“Carol, this is Frank.” Maria’s grin is so wide that Carol can’t help but smile weakly back as the dark-haired woman pulls a tall, fairly handsome boy into frame. She knew before Maria announced that she had a boyfriend, that Maria was seeing someone. She could tell by the giddy looks, the marks on her collarbone, and the almost permanent smile on Maria’s face. And still, it caught Carol off guard, at 7:00 in the morning in her 1st hour study hall. She stares up at him, towering over her at nearly 6’1.
“Carol?” Maria probes, her smile faltering a bit, sliding down her cheeks. Carol catches herself and plasters on a happy face, insides twisting in apprehension. She lifts her hand in a small wave, awkward and stilting.
“Hey, Maria’s told me so much about you, it’s nice to finally meet you,” Carol says, fighting desperately to keep the ache out of her voice, swallowing the lump in her throat. Frank nods his head at her, seemingly disinterested. Carol almost sneers at his nonchalant attitude, but stops herself when Maria unleashes her sunny smile, and Carol’s knees tremble a little.
Later, in the bathroom stall, as she’s slouching with her knees drawn up against her chest, letting the quiet, hot tears leak down her face, the lump in her throat rises as bile into her mouth. She spits it into the toilet, and blinks once, twice, to glimpse 3 sunny yellow petals in the clear water. She flushes, and shakes her head. This isn’t happening.
Her refusal to acknowledge the petals doesn’t last long, considering her room is littered with snapdragons and daffodils as soon as she steps in.
- -
Maria doesn’t notice, and Carol doesn’t blame her. She’s enamored with Frank, and Carol would be upset, but she’s too infatuated with Maria to stay angry for more than a minute. Carol coughs yellow into the toilets during the passing periods between classes, and if Maria glimpses petals jammed in her teeth, she doesn’t say a word.
- -
She’s almost passed out on the floor of her white tiled bathroom when her brother finds her.
“Carol? Carol, what happened?” He grimaces as he drags his palm from a slimy patch of chrysanthemums, lifting the back of Carol’s head off the tiles.
“Stevie, I don’t know what’s happening. They’re everywhere, what do I do?” She whimpers, sunflower petals wrapping around her windpipe. She coughs, and yellow flickers out, almost like candlelight, and Carol believes they burn the same inside her chest.
“It’s okay, don’t worry, we can fix this. It’ll be fine.” Stevie lifts her head into his lap, stroking her hair gently. “We can fix this.” He repeats, mostly to himself, and Carol coughs in response.
- -
Steve walks her to school, letting her hold on to his arm, because, dammit, she’s hurting and he doesn’t even know how to save his little sister from the pain.
“You gonna be okay today?” He examines her wiry frame, and notices the purple rings around her light brown eyes, and knows the answer, but doesn’t interrupt her when she mumbles, “Yes.”
Her gaze brightens, then darkens again, and he follows her line of sight to, oh, Maria at the top of the steps, and a tall, muscular boy around Steve’s age, maybe a bit younger, and he gets it. He only has time to steal a glance at Maria’s dark yellow blouse before Carol’s vomiting the same color on his boots.
- -
Maria notices a change in Carol’s behavior a short while after she begins seeing Frank, near the end of the semester. She almost asks about it, but then Frank yanks her hand down the hallway, and she quickly forgets her best friend’s sunken eyes in favor of swooning over her first boyfriend. Carol’s always been adamant about getting good grades, it’s probably just about finals, anyway.
“Danvers, come on, what’s up with you?” Maria demands, and Carol almost musters a grin at the old nickname, and Maria’s eyes fall to the yellow in her teeth.
“Forget to brush?” Maria mimics a toothbrush motion, and Carol lets out a breathy laugh.
“Yeah, yeah, I guess.” Her voice is foreign to Maria’s ears, raspy and small, fading towards the end of her short sentences. Maria draws her eyebrows together in scrutiny.
“Seriously, Carol. What’s been going on with you?” Carol takes a minute to admire Maria’s dark, spiraling locks, and wonders what it feels like to be free of the crushed petals buried near her ears, clinging to her scalp, and threading along her hairline. How it tastes to be free of the bitter film of the fronds lingering in her cheeks.
“Carol, snap out of it. I swear-” Maria’s concerned voice is cut off by a large hand on her waist, and she turns, the crease in between her eyebrows smoothing a bit.
“Hey baby,” Frank’s deep voice stirs the vines in her chest, and Carol only witnesses Maria’s worried glance before she’s bolting to the restroom to pour marigolds into the bathroom sink, and when she opens her eyes, there’s red spatters on the white porcelain.
- -
“Maria, Maria, I need you to get here now. Can you get here soon? There’s- something happened. It’s Carol. I, uh, I need your help.” Steve’s panicked voice buzzes over the speaker of Maria’s pastel green phone. She twists the coiled wire around her index finger nervously. Frank shoots her an affronted look from the couch. She slams the receiver down after a moment of anxious fidgeting and grabs her keys.
