Camellia
I have always loved flowers. The one with thorns were my favourites, though I rarely got any of those. When people see me they automatically want to protect me and apparently they think I am unable to avoid getting cut by a torn. Maybe they are right. As soon as I get a flower with thorns on it I start trying to hold it in different ways, I start breaking and pushing the thorns just to see if and how much it hurts. To get to know the flower. Kind of like stroking a nettle and hoping you stroke the way the hair stands. Kind of like the following days I am planning on telling you about.
Right in the moment I will start I was holding a thornless flower. A Camellia. Just a single white one with a soft hint of pink. I smiled down at it with a wave washing through me. Such a simple things was.. probably a lot harder to do than to get.
A note was bungeling against my hand, silently smiling I read it.
Even though I wish you already knew, today’s flower is only about you.
Today’s flower. It said. Which meant that there would be more. Maybe tomorrow one saying of who it was. My stomach was already turning at the thought that I’d figure out. Both excitement and fear for disappointment. Mainly the second. You see, I had been confessed to a lot of times, and most of the time I had been honored, but every time I looked at those boys and thought about even kissing them I couldn’t help but turn them down. Apart from the flattery they left me cold. Never had I gotten a second date, never had I tried to make a date longer, and never had I enjoyed a kiss I had gotten. The idea of being with them just became less and less appealing the more I thought about how it would go, even if it was lovingly.
So maybe it was that perfection I didn’t like. The fact that these boys were kind of like the flower I had in my hand; thornless. Maybe it was the fact that they didn’ t know me, and thought I was someone entirely else than I appeared to be. This was a scary thing for me because my appearance and real me were further apart than anything.
“Historia!” I waited for Jean to catch up to me and smiled. “A flower?”
“Yeah, it was in my locker this morning”
“Pretty like you, right?”
I laughed softly and bumped against him “That’s what the note said too”
“You know who it’s from?”
“No, no I don’t” After that we silently walked to class where everyone was already being really noisy for the early morning. Jean happily joined them after noticing that Eren was ‘spouting shit’ according to him. I sat down calmly and looked at the flower in my hand. I shut everyone out. Marco trying to calm Jean, Ymir telling Reiner to ‘shut the fuck up’ about something, and Connie and Sasha yelling some game stuff. I heard them but it was far away and I smiled the smile that was constantly forced onto me. I felt lonely, wanted but lonely. “Hey Historia nice flower!” Reiner yelled at me.
I turned and blushed “I- I got it this morning.. but I guess it’s silly to hold all day but else it would break and I-”
Ymir walked up to me with a smile on her face. The two of us had never really talked and she mainly hung around boys. She was the kind of girl guys would like because they could be themselves around her, I guess. I didn’t really know anything about her but she was nice.. the way Jean and others smiled at her, they must like her.
Ymir took my flower and broke it in half “Hey that-” smiling, she put it behind my ear and mumbled a soft “Now you’d almost miss it”
I didn’t know what she meant but I let the flower be. “Thanks”
Without another word she walked away, leaving me confused and wondering if she was being mean or not. The rest of the lesson I thought about all the people that could have given me the flower. Reiner had noticed right away, that added him and Berthold to the list. Jean was one of my best friends at school but he was in love with Mikasa. I thought about when Jean had last talked about Mikasa and realized; it was quite a long time ago. I was sitting next to Marco these days but I rarely spoke to him so he was off the list.
I looked at Jean. As soon as his look caught mine he looked away. I looked at Marco, he was looking at Jean looking at me, but as soon as he noticed he smiled and mumbled “ A camellia hm? Someone is calling you beautiful. At least, that’s what the flower means” No one would know such a thing except from Marco.
Gardenia
In the morning I went to school without feeling the usual whine in the back of my head. At night I had dreamed about flowers and in the morning I realized that one who thought in romantic ways like this would not be like the usual guys who fell in love with me because of my looks. I managed to not give the secret man a face, because I knew that would ruin it for me. It was a little bit like a guessing game with some shy guy.
When I came to school I opened my locker in a hurry,this almost broke the flower in there for today. I felt people stare at me but with Norah Jones singing through my eardrops and a flower in my hand I was already in a much more peaceful flow. I ignored all that was around me and studied the white flower carefully. I didn’t know what kind of flower it was this time. I had never really taken the time to learn about it so I figured I should ask Marco because his mother owns a flower shop.
Leaning against the locker I started reading the note,
If you knew it was me you would get hurt, but for now today’s flower is the colour of my shirt
This was actually quite a surprising note because, first, it was someone wearing a white shirt, and second, I would get hurt if I knew who it was. So did that mean that this person was close to me or that they just had a very seriously low self esteem? I thought that they were trying to sell me a cute relationship but they sure weren’t doing a good job by saying such.
I slipped the flower into my hair and walked to my class.
My mind was spinning and at the same time it felt a lot more empty than it had done before. Having a reason to think is always a nice reason not to. “Another flower today?”
I looked at Marco and smiled. “Yeah what kind is it?”
“A Gardenia¨
The lesson went by in silence. I tried to mind what the teacher was telling but I traveled back to doubting my own existence, which honestly sounds a lot more dramatic than it really is. For a lot of people it would be the start of their philosophy, the way they were treated at school, the beginning of a sweet love. For me this was a family problem. I wouldn’t be lying or exaggerating when I say that my family doesn’t want me, again this sounds typical but it isn’t, my father was a rich man and he played his wife with my mother got killed and for the obvious reasons - his pride- my father took me in to live with him and his family. I understand. I really do understand why they don’t like me, and my father is the one out of place, not his wife or children, but it’s just hard to live someone else's stupid mistake. No one should be put on this earth to live like that, but apparently no one bothered to think like that before I was born.
I’m stopping with the family talk, it’s depressing. I shouldn’t even have the right to whine like that. I knew how many people envied me. The girl everyone loved, the girl with the flowers in her hair, the girl with money.. the girl with no one who knew who she really is.
When the lesson was over I only realized that Marco had left the room without me noticing his colour shirt, so for today he was off my list. I bit my lip and went over my own list once again, now including people I didn’t really like “You are taking long”
I looked up to see Jean, a frown on his face and a white shirt covering his torso. Exactly; a white shirt. “Where’s Marco?”
“He, uhm, he had to go do some stuff” A stutter and a lame excuse.
Slowly I started thinking about things to say. Our feet moved in the same pace and Jean was whining about the teacher. I missed most of it. I was going through all the sentences again and again. What was his type? How could I tell him I was not interested before he knew I suspected? Did he even send me the damn flowers as white is the most worn colour after black? “Jean how are things going with Mikasa?”
“Mikasa?” He sincerely sounded surprised by my question, the name flew out of his mouth as if he hadn’t heard the name in years. There was no embarrassment, but there sure was something intense in his voice. “I’m not really after her anymore, to be honest”
“Oh.. someone else?”
“You could say that” breathless, it came out like a breathless huff “I think things are going well, I’m planning on confessing really soon, probably one of these days” My heart rate sped up. That was the hint. It was all too see through.
