Petal [h.s.]

SIXTY-FIVE - THE END IS NEAR

Spring was my favorite season until I lost her.

Now it was haunting my dreams.

Somewhere in the haze of the last few weeks, I had become a zombie. I woke up every morning in my new empty, cold flat. I took a scalding hot shower to try and feel something. I brushed my teeth. I put on a suit. I went to my job where my giant office was as empty and cold as my flat. I spent day after day after day trying to retain the information Jessie was spewing to me, but all I could think about were pink petals.

I dreamt of them. They fell from the sky in droves, covering every inch of my dream world, which closely resembled the Wasteland. Everywhere I went in those dreams, I saw spring. The grass was getting greener. The leaves on the trees were budding. The flowers were blooming. The sky was baby blue. The pink petals fell from the heavens like stardust, covering everything, covering me.

In my dreams, it was spring and I had her.

I had her in my arms. I had her in my flat. I had her in my bed. She was covered in those pink petals with me. She was laughing and smiling and staring at me with so much love that I felt as if I might burst from happiness. In my dreams, it was spring and I had her and I was in love in a way that I'd never been before.

Then I'd wake to the cold autumn rain and be reminded that I was now living in Hartford instead of Juniper Bay. I was the CEO to a company I didn't give a fuck about instead of the owner of a flower shop. I was engaged to my childhood sweetheart who had absolutely no romantic interest in me. I was motherless. I was empty. I was mourning the life and the love I was in when I was asleep.

I kept a list on me at all times of the things that needed fixing in my life. I ordered them by level of importance.

Arabella was number one, but in order to get back to her, I had to go through the rest of the list first. I had to make amends with Jack Griffin. I had to attempt some level of raw honesty with Jessie and break things off with her for good. I had to tell my father that I wasn't meant for this lifestyle-that this job, this flat and this life didn't fit me.

I was meant to own Flower Boy and I knew it the moment I saw the shop. I was meant to live in a small coastal town, where the ocean was right outside of my door and the tourists fluttered around in the summer and a beautiful girl lived next door to me. I was meant to be with that girl.

The days passed by me in such a rapid way that it felt like another form of torture. I ached to go back to my shop and my flat, but I knew there was nothing to go back to now. I had to force my fingers to stop each time I started to type out novel-length text messages to Arabella, expressing every thought and feeling I was having as I was having them. I didn't want to disrupt her life with my mood swings, with my feelings, with my cravings to have her listen to me.

Instead, I'd text her each night when I was finally back in my empty flat all by myself and I'd ask if she had time to talk. I was so busy in my new role at my father's company that it often wasn't until extremely late at night, too late for her to be up, but she always said yes anyways. I started to wonder if she was setting alarms to ensure she'd be up for me.