Flowers Never Wilt

Chapter 5: Purple Violet

Summer left us with Bonnie. And with it, the winds of the inevitable three us into autumn. And in the months that followed, I had never felt more like a young boy trapped in the body of a five foot ten teenager.

It was as if I hadn't felt anything real since I was around eight.

I had never really liked the colour orange, but it was everywhere. The trees' leaves danced with the hue of not quite passionate red but not quite joyful yellow. Just orange. It was quiet. The summer season batch of tourists went home. Nobody apart from professional swimmers and fishermen were in our ocean, now. My lips were chapped, I was lonely, my hands were dry. I wanted to talk to Bonnie but I didn't want to bother her. I was a loser, she was not. She had other friends. She didn't need me troubling her in lovely Kalos. Besides, we had said goodbye.

May talked endlessly about how much she would miss her, and that she simply had to come back to Hoenn to watch more K-dramas with her, whilst we drove to the airport. Pellipers were causing a ruckus. May opened the trunk and pulled out Bonnie's small, pink suitcase. She bought it in Lilycove, to carry all the trinkets and outfits she aquired on our short but sweet journey.

"Do you know exactly where you're going?" May handed the case over.

"Yep!" Bonnie smiled timidly. She placed the case down and pulled up its handle. May said a swift goodbye and re-entered the car. Bonnie didn't look at me, she just bit her lip. She surveyed the shoes around her. "Max."

"Mhm?" I said, leaning against the overly cutesy red fiat 500 my sister drove.

She let go of the case.

Without saying a word, she threw her arms around me and engulfed me in a hug. Her head was pressing into my black shirt. Did I smell?

I patted her head like the awkward shit I am. She held onto me tightly, I could have sworn I heard a small weep from her. So little. So sweet. So much smaller than me.

She let go. I got sad.

"Look after yourself," she was one of the only people to ever say that to me, and still is to this day, "I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you too," I nodded, "And don't worry, Bo, I promise I will."

"What did you just call me?"

"Um... Bo?"

"Bo..." She pondered the sound of it, "Huh. I like that a lot." She touched my shoulder, "You should call me that all the time."

"But then it wouldn't be special." She seemed sad. "Hey," I said, "No matter what, we'll always be sleeping under the same sky."

She shook her head and laughed. She stood still. We didn't say anything for what seemed like an eternity. Then, she spoke, "Goodbye, Max."

"Goodbye, Bonnie." I said.

She walked away, and she took the summer, and the smile on my face, with her.

I got back in the car. I sat in the front passenger seat this time, because there was no eccentric French girl to keep company in the back. It felt... Empty. I twiddled my thumbs.

May started driving, "You alright?"

May, despite being a bit... Well, a lot of a Koreaboo, obsessed with her appearance and having almost as much of a nasally voice as me, was a sweet person. She was a person who cared about me. I appreciated her. She shaped me into the man I had become.

"I'm okay." Was all I said.

She gave me a look. It was a look I called the Vivi. You see, it was a look she first gave me when I was a little boy and all of a sudden I had this cute but crazy redhead tugging on the sleeves of my polo shirt, calling me adorable and wanting to battle. Ugh, Vivi. It didn't work at eight, it didn't work again at thirteen, it would never work.