“That’s great, good luck”
“Could you-” He shut himself up and swallowed. I just pulled my eyebrows up. “What would be a nice way to confess? I- uhm- I’m really bad at this romance kind of thing but they are totally the type for that so yeah”
What kind of scared me was that I answered too quickly to have thought about it. I answered too quickly to lie. Maybe it was because, for once, I was speaking the truth. Even though that turned out to be a bad idea later on. “a flower.. I think it would be lovely to give this person a flower” Maybe that really was the smartest answer because if the flowers had been from Jean, he wouldn’t have been offended.
“You think so?”
“Yeah, it’s the best feeling to get some”
“alright.. thank you, Historia”
The rest of the day I felt like I was drowning. My white room filled me with emptiness like a white space in my mind. My window was almost a full wall, my bed was white, my tea cups empty and yelling in the hallway. Noise was the only thing that filled my mind. That filled me emotionally.
You see, I believe that you can very well avoid the pain that comes after a loss by replacing it with a new emotion. I think that you have a certain spot filled with emotion and that it starts out with happiness or love. Slowly you try to explain those feelings, and you link it to things and people around around you. We do this because humans get upset when things stay unexplained, that’s why we name everything, that’s why we have believes. This is the first mistake we make. When these people pull away from us- because they found something new but they don’t have enough space for new emotions, or worse, because they die- we are left with a hole in our emotion barrier.The majority fills that hole with anger or sadness since the emptiness if war worse as we know nothing about it. But I didn’t. I don’t felt angry nor sad, I just felt empty. Like my room and my cups. I needed someone to fill that hole but the thing is; the greatness of another person is subjective, and to me greatness was no where around.
I looked at my flowers and smiling softly, like a silent whisper saying that my room was slowly getting a little bit more full. Still it was so white it almost blinded me.
So was of the light of my phone, apparently, as it started living with every text I got. Jean. It said. I frowned, really starting to get my suspicious in the front of my head.
From: Jean Kirschtein
Ey His, do you kno Ymir? Watcha think of her hm?
To: Jean kirschtein
Yes I know her! Why, is she your secret love? She’s nice, she’s really dark and full of opinions right? Never talked to her really… x
Dark and full of opinions. That seemed like a thing I would need sometime, but something I would never able to get as long as I was me.
From: Jean Kirschtein
Ok! Youll see ;p
And the doubts were somehow gone but also back. She was probably the girl he liked then, not me. My mind started racing again, but that was fine. The thought of all those faces filled the emptiness a little bit. Mainly Ymir’s. Or maybe I had just fallen asleep, only darkness in front of my eyes and thoughts in my mind.
Deep red Rose
When I woke up and light filled me again, I realized that darkness was exactly what I need and what I missed. That maybe for once a wake up call was better than the everlasting calm. this was my first time considering replacing my usual cup of tea play some black coffee. So I did I make myself some black coffee it was disgusting. I refused to throw in all of nothing and be light again. Without having further breakfast I walked up, avoiding useless questioning and disrespectful stares. This was later proved useless, because I had no way of becoming darkness, I needed a way to bring it my way. Because darkness is amazing and has all the emotion that light fails to hold.
These two are opposites, but even when that is not the case, the small differences between colours could mean very different things, and change a lot. For red is not the same as deep red. But I didn’t know that.
When I got my flower out of my locker that morning I saw a red rose. Now this was the first flower I thought I knew the meaning to, so I paid that no further mind. Romance. Romance was the thing it represented and that was quite a normal thing to express with flowers. I must say that I was rather disappointed still, the flowers given before had all had alternate meanings and I thought this was beautiful. Intense even.
Remember all that the flowers meant was true, today I’ll be holding the same flower as you.
I smiled. The person was a romanticus but they sure as hell weren’t a poet. That was fine though, it was kind and straightforward. The world sometimes needs people like that to cure the ones left in their own atheistic depression.
So Jean didn’t have the flower. He only had a grin bigger than I had ever seen on him and a spark in his eye. Which was cute, it really was. What was even better was that; the grin wasn’t there for me. “So she took it well?”
“What? Oh.. uhm yeah”
“You brought a flower?”
He nodded with a frown on his face “Yeah, a red rose you know, because it’s romantic I guess? I don’t think it’ll impress them but it sure worked”
The thought of Ymir holding a flower seemed a little bit crazy to me. Her taking a flower and accepting a confession from a guy like Jean. The thought made me feel a little bit ill, the perfection I had thought about that night had me egoistic, I was not supposed to think like that. “So are you telling me who it is yet?”
“They have the flower so you will figure out soon enough”
Both my eyebrows rose “You are just embarrassed to say it out loud aren’t you?”
He chuckled breathlessly, the smile never leaving his face nor bigger “Well that might be true actually, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t amazing”
I believed him. His face gave away how much he loved this person and I honestly wondered how I could have missed it. How could I have missed contact between two when one became so happy by it? Had I seen them together? Had I even cared before? Probably not, so I had no right to get all hot and bothered about the whole thing now.
But I was. I was kind of hot a bothered because Jean, my best friend, was dating someone I barely knew. Not because of the lack of attention I’d get, because it had never been a friendship like that because Jean was mainly hanging around Marco all the time, but because of the dark eyes the damn girl had. This was wrong. I knew that but my talent for denying feelings I had without a damn reason was weaker than usual.
“Ymir” Bumping into her - literally- helped nothing at all. Thanks faith.
“Hey, Historia, uhm” She was blushing. The hard girl was blushing and it turned my insides around. That two could make each other feel like that.. that Ymir could feel like that.
Coughing softly, I pointed at her rose “Nice flower”
“Aren’t you like, upset, or something?”
“Of course not! Jean and I are only friends.”
“That’s great? So.. uhm..” She frowned deeply and looked down. That frown made me see what he saw in her. The frown was beautiful, a face that told a story, not glossy like mine. Her mouth was a thin line, most of the time the tips were hanging, sometimes with formed a cocky smirk. Brown. Deep brown. Her skin was only coffee but her hair, her eyes, her freckles, they were so deep brown that you’d get lost in the deep. Drowning, like I usually did. Maybe that was why it still felt safe in contempt of how wrong it all was.
“I- I’ve got to go but I’ll see you around when I’m with Jean, probably”
“what?” Harsh. Painful?
“Or not, if you don’t want that, Uhm..well bye”
It’s not often that I’m at loss of words. It’s even less often when it comes to useless and small issues like these. I guess sometimes less words and more awkwardness is the only good answer.
I panicked.
The next hours were free hours, my excuse fully lied. Those hours I mainly spent finishing by book for english and rotating the rose between my fingers, something I usually did with pencils and such. Holding things is something that makes me feel safe somehow. It’s like a little bit of that emptiness is gone. It’s like you can be busy enough to just forget and concentrate.
Forget and concentrate.
Pressure is the privilege.
Freedom is the angry one.
“Mind if I sit?”
