the flowers; h.s.

day twenty-five

I woke this morning to an odd sound at the door. It sort of sounded like a knock, but a feeble one at that. No matter what it was, it jolted me awake and immediately drew me to the door.

What I hoped to find behind the door was him. There is no sugar-coating my undeniable ache for the boy with whom I was still in love with, despite his sudden misplace in the world.

What I did find behind the door was a large sunflower with a note attached to the stem. I stepped out and looked both ways, checking to see if he was going to pop out of nowhere and surprise me with his presence. But I was disappointed to see that there was no one around. The town looked just as desolate as it felt.

I quickly grabbed the flower and walked back inside, knowing that the person that I wanted to see was not going to pop out of nowhere like I thought he would. So I shut the door and studied the large flower in my hand.

It was beautiful; I vaguely remember a story that I once told Harry about sunflowers. How I used to pick off the petals one by one, saying, "He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not..." It was a typical elementary school thing to do, but I, for some reason, totally believed that if I landed on 'he loves me not' then the boy did not love me. So I based every 10 second relationship that I had back then on the theory of the petals. I wasn't sure if it was true to this day, but I sure did believe it back then.

I turned the flower over to read what the note that was attached to the stem said. It read, "He loves me, he loves me not... He loves me. See you soon. H."

That was cheesy. But sweet, I guess.

I was never a girl for cheese. But Harry is obviously a boy who learned how to be romantic from all of those romance movies that he claimed to be forced to watch.

I was somewhat tempted to see if my petal theory was true. Maybe I should take apart this beautiful flower just to see if my younger self was right, and these kinds of tests were actually plausible.

But the flower was so pretty. I couldn't purposefully take it apart just because of my superstitious ways. It was a gift from him, and I should honor that.

So I set it next to the wilted flowers and the letter that he wrote to me. 'Harry's Corner' is what I now want to call this little desk that has all of the things that he left behind for me. What used to be one, turned into two, which eventually turned into three things that I was supposed to cherish while he was absent.

I find it unfair, but I won't say anything.