Between the Perennial Blooms || Paul Lahote

Fifty One | Cyclamen pt. 2

"I shut my book. It was all behind me, all in the past. Ahead, as I have said, was silence."
—Louise Glück | Cornwall

• • •

It seemed only fitting that Paul's face was the first sight she opened her eyes to. There were bags under his eyes and a sallowness to his skin, and Bailey wondered how he could look so sick when she knew his body could heal itself so quickly. "Paul..." she tried to call out. Yet her voice failed her and a pathetic croak was all that came out instead.

"I'm mad at you," were the first words that greeted her after all that had happened between them. Not a hello or a breathless whisper of relief or even a simple utterance of 'baby' under his breath, but rather: "No, I'm more than mad at you. I'm absolutely fucking furious."

"I-"

"Here," Paul interrupted, thrusting out a little plastic cup with a blue straw that he'd filled with water from the pitcher at her bedside. "Drink this." And despite his anger, despite his furious relief, he cupped the back of her head with one hand and guided the straw to her lips with his other.

"I've been going over what I was going to say to you when you first woke up for days now. It started out with me just saying 'I love you' and kissing you until your lips got chapped. But your lips are chapped already, and it's been a while since you've been able to brush your teeth, so I've decided to just yell at you first and makeup with you later."

Wide-eyed and more than a little disoriented, Bailey sipped from her blue straw and stared up at him warily.

"You're an idiot, Bailey Swan. An absolute fucking idiot and if you hadn't already almost died and taken me with you, I would've killed you myself. I don't understand why you did it — I mean, I do, but, that's beside the point — but you shouldn't have done it regardless and you should be thanking every last one of your lucky fucking stars that I didn't try and smack the sense back into your ass the moment you opened your eyes."

The dark look he gave her was one to be remembered; after all, she'd never seen it directed her way before. But as she looked up at him silently, still sipping weakly from her little plastic straw, she noticed the underlying relief hidden beneath the rugged planes of his face. His eyes were warm, nearly molten as they gazed down at her through narrowed lids and she felt an answering warmth bloom in her gut. This was Paul, she thought to herself gleefully, releasing the straw from her lips. This was the boy she loved more than life itself. It seemed like so much time had passed since she'd last seen him — and maybe it had, because time seemed to work differently in that blank place with the blazing fire at its center — and she couldn't help the tears that sprung to her eyes at the thought of it.

"I-I'm sorry," she murmured brokenly, recalling all she had been through, all she had given up, to get back to this very moment in time so that she could be there for all of the moments that would happen after. "I- I love you so much."

Visibly softening at the sound of the words he'd been waiting to hear her say for so long, Paul placed the cup back on her bedside table and sighed long and slow. "I love you too," he echoed quietly. "But I think you broke my heart a little bit."

"I'm sorry," Bailey apologized again. A few stray tears leaked from the corners of her eyes but she found her arms were too weak for her to reach up and wipe them away. "But I had to do it. I-I had to help."