A red rose was laid on the table. Freckles moved up as a smile formed. Like a bright light. “Sure, Marco, sit down” His rose was a little bit lighter than mine. The darker one was just fine by me. I didn’t ask him about the flower anymore. The answer was obvious and it would only make things more vague. Marco had the flower in his hand and he was chatting with me. About Jean, quite a lot, so I thought about Ymir quite a lot. He smiled a lot. I could imagine him being worth a lot to a lot of people. But worth is subjective. As is the beauty frowns hold.
Yellow tulip
There are a lot of reasons for lacking sleep; addictions like drugs, sex or tumblr; having a lot of people around you who won’t leave; the neighbors crying baby; but I think that for me - and probably for a lot of people- the reason to lack sleep is thinking. You lay in bed and think, think so much you’ll think about having to sleep, but you are thinking, and thoughts are hard to control like fire. I always had a lot of thoughts but now I also had to organize them. Reasoning away things like emotions, looking at every word’s worth, looking at every person’s worth. Like that I realized something; I didn’t want to hurt Marco and I wanted to be honest with Jean. Ymir didn’t fit with him. They were both a moody cloud of whines. I know that zero plus zero equals plus but with humans such a thing just doesn’t seem to work. He needed like.. a female version of Marco. Someone light and kind. I mean, he already knew that worked well together as he knew Marco was the only one that didn’t piss him off.
Same goes for me. I needed someone to make me steady, which was someone who wasn’t fake and who wasn’t painfully light. I’d get migraine without it.
I’d probably get migraine after turning down Marco too, he didn’t deserve it.
My tea tasted like nothing that morning, the television was playing videoclips. Same love from macklemore was on, awkwardness filled the room as I sipped my tea slowly and watched my yogurt became less and less attractive to eat. “They can show bullshit like this on television now too?” I just nodded at my father and he turned off the television, his other children didn’t seem faced. “ No way such could possibly be naturally planted in ones body by god. It’s fashion I’ll tell you, just a rage that will ruin my children.”
Well his children get ruined by shitty parenting too but that never bothered him all too much. “I think it’s scientifically proven tha-”
“And they feed it to us with our breakfast! I won’t be able to eat the rest of the day” Because that’s just the way. People are starving. People’s rights are getting taken away. And people like my father don’t feel like eating their damn lobster or chateaubriand because in the morning they saw two people of the same sex kiss. Maybe even two people from different races for all my father cared. I guess to him the best guy for me indeed would be Jean. Second generation, from France, and somehow more American than native Americans to him.
“Just a video, still no rights” I mumbled softly as I put my food away.
“That’s damn right”
I have thought about the whole thing really. The whole being a homosexual thing, because hell, I often am attracted to woman till some extend. I think that something along the lines of bisexual or pansexual is more like me still, and if you can identify like that there’s no use in costing an unnecessary amount of trouble. I do believe that I could fall for a man and satisfy everyone (not really because they want me gone anyway). It’s not that I want to impress or satisfy my father. Actually I would enjoy shoving a girl I’d fallen in love with in his face if I had the power to do so. But no person would give me that power, and so I avoided every little bit of difficulty. I guess I never really saw the point in being really passionate about it. I never really had a reason to do so.
A tulip was laying in my locker that day. A yellow one, still closed and straight. There was no rhyme that came with it. Just a small letter.
I think I have been dumped already, no need to be subtle about it. Today’s flower meant that this is an impossible love, that it can never be. I planned this beforehand and you have proven that my ideas were true. I must say I’m still in love with you. So I will still give all the flowers you deserve
When, how and where? The three most essential questions of every story came to my mind as I read the other’s conclusion. I went over all the last days. Every single word I had said and still I couldn’t find a single one of them that could have lead to him realizing he was dumped. We had casually talked together the day before. Not even letting one awkward sentence about the flowers slip, just being in each others company. So when could he have gotten the idea he was dumped? Even more: why the hell did he think this was an impossible love? The happy and loved guy with the calm populair girl, both having the same friends and classes. It seemed anything but impossible. Anything but exciting too, true.
Not that I wanted to agree to the whole thing. Have that relation. Not that I hadn’t thought of how to dump him, I just hadn’t done it yet.
I placed the flower on my books are started walking slowly. My mind was now full, maybe this was better than what I usually felt, but it sure as hell wasn’t nice and it felt unnatural. The loud people around me were like background music and I still failed to feel anything for them. Even when I saw Marco. Sat next to him in silence. Even when class ended and I mumbled a “Marco can we talk?” I felt unnatural. A freak for not feeling for this guy. Maybe I really did have to find a woman. Maybe all the words and beatings would be worth it.
“Oh sorry Historia but Jean has been waiting for me quite a while, tomorrow okay?”
“Okay” I could have said something about how it wouldn’t take long. I could have said a lot of things so that I’d be able to say it, but there wasn’t much to get off my heart. Just guilt eating me a little bit, disappointment that I could not express. A guy walking away, half running, to see his best friend. I wondered if that was enough. Having a best friend like that.
“Hey Historia” The loud voice startled me. I had been looking into empty space for quite a while. She had probably noticed.
“Ymir, hey”
“What’ cha doing?” I liked her accent, it made me feel a little better.
“Needed to have a chat with Marco”
She bit her lip “Oh.. why?”
It’s not like me to just talk to people, let stand strangers. I’ll have you know that I had never really done this before. Talking about my feelings is something that just doesn’t happen, but something came over me. Something big, like a big wave of thrust that is actually quite dangerous if it comes over you at the wrong time. “If I’ll tell you, would you mind not telling Jean?”
“Yeah, of course, I wouldn’t fucking tell him anyway”
“Okay then..” Ymir’s eyes held me even when I pointed my stare to the ground “well, I’ve been getting these flowers, and I know they are from Marco” I saw her eyes widen a little, I guessed it indeed was unexpected, but then again he does own a flower shop “But this morning he talked about being dumped and he won’t talk to me-”
“Wait do you like him? Because of uhm- that thing-”
“No. No I was going to turn down his offer, but I hadn’t done it yet, and I think I still owe him an explanation.” I finally looked up at Ymir and what I saw shocked me. Emotions. Emotions in her eyes and they were send through me. The darkness of her eyes almost promising to tell the truth. “What do you think I should do, Ymir?”
Ymir appeared to be thinking so that the words would come out alright, and despite of all that she went with “Wait until tomorrow, I dare to promise that tomorrow morning all your worries will be gone.” and there I realized that she knew more than I did.
“That’s kind of a heavy promise to make without facts”
“I have facts”
“Tell me?”
She laughed awkwardly “No, sorry, some things are just impossible” she pointed at the flower laying on top of my books and stook out her tongue. She knew the meaning. She knew a lot more than I had thought. She started walking away slowly, leaving me staring at her back “Tomorrow, Historia!”
Violet
“Historia.. We actually have to tell you something” I nodded, I knew that already. Their nervous faces could have spoken even if they hadn’t. “So Jean and I-” Jean was just looking at his own hands and standing against the lockers. “we uhm, we started dating a few days ago”
Oh. That was not quite what I had expected.
That was great.
That was honestly amazing and they must have gone through so much shit.
“wait, what?”
