The Earth Laughs in Flowers

✨c h a p t e r the t h i r d✨

Thirteen Years Ago:
The Hypothetical
•••
Summer 2015

A week had passed since Maya agreed to stay with me, and everyday I found myself over the moon whenever I thought about Maya's promise. I couldn't imagine a semester without Maya, let alone the possibility of a lifetime without her. What if she found someone better? Someone that she adored more than me? The questions were always selfish, but it wasn't just Maya that gave herself to me. I also gave myself to her, fully and whole heartedly. She was my first for everything, and I wanted nothing more—not even my future job as a rocket scientist—than to be her last. I knew she didn't owe me anything, for her decisions to stay with me was all her own. However, my mind couldn't grasp the possibility of her choosing Stanford over me. If we both left, our future together would be slim. We would be in different worlds, and the only way we would cross paths would be if our dreams at NASA came true. But how many childhood dreams come to pass?

Nevertheless, living with Maya was more than any other dream I had. In Champaign. In an apartment. We would start new and fresh where Maya wouldn't have to ever see her parents again, and we would be free from distractions. As free as college allowed, of course. But nevertheless, freer than we were living at home, and that was what mattered.

I applied at USI a few weeks ago, and I knew that my letter would arrive in the mail any day. Whether it would be an acceptance or an, "I regret to inform you..." I couldn't shake off the idea that my essay wasn't good enough. Even if I did get in. I made the mistake of rereading my essay application the night before, and I almost died of embarrassment. It wasn't that it was a horrible piece, but rereading something you wrote after submitting it was always a tragedy. You find mistakes you didn't notice, and you always imagine better ways to word things.

I was screwed.

"Stop chewing your fingers," my sister Ezra sighed as she strode into the kitchen for a snack. Out of the two of us, Ezra was the star. She shone brightly wherever she went—and it wasn't just because of her neon pink hair—and everybody in every place loved her. She was especially popular in school where I wasn't. I was the person people spat on, and she was the person that caused people to spit on themselves just to seek her attention.

She graduated high school two years ago, so we hadn't been in school together for a while. However, people still remembered her up until my graduation, and I knew they would continue to remember her long after her college graduation in less than two years.

We weren't close, that was obvious, but we had a mutual understanding. She liked Maya, so I put up with her jocks. However, in the past few years she has been dating a guy named Clinton. He used to be in my history class and also used to be my friend when we were in elementary, but something happened one day and our friendship disappeared. It was one of those things where you have no idea what went wrong, but there's suddenly a mutual understanding that you've both moved on. And he did. He moved onto the other Jones—my sister.

"And stop refreshing your email," she scolded me as she rummaged through our cabinets until she found the sour cream and onion potato chips. "USI would be a completely foolish school if they denied your entrance."

"Yeah," I laughed, "it's as if sisters are supposed to say that."

"You know I don't bullshit, Clark," she huffed before dragging herself and her chips out of the kitchen.

I knew that as I sat at the dining table—consistently refreshing my email—that she was right. Not just about the application, but she was right about not bullshitting me. Ezra might've been the star, the extravagant one, the main character in all the school plays, and the girl everyone wanted to be—but there was one person she was the best at playing, and that was herself. Ezra and bullshit didn't exist, and it was one of those crucial moments where my sister actually made me feel better.

I closed my laptop shortly after and decided to spend my evening reading when Maya called. She was always calling whenever I wanted to read, but she was the only person I willingly let interrupt my reading schedule.

"You were going to read, weren't you?" She asked, and I could hear her smiling.

"Maybe," I admitted. I realized I was smiling too. She immediately made me forget about my application essay as if she were magic. The truth was, she was magic. She was a special type of magic that took me farther than Hogwarts ever could. She took me to various planets whenever we had our moments together, and she made everything else on earth and in my books seem dull. It's a rarity when reality is far greater than any dream you could imagine.

"Boo. I was just thinking about our plans. I haven't had my job very long, and I'm not sure if we can afford an apartment. Especially down there," she sighed. While I was the dreamer in our relationship, Maya was the realist. She had her dreams, of course, but she always knew when to wake up and face reality. She balanced me out on the scales, only sometimes I didn't want to hear about realities' problems. Especially since I was trying to overcome my essay embarrassment only moments ago.

"I know," I sighed as I ran my left hand over my face, "but we can take out a loan. My parents already agreed to sign for us."

"Oh," she muttered, and I could tell immediately that she didn't like this idea. I could picture her in my head, some Halloween costume on—probably her Mortician Addams dress—as she scrunched up her nose and shook her head. Her blonde curls would bounce around her face, while her brown eyes would glow with doubt. She hated receiving help, even if it was from my parents who she knew loved us both.

"I knew you wouldn't like that idea, but what else are we going to do?" I didn't want to be frustrated with her, but she agreed to come with me on my dream. Not that she wouldn't live her own in the spring, but this semester was mine, and I wanted her support. I always supported her, and I couldn't understand why she couldn't always support me.

"Work harder, I guess. I don't know, Clark. I've just been thinking about it is all. This is our life, you know? High school is over, and I don't want to spend my adult life owing my time and money to other people. I want to make my own way." Maya was obsessed with paving her own destiny and not having to rely on others. Because of her family situation, she never wanted to owe another person. If you owe someone, she'd tell me, they don't see you as a person again until you owe them nothing.

Her trust issues leaked into her view of the world, and I knew that she was my personal Holden Caulfield. Everyone was a phony because you see the world for what it is when you live a life like Maya has.

"I want to make it my own way too, but to make it to college, I can't just rely on myself." I was growing impatient, and unfortunately she could see right through it.

"I know," she muttered.

"I love you," I whispered. We weren't fighting, yet we were. Our soft spoken words had enough weight of an argument that it took all the energy out of me. She was my rainbow, and rainbows always shone the brightest after a storm.

"And I love you," she promised.

She hung up, and I suddenly felt my throat tighten. We were adults now, and she could leave Woodstock whenever she wanted. I knew a disagreement this small wouldn't send her running away from me, but the possibility was always there. After all, Maya was never mine. She was her own person, and I never owned an inch of her. She wasn't my property, she was my lover. And the thrill of being lovers came with the possibility that one day you might wake up, and they would be gone. That was why my throat burned, and that was why I went upstairs as quickly as I could and locked myself in my room. The one place on this earth I truly owned that made me feel empty without the one person that truly owned me.