Twelve pretty flowers don’t lie.
I sent her some wine colored roses.
The color of grapes on the vine.
When she sees the wine colored roses,
they’ll tell her I’m still on the wine.
Two years, nine months, three weeks, three days, and twenty two minutes since I lost everything…but whose counting? I wonder as I stare at the frosted window pane. Reaching up I trail a finger through the cold, icy cover and watch it melt.
I wish my heart would do the same. Wish that I could feel something beyond the agony that swamps me now. I glance at the table next to me and stare at the folded piece of fancy stationary. The letter arrived this morning, written in the flowing script of a doctor.
I read it silently, my eyes burning, searing with the need to shed a tear and yet none fell. I would not let myself shed one for her, for a doctor who mourns the loss of a teammate without understanding why I left.
In all this time the pain hasn’t eased. I still feel the same pain as I did that day. The day my world ended. I can still recall the pain in blue eyes as they stared at me over the blood soaked body on the gurney between us.
“I’m sorry, so very sorry, there wasn’t any more I could do. I tried…”
“You didn’t try hard enough.” Like a tempest the fury washed over me as I stared at her. Her clothes were soaked with blood, her gloved hands trembled slightly as they rested on the edge of the bed but it was the stench of fear that reached me.
Fear of me, fear of my reactions. Fear that overrode any hint of lust that I usually smelt on her. Oh no, today she feared how I would take the loss of one I loved. A low, furious snarl issued from my throat as I glared at her as she pulled off her gloves and pulled the sheet up over the broken, bloody body I knew so well.
“I could have saved her; I could have done what you wouldn’t. If you’d have called me in time!”
“I couldn’t do any more. The wounds were too…” she squeaked as I grabbed her and pulled her close to me by the throat. “Stop it, you’re hurting me!”
“I ain’t begun to hurt you.” I snarl in her face and squeeze a bit harder. “You got twenty minutes to sew her up then we’re leaving.”
A week of steady driving had brought us, brought here. To a place that we’d come. It had been so many years ago, when she was still young, still barely legal, still struggling with her identity, with hiding her feelings from me. I remember we stayed here for a year, ignoring the summons from down south, ignoring anything and everything but what she needed to learn. Before we left, before we’d gone back to the prison of our choice, we’d becoming lovers.
Before a roaring fire, surrounded by the flickering of candles, amid a late winter snowstorm we took our vows, whispered our feelings to each other, gave our hearts and bodies to each other.
Now, I’m alone. I sit here, staring out the window at the snow covered ground. I can see the stone cross that marks her resting place, see the hole that I’ve made for when my time comes. I pray each day that it’s soon, that I can rest next to her soon because I can’t keep this up.
Turning from the window I stare at the letter before picking it up and carrying it to the fire. I drop the page into the flames and watch them devour it, even as I reach for the bottle that is never far from me.
When my package arrives they’ll understand, when they see what I’ve sent then they’ll know. My body is alive but my soul, my heart isn’t. The beautiful color of the roses I’ve sent to her will tell her more clearly than any words could. I’m still on the wine.
“Forgive me, Marie.” I whisper, sinking back into the chair by the window. I’ve a vigil to keep, and as the hours pass I make a mental note of the time since I died.
Two years, nine months, three weeks, three days, and fifty-three minutes…but whose counting?
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Tissue warning!