“I understand if you are upset, even though you are in no place to be, but we are happy and-”
“No No, that’s great and all but Marco had a rose”
“Yeah, I gave that to him”
“But you gave one to Ymir- oh.. oh holyshit what okay-” I bit my tumb and watched Jean and Marco stare at me in pitty.
“So we are gay and you were worried about Marco not liking you?”
“No I was going to dump him” Marco laughed at that and hussled my hair. “but my hint for that day was that the person who gave me the flowers was holding the same one and I just assumed it was Marco” They both shook their heads, worried faces. Worried I would mind that a woman had hit on me. Who would possibly care if that person was Ymir? “Let me through so I can open my locker for a minute”
Jean took Marco’s hand and pulled him aside, yet their hands didn’t part after that. It was nice. I was too busy with opening my locker to really enjoy it though. My hand was shivering a little bit, I didn’t mind this excitement.
A purple flower. Violet.
The note was not written today, it looked as if it was cut out of a book.
In the 1910’s - 1950’s woman would exchange a violet flower to represent their preferences as a lesbian.
“I presented a violet flower to my secret girlfriend to keep our relationship discreet”
“Oh god” Ymir.
It was Ymir and she had really been able to promise that I wouldn’t have the same worries the next day. Sure, it was obvious she had been afraid to give me even more worries and she had no idea how many she shattered by doing this, but she her plan had been to make me happy. She had thought making me think she was a guy for a few days would make me happy for a few days more. How could she know that those days had been filled with worry about dumping someone and only now I felt at ease? How could she know while I had been too full of heteronormativity to notice that the flowers were not from a man. Blinded by heteronormativity and thinking I knew when I didn’t. Thinking you know things is dangerous, but knowing you don’t is scary. “Are you okay Historia?”
“Did you guys know?”
“Well yeah.. it was kind of obvious, even though we didn’t expect her to be romantic”
“I guess she’s just someone who knows what she wants” The two smiled “I think.. I might say yes” This was a whisper, because I automatically linked such a statement to hate, to shame, to words my father mentioned, to pain.
“You would dump Marco but you would say yes to that obnoxious mothefucker?”
“Jean.. I’d say no to Historia for you and you are also obnoxious and rude” Jean grinned, shrugged and then snuggled into his new found boyfriend. I waited for them to get back on topic. Give their surprised remarks. Judge me a little. Say how they wouldn’t tell anyone, because that’s what you do when someone goes homosexual, you make sure no one knows. “Ymir was scared to death the whole week, it’s kind of funny you react this positive”
“I highly doubt Ymir was scared” I mumbled.
Marco laughed and held my eyes “Ymir might not be scared of death, Historia, but she’s very scared of things like love.”
So am I.
So was I.
But I wouldn’t tell them that, I had already told them, I had already trusted too much.
“Let’s head to class now, alright Historia?” Marco took the violet out of my hand and carefully slipped it into my ponytail.
“This is going to be so fucking awkward what the fuck” Jean laughed as we walked, Marco’s arm was around him and me both. He didn’t seem to care a lot about it all, he seemed happy to just be walking like that, and actually, I was too. My mind was filled with worries but I suddenly did feel closer to these two.
In that moment, I thought that honesty could add worth to people.
Awkward was a subtle way of putting the mood. Now that I knew the basics it was easy to recognize the signs. Ymir tried her best to stop her intense staring but it didn’t really work out all that well. It was now kind of obvious that Reiner and Berthold knew what was going on too. Sometimes I heard Ymir threaten them and my stomach would turn because I realized they must have been talking about me. I was aware and I was there in the moment. I was in the moment wanting to hear all she had to say about me. I was there in the moment wanting to know everything she had to say about anything. I wanted to hear her opinions and I wanted to get to know her. For once I didn’t feel like I was watching my own life on a tv screen in an empty room. “Historia are you paying attention?”
“Yes..” He shrugged and went back to the board. This was when I first dared to glance over my shoulder to look at Ymir, she was looking. Nervousness hit me and I did the first thing that came to my mind which was shaking my head, smiling brightly and mouthing ‘not really’ to Ymir. Never had I seen someone smile so bright about a stupid elementary school remark, then agains she was probably smiling about the smile or the flower that brought colour to my light hair.
The bell rang. I leaned against the wall until Ymir had all her stuff together. I saw her become more and more nervous. I saw her regret even starting the whole confession in the first place. It was hilarious to see. She basically stumbled my way. “Okay, first of all I’m sorry-”
“Don’t. No need to be sorry” She shut up and stood still calmly. It was amazing to see how she wanted to listen compared to the way she usually howled. “I’m sorry for what I said yesterday, about Marco”
“Well that was better than the time you were hinting you were already dating someone by talking about Jean on and on” I swallowed. So that’s why she thought she was already dumped. That does seem really shitty of me, if that was the way I would dump her it would have been so harsh.
“Oh god, I’m so sorry, I thought you were dating Jean so I didn’t want you to think I was dating him but you aren’t even straight and this is really weird, I was so blind, I’m sorry Ymir, really”
“Stop saying that” and so I did. Ymir looked at her feet. “Look, I know that this is a little bit weird because I’m gay, but I do really like you and I just thought you had the right to know.. I’m not very good at not being myself you know”
“Yeah of course”
“Don’t think I’m doing it for your looks either, it’s just that.. it’s this presence that seems to outweigh mine, you literally push me down so that I stop being so shitty without noticing it and I think that’s pretty amazing” I couldn’t really detect a lie, or something that didn’t work both ways. “Probably sounds like bullshit, I know, but I’ve got to speak my mind”
“I.. sorry let me think about how to put this.. you-”
“You don’t have to find a way to deny without hurting me, it’s fine like this, really”
“Let me talk” She went quiet. Her eyes wide. I smiled while looking away. What was the best way to put it? I wanted to know her better? This was the first time I actually considered accepting a confession? Did I want to tell her that I was not actually straight even though I had never said that out loud before? “What are you doing today?”
“Nothing. Not anymore, ain’t got any plans”
I chuckled “Good, let’s get some tea”
“Am I allowed to get coffee?”
“Does that affect your answer?”
Ymir laughed brightly “No.. no it doesn’t”
And somehow the day felt very quiet after that. I missed something, even after such a small talk. I think that in that moment, when I saw Ymir smile and confess, I was for once full again. I had gotten used to feeling empty, to not being able to place my emotions because they had no worth, I had gotten used to this headache, but once you get full from something with that much worth you can’t simply accept the emptiness again. It wasn’t completely there anymore. Because excitement was rushing through me and that sure was an emotion I hadn’t had in a while either. Not this big, at least.
I wondered if you could see it. Could they see that I was feeling more than I usually did? Was this mist only in front of my eyes or could it be seen in the rest of my body now that it had changed? Were my eyes brighter? Because it felt as if my sight was.
Ymir waited for me by my locker, she was smiling and people were staring because she did. It was a nice shake up after boring classes all day. “It fell out of my hair” I held up the flower.
