I'm sitting in my room, looking out the window, a paint brush in my hand. The canvas is blank - an idea for a painting has not yet appeared in my mind. I look at the landscape for inspiration. In the end, I settle on the thing I've been painting over, and over for the past fourteen years. A purple lily. My paintbrush moves over the blank, white, canvas. Soft purple strokes appear after where the brush has touched. I brush my dark hair to one side of my neck, blowing my bangs out of my face. The radio plays on, breaking the silence of the room. The lights are off, and the shadow of the clouds top the midday sun as a strange effect. My eyes glanced to the right, and set a gaze upon the single picture I have placed on my white dresser. It's the last picture I have of my entire family together; before they were violently pulled out of my hold, never to be seen again.
Am I mad at anyone? No. God decided it was their time to go. And God knows best. My fingers constantly begin to play with the purple lily in my hair. I pull it out of my chocolate colored waves, setting the paintbrush down on the wooden frame. I sigh, turning the flower over in my tiny hands, the purple of my nail polish matches almost exacly. Memories flash through my mind, of the time I received my original purple lily.
"Promise you won't ever forget me," my four year old self had said. The light haired boy looked at me.
"I promise, May." he had told me. The boy and I grew apart. He left and forgot about me. I guess promises are made to be broken. Before he left he gave me a purple lily from my mother's garden. And that flower wove inside of me like a needle and thread. It's sewn into the very pieces of my beings - I can't live without it. I decided to abandon the painting ,for now, and take a shower. I usually have my deepest conversations in there. In my mind of course. I don't talk to myself. I don't talk to anyone. I strip off my clothes, softly putting them in the hamper in my bathroom; and turning on the bathtub. I wait for the water to turn warm, before changing it to flow out of the shower head. I let the water wash away all of my worries. All of my regrets. The nameless young boy, the lily, my parents, my sister all washed away. By the time my shower is over, I felt much better.
I step out onto the cold tiles, shivering as I wrap a towel around myself. As I brush my hair, small droplets of water begin to splash onto the carpet. I sigh, sitting down near my windowsill, a towel wrapped around me. I breathe in the hot, sticky air of summer in Sydney, before shutting the window. Raindrops slide down the glass, as if they were racing. Standing up, I let the towel slip of my body as I walk toward my dresser. I pull on a pair of pajama's, and braid my wet hair. I grab the book I'm currently reading, The Perks of Being a Wallflower , and curl up on my bed. I pull the pink blanket over me, as if I could block the world around me. And to me, it does. I slip into the beautiful book , dive deep into the characters, as if I were Charlie. I'm pretty sure I've read this book more than five times. Every time I read the book I always stop at the part when Charlie says, "We accept the love we think we deserve." I never really understood what it meant, but hopefully one day I will figure it out.
