started working for his company, side by side with Jessie. He told me that we'd be taking over after we got married and he looked so fucking proud of me as he said it. It settled nothing inside of me, but it didn't seem completely wrong. I knew that this was my legacy, this was always the plan. It made sense.

I tried to get as much rest and sleep as I could, but as my body's injuries healed, I grew more and more restless. My skin felt tight and itchy every time I was stuffed up in my room with nothing to do but sleep. I knew I was getting on my dad's nerves. I was asking him a million questions about the last few years when he was trying to work, but I couldn't stop.