“Let me” Her fingers were awkward and putting the flower in my hair took quite long. Probably because she didn’t want to hurt me, most likely because her hands were quivering and maybe also a little because she wasn’t used to doing girly things. I let her be though, I smiled slightly and pationetly waiting for her to finish. Pretending I didn’t notice her hand brushed my neck. “So you haven’t changed your mind yet?” she tried to sound casual but the fact she asked me that before I could look at her said enough.
“About the tea? Not really, I like fresh mint tea quite a lot” she smiled half heartedly “and I have yet to completely make up my mind about the rest” That was a lie. I knew I could say that this felt great to me too, but if I wanted to get myself into such a relationship with all that came with it was quite a question. The thing was though: I had never felt so alive. I felt so angry at every single parent who’d hate on their gay child if the feeling of love really makes one feel so alive. Isn’t that what they put you on earth for? To be alive?
It took us two seconds to decide we weren’t going to starbucks, which was great, and eventually we ended up walking to a small coffee shop in an old looking house. A really nice place, ivy all on the wall and soft jazz playing. Because of Ymir’s tough looks she seemed a little bit out of place, but that made it seem even more like a date and I did not particularly mind this.
I studied Ymir’s features closer than I usually did. She was handsome but also had something of a classic beauty. Her cheekbones and jawline were quite strong. Her eyes were deep and her eyebrows thin. Her all face was covered in things like freckles or scars, but that was nice too. I wondered if she lacked a piece of her eyebrow - on small stripe in the left one- because of a scar or for the hell of atheistic purposes. “I do it myself.. I shave it away” I opened my mouth and closed it again, not sure what to say. “Y-you were staring”
“Sorry”
“It’s fine.. I kind of owe you that much.” I wanted to say she didn’t but then I realized she probably meant she had stared at me before. Quite a lot”
“I like the eyebrow though.. fits you”
She grinned brightly but gave no further reply as it was time for us to order our drinks, she I found out - this was the first of many times I was amazed by it- that she drinks her coffee black. Not even the ‘I need this, but I’ll pull a disgusted face still’ kind, like Jean sometimes did in the mornings, but it was the ‘I genuinely like this bitter taste’ kind. “I don’t really like black coffee, I think it’s because I only drink it when I’m moody” Moody was not quite the right word but it was an easy one. I was sure she’d understand.
“You need something to make you stronger.. maybe coffee just goes against you and works together with your bad mood”
I asked Ymir a lot, even though she admitted that she was not really used to telling about herself. I asked her about the thing with her surname. She told me that no one in her life was worthy of describing her with their name. She admitted she had the name of an old caretaker or something like that on her ID but she tried to keep herself from looking at it and she made sure no one would call her that. I didn’t push the issue.
I asked her about her sexuality and she called herself things like ‘kinsey 6’ and ‘like a 3 dollar bill’ only to have more explaining to do than before. There and then I found out that Reiner was also gay, and that they met at a gay bar before even coming in the same class. She found the whole thing hilarious, and maybe it was, but I was distracted by how she dared to be herself.
“So until I finish school I live from social security and after that I’ll probably have to get myself a good job. I really want to go to college after this year but I’ll have to see if I can pay it”
“That’s quite rough” the other shrugged “You live by yourself?”
“Sure do”
She invited me to come over and I said yes. Not only because it would be really nice to get away from home but also because there was some hope this could become something like.. a new home. It’s silly to think this after talking with someone ones but I couldn’t help but doing this. It was a first so maybe that made it better. Maybe it made it worse.
We sat for hours. I laughed lot. I drank three cups of tea and eventually got her another coffee because she kept spouting lies about not needed anything else because she didn’t have money (she had spend it on flowers, probably). I won a game of chess and completely bought ymir’s excuse for losing. ‘I was distracted’ it went, so was I, but I didn’t say it.
“what do you do with the flowers?”
I smiled “I put them in my room, they stand out a lot because everything else is black and white.. I could send a picture if you want?” Ymir grinned “Give me your phone, I’ll put my number in it”
The right choice, because as soon as I came home I got a message saying ‘roses are red, violets are gay, I’m kind of nervous about what to say’ and I laughed out loud. Almost everyone in the room looked at me. In shock maybe. I mumbled a quick apology and excused myself upstairs. I didn’t want them to ruin my mood again, I didn’t want them to make me cold again. They were like an eraser wanting to erase every little bit of ink I got on me, while Ymir was finally drawing me, or allowing me to draw myself. Shit.. it had been one day and I was already more than before. Yet I had been too afraid to give her a proper answer, because it would allow her to stop fighting for me, and I didn’t really want that. My happiness had just started a few hours ago, it was too early.
I put the violet in an empty tea cup, not wanting to search another vase. It looked quite nice, so imperfect.
Primula
I woke up without a smile like I usually did. But this smile was very quickly planted on my face, and it was a genuine one I couldn’t help. It had been a while since I smiled with no one watching.
From: Ymir (:
Oh! Goodnight to you too!
From: Ymir (:
Even though it’s morning now.. I was already asleep, dammit
From: Ymir (:
I’m being embarrassing please ignore me
From: Ymir (:
Please don’t take that literally.. unless you are sleeping
She was the kind who texts like she talks. This was not very surprising. What was surprising was the fact she was awake before I was. I had expected her to be the crazy weekend kind but maybe I had just been wrong. Either that or she had written this while half asleep.
To: Ymir (:
I was sleeping but it’s fine! Glad you didn’t ignore me.. Hey this might be weird but are you free after 2 o clock? x
She was, and she was excited. I explained I had something to do before that time but she couldn’t really care less about the time. It was easy to be with Ymir, really.
I pulled myself out of bed and looked into the mirror. Like the Camelia my face was less bright than it was before. It hung a little and it looked tired. It looked so real though. Sometimes a relieving sigh is better than a smile. A sigh is soundless, but still it’s louder than the everlasting screams that the house held.
I didn’t bother to eat breakfast, I just pulled on a big white sweater and knee socks and then moved to go outside. The sky was white and the wind loud, I shivered but didn’t particularly mind it. Cold weather was actually the weather I prefered when walking this road. I walked it every saturday morning, and sometimes more often, but days like these were my favourites. I hated to see a lot of people around just because of the weather, as if on other days it was less important. Loss is not a one day thing.
My first stop was Bodt’s flower shop. I always got my flowers there because the bodt family knew what had happened. Their words of sympathy were long gone while others would still mention it as other people only care about loss a few weeks after it happened. I don’t think they really care. Like my other brothers and sisters. They don’t really care.
“Hey Historia!” Two faces turned my way. Two freckled ones. One I hadn’t expected, but that wasn’t a bad thing. For once the idea of explaining didn’t seem so bad.
“Oh hey, Marco.. and Ymir?”
“Coincidence I swear, I might seem like a stalker but I am really not-”
I smiled brightly “It’s fine, I could have expected you were here with your history in flowers” I teasingly said and she grinned.
“You want it now or later?” So easy. Had she expected she could ask me about the flowers like that at the end of the week? Was it a satisfying feeling?
“Don’t care really, what’s today’s meaning?”
Ymir handed the flower to me and mumbled “Hope” with a blush on her face. That indeed was quite a scary word. I completely felt the same.
