Everyone thinks they know the whole story even when they had no part in it.
This year, Lillian Rose is driven to prove her ex boyfriend's hands aren't wrapped around her throat anymore. She's digging up parts of herself she's long forgotten about...
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'Patience is a virtue,' they said. 'Healing takes time.'
When I was small, an old couple lived next door. They were retired, and the type of people to sit on the porch early in the morning to watch the world wake up. Their kids would visit them and they'd dote over their grandchildren like happy grandparents would. They were kind and smiled at everyone around them.
The thing about old people is that once they stop feeling young, they get judgemental. I never understood why they were so miserable with their opinions when they were happily living a life together.
The couple always said terrible things about my brother. They said he was a hothead, that he didn't take his time. That Axel got into things too quickly without thinking- without waiting. They said he had no patience, that he was careless. They said I was meek and calm, that I let the world move at its own pace. They said I could savor the beauty of the world, take in all the details and live.
I realized soon enough that they told my parents my future would be bright and Axel's would be dark to feel good about themselves. To feel like they were helping. To feel like their opinions about four year olds mattered.
They were only half right about my brother, though. He's impulsive. He lets his emotions take the better of him and would hit someone square in the face, consequences be damned. They were wrong about him being careless, though. He made every decision in hopes that it would be a good one, to help his family. He said he had a code.
The code he followed stemmed from when our lives flipped over and people turned against us. Nobody hurt his family.
That didn't just include me, though. That included Mom, Stella, and especially Damian. "Dad can fend for himself," he told me. "Cardan can obviously fend for himself."
Betrayal was all my brother knew. Perhaps my neighbors had something to do with it. Maybe their tarot card TV show had them believing Axel would go through things a normal teenager shouldn't. Whatever the case, their predictions were wrong about a few things. My future and Axel's came hand in hand- it always would.
Their opinions on me were wrong, definitely wrong.
As a seven year old, I loved flowers. Roses in flower beds caught my attention; Petunias on a windowsill. I loved their smell, their names, their colors. I never understood why I loved flowers so much, not until someone pointed out my double-whammy name. Lillian Rose. Lily and Rose.
I loved flowers so much my mom planted some in front of our house for me to take care of. They lasted only a few days.
The couple was wrong when they said I enjoyed life at its pace. I overwatered the flowers until they died. They didn't know I wanted the flowers to bloom in front of me. They didn't know I didn't care about it's growing pace. The couple didn't know ten-year-old me wanted to be sixteen driving down the freeway with music blasting. They didn't know at eleven years old I wanted a boyfriend just like in the books on my shelves.
