(unedited)
She sat in the backseat of the car, her mom driving and her dad fast asleep in the passenger seat. She was twirling a flower slowly between her fingers. She was so gentle with it that it could have been a real flower instead of one made of foil. But then again, maybe one made of foil was more delicate than a real flower.
She liked to think of her heart as a real flower; oh so pretty and alive and stronger than you might think. In reality, her heart was a foil flower; just as pretty as a real flower, but lifeless and so delicate that it could snap with a flick of a wrist.
As they passed street lights, the car would light up for no longer than a split second and the yellowish light would shine brightly off the silvery flower. But as they got further and further away from the city she once called home, the only light to illuminate her flower was the pale moonlight that rarely made into the car.
She had been trying not to think about it, trying not to let herself doubt for a single second that he had loved her with all of his heart, but the thoughts began to creep. With them came the tears, and the tears slowly dripped down her face and onto the flower.
Out of nowhere, like the storm clouds she could now see forming overhead, she felt the urge to crush the flower in her hand and toss it out the window so it could fly like a bird.
But she didn't.
She held the flower tight against her body, but not so tight that it would sustain damage.
The flower reminded her of him, and of how much he loved his art.
He loved her almost as much as he loved his art.
The flower was something he had made, but it wasn't something he had spent hours on. It was brought to life in a restaurant, a piece of foil crumpled in just the right way to look similar to a blossoming flower. It didn't receive a single glance from its creator as it was formed into what she now held in her hands.
There was only one person who would ever get a real flower from him; the girl in the ground who he still loved more than he loved his art.
The girl with the foil flower sat silently in the backseat of her moonlit car, driving away from the one person she had truly loved.
Word count: 430