“Describes my feelings perfectly, you must be psychic” She smiled, she smiled very honestly and didn’t even bother to explain any further. “would you care for a walk?”
“I thought you had something to do”
“I do.. but I don’t really have to do it alone..” Ymir nodded quietly “Marco! I’m not buying my usual today, sorry!” Marco came from the storage and yelled something about not really caring and wishing me luck. Which I needed. I was thankful for him, for a lot of things I hadn’t noticed before.
The walk was quiet. Somewhere along the way I stook out my hand and waited until Ymir got that this was an invitation for her to take it. I didn’t mind her taking a while. Unexpected things usually take longer to progress, and the way the warmth of her hand felt around mine was all the same anyway. I wouldn’t have missed it, for such things I hold all the patience in the world.
Eventually we walked into the graveyard and I walked to Frieda’s grave without a single hint of hesitation, it was almost automatic by now. Ymir still didn’t say anything, but her expression changed slightly. “My sister” was all I mumbled. The rest of the story could come later.
When there I lit new candles, ones that hold out a whole week. A little bit of attention for a grave that got none from anyone else. The last Chrysanthemums welted and were now too sad for a nice sight. I threw them in a nearby bush where some lilies were probably rotting away too. “Ymir can you give me that flower?” She did and I put it on the grave. “It’s kind of weird to talk now, but this is a fine way to tell her about something new in my life too”
Hope. It was quite a new thing and I knew Frieda would have been incredibly happy realizing that I finally held it again. She had always been the only one who tried to give it to me in a family that didn’t love me. She was the only smile that was given to me at home. The only one who didn’t blame me for the fights and mistakes made.
I was the effect, not the reason.
“I think that a flower is quite a nice way to express yourself”
Ymir’s room was small. She had a shared bathroom and kitchen but didn’t mind since her housemates were easy to put up with. Without me asking about it she boiled some water and apologized for only having green tea. I didn’t mind and looked around the house curiously and at ease. Ymir watched me with a smile, which was quite reassuring. “bathroom” She yelled from the kitchen as I cocked my head around the corner of the kitchen. Her bathroom was quite dirty and looked as if they hadn’t painted it in fifty years or so. Well.. the whole house kind of looked like that. Though the house was beautiful, the landlord hadn’t tried to make it look modern or anything of that kind. I guess that’s why he didn’t press high charges.
“You like it?” I nodded, my legs hanging off the table and bungeling happily. This seemed to satisfy Ymir ΅Good.. In case you want to come here more often, you know”
“That would be really nice, I don’t really like my own home”
She nodded “I gathered that much”
When sat in her room we were silent for a little bit. She didn’t have many places to sit but I sat next to her on her bed as if it was natural. My thee in both my hands, blowing it to give me something to do. She stared at me. It seemed as if she was trying to make sure if i was really sitting on her bed, blowing my tea like a dork. Eventually she started rolling a tobacco casually, lit it while looking at me with heavy eyes. I didn’t really mind her eyes on me. “Hey Historia” smoke came out of her mouth while talking “I asked Marco where it had gone wrong with the roses today and he said that his was bright red and mine was deep red”
“Is that so?” That kind of fit them.
“They have different meanings” I motioned for her go on “The red one stands for an intense romance you know, and I thought I didn’t know you good enough for such a thing that’s why I didn’t give that one”
“And the deep red one?”
“Google it sometime, it’s embarrassing to say”
I chuckled “It’s unique to see you embarrassed”
“It’s because it’s you! I- I usually don’t give a fuck about people ya’know. I literally don’t care about people but I fell really fucking hard this time”
“Poetic” I mumbled, she rolled her eyes. The whole confession thing was probably really big for her and I brushed it off as if it was nothing. She was holding back. It was obvious.
I pushed my tea cup into Ymir’s hands without a word, costing a “what the-” I interupted by changing my position and eventually laying my head on Ymir’s lap. She was warm and she smelled like smoke, both very welcoming. My eyes closed as I felt her free hand on my head, brushed my hair out of my face and then caressing it softly. I didn’t need to turn or open my eyes to know that she was smiling at my straight forwardness. I knew people thought I couldn’t be straightforward to get what I wanted, but that wasn’t the case, I just rarely knew what I wanted.
“My sister died when four years ago. She was my half sister, because I’m a bastard child.” I waited for Ymir to react to this new information. She didn’t, so I continued. “My family doesn’t really want me around because I remind them of what my father has done. He has been forgiven because they can blame me, I know they do. Before Frieda died she often made sure I knew nothing was my fault. That I wasn’t the mistake made, that I wasn’t the reason for all the fights.. that was lovely. It was important for me.”
“She was telling the truth”
“Yes.. yes I know.” Ymir’s fingers touched my neck softly, it send shivers through my body. I wanted her to kiss me. Not to really kiss me but to let her lips slide over my temples. To feel her warm breath against my hairline. I wanted her to softly bite my jawline. “They blame me for her death. My father too. I hear her mother scream things like ‘God gave us all the kids we were allowed to have and because you got one out of sins he made us pay.’ Shit.. they already think I’m made of sins and I haven’t even told them I like girls”
Ymir coughed slightly “Y-You like girls then?”
“I tell you my tragedy and that’s what your hear?”
Silence. Guilty. “Priorities, sorry” I chuckled softly and turned my head to look at her. She looked so hopeful. So close to herself. “Would you mind an awful lot if I kiss you?”
“Not really”
“Alright then” She placed her fingers around my jaw and softly pecked my lips. Very softly. From the side. Awkwardly. “sorry this position is kinda-” I sat up, blushing heavily and then moving closer to her again. I softly tugged at her neck until she did it again. This time her lips filled mine perfectly. They were a little bit rough, her before kiss breath tasted like smoke, her hand that caressed my cheek was dry on my soft skin. Then she opened my mouth, let her tongue travel into my mouth and held my neck and head back with her hand. Heavily. It was unexpectedly new and nice for me but for her it was the goal she thought she’d never get to. You could feel that in the kiss, I could feel the times she had thought about the same situation in the kiss.
We pulled back. She looked as if lost and bit her lip. “That-” she looked away. “was the first time I kissed the same person twice”
Ymir laughed a little. Then she was still. Looked at me. “Wait for real?”
“Yes” I laughed. It was a lovely breath.
“Oh fuck yeah, I’m going to tell every fucking one that- oh wait no nevermind, sorry I-”
“That’s fine.. I might be sheltered but not like that.. I mean, if you stick with me there will be nothing embarrassing about it”
“Stick with you? As in dating?”
“I don’t know.. I just want you to stick with me for now. You make me feel at home a little bit more” This was hard to say. Because it was too soon. Because the only person that had ever promised me this had not been able to stick with me. Because I had been alone for far too long.
“of course” I believed her.
We stayed like that for quite a while. We talked for a little bit but the silences were actually pretty great. Ymir put of her favourite music - classic rock- while smoking and I just cought up with all the comfort I had missed in the last four years of my life. By laying against her. By telling her that I didn’t mind her smoke sometimes getting into face. My listening to her hum along with her music. By reading stories on my phone while feeling her hand caress my hair.