“What? Where are you going? I just got here!” Frank wraps his arms around Maria’s waist, and she pries him off. She turns and slings her purse around her arm.
“Not now, Frank. Carol needs my help.” Frank groans, and steps in front of her.
“Ugh, Maria, she’s always ruining our plans. I never liked her anyway, can we just-” Frank grasps her shoulder, and she whips around, raising her voice.
“Hands off, Frank! Now beat it, I have to go and I don’t want to repeat myself.” She pushes him towards her door and it’s only when they’re outside and the screen door is smacking against the doorframe when he blurts-
“It’s me or her, Maria.” A bewildered laugh laugh bubbles up in Maria’s chest, and when she whirls around to face the dark-haired boy, she’s already breathing heavily.
“Listen to me, Frank. You might think you’re hot shit, but don’t ever believe that you could even come close to replacing Carol. She- she’s, god, you couldn’t even compare, I mean-” Maria slaps her hand against her forehead, laughing breathily. She turns, a stunned Frank hot on her heels.
“That’s it then? We’re done? Just like that? Because of her?” He sputters, and Maria climbs in her dad’s pickup, and barely has time to declare a quick, “Yep!” before she’s slamming the heavy door and screeching out of the driveway.
- -
“Carol? Steve?” Maria calls, as she steps in the doorway of the small bungalow. She’s immediately assaulted with the sickeningly sweet smell of blooming flowers.
“In here!” Steve’s voice, filled with an urgency that flips in Maria’s stomach, echoing from the bathroom down the hall. She weaves around the green plaid sofa, and the closer she gets to the bathroom, she hears the distinguishable sounds of retching and choking, and Maria opens the wooden door to see Carol lying on the floor, convulsing, surrounded by sunflowers, roses, carnations, and she can’t see the tiles beneath all the yellow. Steve is trying desperately to hold her head up while also trying to stop the coughing, and Maria’s heart sinks at the tearful confusion on his face, because he’s watching his baby sister struggle to breathe on the bathroom floor. She sinks down to her knees next to him and takes Carol’s head, props it up on her lap, Steve leaping up to call an ambulance. Carol’s eyes widen at the sight of Maria, almost happily, until a new wave of petals jolts out of her throat, shaking her thin frame, and she spits blood to the side of Maria’s thighs.
And when Carol’s light brown eyes, twinkling with unshed tears, fall back on Maria with as much longing she’s ever seen, Maria understands, its her.
“It’s me, isn’t it? It’s- I’m, it’s my fault!” Maria chokes, tears spilling into Carol’s petal-ridden hair, and Maria hates yellow, she hates it, and Carol looks so broke, like she’s already given up, and Maria hates it. Carol hates yellow, but it’s red that’s much, much worse. It spills from her throat in spades, and she sits up with the force of it, gasping for breath in between retches. And Maria does only what she thinks of first, she crashes her chapped lips against Carol’s red ones, and it’s the worst kiss she’s ever given, all tears and teeth and blood and she can feel the petals slipping between her teeth, and yet she can’t tear herself away until she’s gasping for breath.
Carol’s retches stop, and she slouches to the floor with labored breaths coming few and far between.
“Carol? Baby, come on! Stay awake for me, just a few more minutes. Come on Carol, hold on, we can do this-” Carol’s eyelids flutter, and Maria strokes a smooth hand down her pale cheek, and curses herself for not noticing sooner.
- -
Carol wakes up to a flash of white, and a soft hand sliding into her own. She glances down, and marvels at her clean nails, no longer jammed with yellow, and she looks back up at Maria, who’s wide eyes are on her own.
“Carol,” Maria only has time to breathe out before she’s throwing her arms around the blonde, and Carol’s body aches with the force of it, but she allows it, it’s good for her.
“Don’t ever scare me like that again, Danvers, not when I haven’t- not when we-” Maria swallows the lump in her throat, and pulls back from the tight hug to stare into Carol’s eyes.
“When you haven’t what, Maria?” And Carol coughs around her name, just a little bit, but enough to make Maria’s eyes fill with tears.
“When I haven’t told you that I love you. I love you so much, Carol, I’m sorry I didn’t know sooner, I’m sorry,” She stutters through her falling tears, and Carol hauls her in for another embrace, Maria’s tears soaking through her shirt. She pulls back and leans her forehead against the brunette’s.
“I love you too, so much.” Carol’s breaths are short, but not because of marigolds in her chest, but Maria. Maria inclines her neck, and presses her lips softly to Carol’s, inhaling sharply at the feeling. She tilts her head to the left and deepens the kiss, and Carol sighs.
- -
Carol and Maria learn to love yellow again, and when the sun shines on their linked hands, they don’t cough, they kiss.