The Apocalypse of Plants

Preston

The quiet between Laina and I soon becomes unbearable, but neither of us speaks to break it. It's forced-we both have words on the tips of our tongues, me especially-but it feels like it'd be rude to talk.

We're both sitting by Johanna, who looks like she could be asleep. But, because of me, she's not.

Laina tried to take the blame, but I couldn't let her.

I have a theory that everyone is born clean. They have a blank slate, a fresh, white canvas. But as they grow older, they splatter the canvas with different colored paint. Red is the color of love, so every time the person falls in love, a stroke of red appears on the sheet. Green, for jealousy. Purple for guilt. Blue for sadness. Yellow for happiness. So on and so forth. And if a person has too much of a color on their canvas, it takes over. It blots out all the other colors so that the dominant color is the only one you can see and feel. Of course, that's not too bad if yellow is the main color, but green, purple, blue would be terrible.

I don't have that much purple on my canvas. But I'm willing to bet everything that I have that Laina has a lot, judging by how reserved and closed off she is. Plus I know that her brother died. I don't want her to feel anymore guilt than she already has.

Laina clears her throat and I realize that I've been staring at her for a while. I mumble an apology.

We stand side-by-side for a while-almost too long-before I decide to speak.

"She had three brothers and two sisters. Her parents were awesome-they never fought, they got along so well. They loved me like I was their son," I say. For a second, I'm not sure if Laina hears me because she doesn't speak. But then I notice tears glistening in her eyes.

"Will you tell me about them?" she asks quietly.

"Yeah. Her three brothers were all older than her. Zade, Jaxon, and Nathan. Zade and Jax were in college, and Nathan was a senior. Callie was in ninth grade and Albany was in seventh. Johanna was in eleventh, by the way," I add.

"I know," she whispers.

"Her whole family was amazing. I was pretty good friends with Nathan and Jax. I never saw Zade too much though. I like to think we would have been good friends. Callie wasn't a huge fan of me, but I was growing on her. I'm pretty sure Albany had a huge crush on me." Laina snorts.

"So-what happened? When this whole thing started?"

I take a deep breath. I can feel my canvas being painted blue and white, the color of pain.

"When it first started, Johanna and I were at BurgerFi. It was our two year anniversary. I got a text from my friend-the ones that I'm trying to find-and he told me that it was starting. So we drove to Johanna's house to drop her off and I kissed her goodbye. I thought it was the last time I'd ever see her. She went into her house, and I watched her go. I sat in my car. I was waiting but I didn't know what I was waiting for.

"She ran out of her house in a few minutes. I followed her into the house to find Jax on the floor, unconscious and bleeding. Callie, Albany, and Nathan were huddled around him. Zade was at college and their parents were at work, so they couldn't have really done anything. Apparently Jax had been walking outside when a branch fell and hit him on the head, gashing his scalp. We had no idea if he was going to wake up. I was getting ready to leave to go to a store to get gauze and medicine and stuff, when Johanna came to my car. I told her I was going for help, but she said an ambulance was on the way. I was planning on coming back but after she told me about the ambulance, I decided contrariwise. I then said that I wanted to find my friends and I don't know. Travel with them? But she said that she wanted to come with me.