Eventually I cooked for her, and apparently that automatically meant I had to cook for Reiner and Berthold. She had mentioned where she had met them but not that they lived with her. She brushed it off like it was nothing but I couldn’t stop wondering how we had three orphans in our class. Annie, from another class, was apparently a part of that too.
Reiner and Berthold gave Ymir a thumbs up and then left to their room. Ymir made up the table and ate with me on there, said she hadn’t done that since she had started living there but that there was a first time for everything. I mentioned that it was a little bit like “kissing people twice” to which she answered by kissing me again. Just for the heck of it. Just so I couldn’t say the same thing again. Because our lips just fit together so darn well. “Just like kissing someone more than twice.” I correct, much to her delight. This would be a thing I would keep saying a lot through the years, and I don’t think her smile ever faded.
It became late. I drank lots of tea and Ymir drank some wine and it became late. Please don’t ask me how. With some people that just happens, some people make you be late, some people make you ignore time. Like worth time is subjective, and maybe the more worth someone gets, the shorter an hour with them seems to get. With Ymir was was very short, and very natural. We hadn’t known each other that well for long but somehow we managed to be together for about ten hours and still feel like it wasn’t enough. Because her body was kind of like a charger. I got energy from laying against her. I got energy from her stupid flirty lines like the one where she puts a cigarette in her mouth and asks “Hey do you have fire- oh no wait-” puts the cigarette close to you “you are hot enough yourself.”
She knew she was being stupid, I knew that too. But it wasn’t about impressing me, she felt as if she was already safe. She had impressed me with flowers and really long confessions that hit the truth a little too hard before she even knew me. There was time for stupid lines, there was enough reassurance for filled silences. And I say filled, because the line between a empty silence and a full one is very important to me.
“Historia sleep with me- I mean cuddle, I mean sleep over and cuddle”
“No you don’t” I laughed.
“Nah I really don’t but for now.. I kinda do”
We walked to her room together. She let me sleep close to the wall because she probably realized that I was more comfortable in small spaces by now. We didn’t bother putting on a movie because we knew we would ignore it. I didn’t bother my father because worrying him somehow seemed a very good idea in that moment. I didn’t bother opening my mouth to talk because Ymir’s lips had found mine within seconds and pushed some meaning into me. Half on top of me, her hands holding me back and feeling me. She was eager and intense, but that was exactly what I signed up for. On top of that it was exactly what she had waited for until the point she started being an hopeless romantic flower giving gentlewoman - which was very much unlike her, I had realized. She deserved it and I hadn’t felt so close to myself in a long while.
“If I wake up tomorrow and you aren’t here anymore I swear to fucking god I will-”
“I’ll be here. It went quickly but it’s just as real” Ymir gave me a look of disbelieve and amazement and then pushed her lips back on mine again. It felt different, this was because she was smiling brightly while kissing me.
Ymir slowly pulled out my shirt. I pulled out my pants, hers was gone without me noticing how. And she grinned brightly while stroking my light skin. She studied it as if it belonged in a damn museum. And as promised that was all. She kissed me heavily. She kissed my neck, she kissed my shoulder and breasts, but she didn’t go any further, because as naturally as it all felt, it wasn’t natural to go that quickly.
“Let this become my home” I had whispered somewhere when her teeth were in my neck. She had stopped moving, probably because the wave of emotions that had cost me to say such was now going through her. And then I only felt her close her mouth and nod into my neck.
I slept into one of her shirts, because I still wasn’t completely at ease with sleeping completely naked. It was an old band shirt from a band she didn’t listen to because ‘she had grown up to listen to responsible music” which meant old rock about sex and drugs, instead of new scream- ish rock about sex, drugs and heartbreaks. Her shirt smelled like her and as it was oversized for her it was big enough to reach to my knees, which was lovely.
Before turning the lights off Ymir checked her phone and mumbled “important message” and it left me anxious about who she had to text, who more did she have?
This feeling was easily forgotten or swept away because even when the lights had gone out Ymir was able to find my lips. The majority of the time, I must add, because sometimes she kissed random places, and one time she kissed my eye. Ymir and I talked about very useless things from there on. We were done with deep things. We had been there and done that, now it was time for heart lighting and useless conversations and silence. The silences were ended, time after time, by Ymir hugging be closer and whispering something along the lines of “this is fucking crazy” sometimes it was more simple, like “Holyshit” with a laugh, and sometimes more intense, like “I never thought I could hold you” but all with all she just felt the insane need to tell me how she appreciated holding me from time to time. Until I fell asleep actually, because the only silence that had not been interrupted was the one that costed me to fall asleep in someone's loving arms. It left me wondering if someone had ever hugged me to sleep while loving me that much, even as a baby, had one ever wanted to hold me that much?
Red Rose
I woke up because Ymir left the bed, missing any reason. Then I heard the bell ring and I heard Ymir whisper “I’ll be right back” before kissing my hair. This made the insides of my body turn and warm up. The awareness of all that had happened had become a lot less and Ymir just threw it back into me as if it was nothing. I didn’t react to the whole thing, I just snuggled further into Ymir’s pillow and thought about how comfortable I was. I wanted to be hyper aware of it. I wanted to remember what waking up as if you are at home feels like. Maybe that was the reason I fell asleep again, my body thought I was dreaming and followed the state of my brain.
My vision was red when I woke up. Well everything was. I pulled back my head so that I had three double chins and tried to focus my eyes. Ymir was sitting on the end of the bed with the biggest grin on her face. It kind of made me want to kiss it off so I sat up. Things falling off me. Pedals, I realized. Rose petals were covering the bed. “Ymir-”
“This is the real one” She held out a red rose “Be careful you don’t hurt yourself, I didn’t take the thorns off”
“That’s fine” I took the rose out of her hand and she let her hand fall on my head. Took some rose petals out of my hair. Said that my face had turned the same colour before kissing it carefully. My jawline, my cheek, my lips.
“Marco came to bring the roses” she smiled a held back and sweet smile. I wondered if I had been the only one who had seen that smile. I dared to put money on it though. “These are the last, I promise, there is no statement bigger than this one”
There was one, a red rose combined with a white one, and I’ll spoil it for you, she would give me that one day. She had lied about these flowers being the last she’d give me. She said she couldn’t help herself after that. Every day at school she left a rose in my locker, one on my desk, one in my hands or one in my mouth because I took it out of hers with it. Not long after I moved in with her and we bought a second room in the same house we’d start using as living room. Every day there was a vase with a roses in them. The ones I got would find their pace there, next to my books and next to her record player. Sometimes we’d dance in that small room, because she liked to do that when she had a rose in her mouth and wiggled her eyebrows. It would start out funny, and it would always end emotional. These are probably the roses I cherish most.
On saturdays we’d buy different kinds of flowers, ones that fit the situation we were in, just to show Frieda that we indeed were having these lovely situations. Marco stopped charging us any money for the roses. He said we had been the ones keeping their business running long enough, and that every single flower he now gave us were an early marriage presence. We laughed as if we didn’t both hope that this would be a promise he’d be able to keep.
I studied and my father gave us a small amount of money, yet it was no where as much as I would have gotten if he had never figured out I was dating a woman. My stepmother screamed, he had shivered with anger, I hadn’t spoken to my siblings since. The money he gave me was enough for rent and education, but that was all. Ymir still had to work for the extra room and the groceries. I studied law and worked at Bodt’s, but sometimes I highly considered stopping school so that we would be able to pay for Ymir’s education. She was broken about it a lot, because she really wanted to go into arts but she knew that this wasn’t a job she’d be able to keep me spoiled with. She cared about it a lot and every time I told her that maybe, her bringing herself down was not worth it, she told me “I’ll be fine, if only you marry me after this is over.” and I knew I wanted this, but this still didn’t seem like a reason to bring herself and together with this me down. This didn’t matter to me. I was worthy of taking care of both of us. It was an honoring job to me but she didn’t take it.
I made her do it. I got a job offer while still in apprenticeship, I send Ymir’s portfolio to art school and got her in. The night I found out I bought enough as many flowers with happy meaning I could and I made a small road to where her intake invitation was lying. She shed tears, and then we made the sweetest love you can imagine.
It goes up from here. My job payed nicely and had me busy quite a lot. We moved to a small terrace house and got a room for her art and my books. I guess we didn’t really need the other rooms. We only used that one. Even the majority of our sex happened with paint all over us and me on top of a table, paintings, the flour, and mainly just Ymir. She new me a lot, she drew me with flowers around me. Her once meaningless attempt to flirt with me had wakened an insane talent for art and knowing meanings of both flowers and emotions.
We stayed in touch with Marco, who had been single again for quite awhile and still looked so broken you couldn’t even focus on the flowers in the shop anymore. His smile had faded a little bit, his parents were gone and the shop was his. That got us even closer, thankfulness was everlasting and the paintings he hung in shop seemed to brighten everything a little bit.
Then one day I woke up with flower pedals on me like that one day when we first slept together in high school. There were petals and whole flowers. Red roses all around me. “Ymir?” I called, an insane smile on my face. The flower petals were making a path through the rooms and I kind of expected Ymir to laying somewhere, naked and with a deep red rose in her mouth of held between her legs.
My bare feet walked through the flowers. Silently. Laughing from excitement and nerves. Careful. “Ymir?” I walked out of the bedroom and through the hallway. The flowers showed me to the room I expected to be taken; the art room. I opened the door carefully, and cocked my head around the corner a shit eating grin on my face while I did. But there was no Ymir.
Just a white rose.
I broke. It only took that white rose, the petals around it, and the fact Ymir had put it there to take me down. Because it was real, and I was aware of it, because it was my life and it was exactly what I wanted.
My legs felt as if they were about to break when I walked on, though I knew that if they did break I’d be flying. I was that light. The good light. The full kind of light.
I held the white rose in my hand, somewhere I had expected a note to be hanging on the ribbon, but I knew Ymir was rather bad at writing notes. So the thing that was hanging on the ribbon shouldn’t have shocked me as much as it did. I shouldn’t have felt the need to fall down, crying with a silver ring on in my hand.
“Historia-” I looked behind me. Ymir was shivering in fear and she looked beautiful. Her rough face and sweet freckles. “I’m bad with words.. but uhm.. fuck- will you marry me?” she stuttered and spit it out. I laughed and basically launched myself her way. I jumped into her arms and grinned her so tightly it must have hurt, yet she let out a heavy breath as if she hadn’t done that in years. “Of course. Yes. Of course I will” the white rose trembled in my hand as she kissed me. There were tears coming into my mouth. Now that I think about it I realize that as a teenager, she had never really hoped a lot would come of her.
I skip to the next flowers, and these are the last flowers I will tell you about. I could go on, of course, but I really don’t want to end this story with white lilies or mums. And the last flowers I tell you about weren’t meant for us. We were meant for each other but the bouquet we threw was not. We threw it right into the face of a certain cursing asshole. I remember his words loud and clear “god fucking damnit” he said. Jean kirschtein ladies and gentleman, and also my perfect aim. I remember he was blushing a really dark shade of red and then pushing those flowers into the hands of the one who had sorted them out. We lost both of them that night, at the same time, found them again when they were holding hands like they did in high school. It reminded me of highschool. It reminded me of how all had gone. It reminded me of how flowers had always brought us together, because apparently that was how couples were supposed to be made in our lives. Flowers were our cupid.
Our flowers had thorns. Ymir never broke her thorns, never tried to hide them. Her thorns were her screaming, her sleepless nights full of art, her hate for certain people. Her thorns got out when she first met my father and slapped him in his face. Her thorns were the reason Marco walked me to the altar and that was fine. I like thorns. I like to play with them and see if they can hurt me, I love the feeling of a thorn stinging me a little bit. I love the fact that thorns make you realize how real a flower is. How true it is to himself. How intense it it. Ymir’s thorns had stung me a few times but my blood was as good as invisible on a red rose.
When we got home on our wedding night I found 7 flowers on our white sheets.
One camellia.
A Gardenia.
A very deep red rose (which is different than a red rose and I’ll always remember)
There was a yellow tulip. The irony on that was was harder than on the others.
A violet.
A primula.
And then eventually a single red rose.
“I think you are beautiful, extraordinarily beautiful. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to capture your beauty so I’m glad I can just stare at you as if you are a piece of art.” Ymir looked confident as she spoke. All the times she had apologized for lacking words to give me shot through my mind. “I had been in love for you quite some time, secretly, but I failed on that one after a while because I can’t lie to the world about something so beautiful. I do secretly watch you some time, I kind of feel like a teenager again when I do that. I just want you so much, always have. I believe google told you that one day when you had already felt it in my lips, but shit, I wish you had figured it out before then because I can’t imagine what would have happened if you had started dating one of our two gay boys” I chuckled “I was afraid of that. I really was, Historia. You were perfect. To everyone you were the perfect blue summer sky they watched while listening to their shitty pop music and it pissed me off because I thought you would never know I realized you were more than that. I thought it was impossible but I knew you were a world wonder so maybe I should have believe more. Maybe I should have realized you were trying to get rid of your straight surrounding and maybe I should have realized you needed some serious boobies to snuggle in. I should have realized you need someone to outweigh your light just so that you are allowed to hope for something better because something gave you the idea that what you had was perfection. Historia, I realized these things. I want to keep realizing these things when I wake up to you. I want you to remember these words when you wake because I never tell you and I’m afraid to death this will make me lose you. I love you. I love you so much.” Ymir pushed the white rose in my hand and pushed her forehead on mine. “Please let me add this white rose to our line of flowers, and let it be the last”
She kissed me good enough to last a lifetime right there and then. She kissed all my regrets out of me. Never would I regret. Never would I miss my family or the emptiness that had hung around me for so long. I just had Ymir. Just that was worth enough to fill up all the things I was possibly able to lose. Because worth is subjective, and I had found someone who was worth more than I could describe. “Until a lilium comes and after that”
White rose - White lilium