Flowers for Lilah (Seth Clearwater)

chapter fifteen

     I wipe my tears away with the back of my hands, my numb fingers making me jump slightly in shock when they touch my warm tears. I should have brought gloves, I wasn't expecting to make this detour on my quick walk home from school. In my snow boots and jacket, I am practically frozen to the core.

But I don't care. I don't care that the snow is starting to fall faster, the ice crystals accumulating on my dark eyelashes. My talk with Leah ignited something in me. Wait, that was a lie. It wasn't my talk with Leah, it was Leah making me lose all the progress I had made trying to forget about Seth. Leah had ripped open a large gash in my heart, one that I couldn't brush off and ignore like the past few weeks.

I stared out at the tombstones in front of me: Katherine Cheyenne Black and Enyeto Robert Black. Mom and Dad. I didn't have any fresh flowers to bring them from my garden. Lily's are what I always brought. My mom's favorite flower was Lilys, "A pretty name for a pretty flower, all for a pretty girl" is what she would tell me.

What Leah said haunted me. Seth was the the most pure-hearted person I had ever met. Innocent, loyal, unconditional. I couldn't risk losing him. I couldn't risk harming someone so golden, and compassionate, and just good. I knew the truth; if I let myself love him, I would lose him. I cared about Seth enough to sacrifice our friendship.

"Mom, what do I do?" I whispered out, another round of tears coming, I was grateful for the small streetlamp across the way in the cemetery, La Push winter's meant complete darkness by 5 pm. I hiccup loudly on my next sob, "Daddy, why aren't you here?" I whimper, my breath clouding in the frigid air.

I raise my numb fingers to my eyes and rub them, when I pull my hands away; my parents gravestones are no longer directly in front of me. It's a giant, sandy colored wolf. I know that it is Seth, I sense it in my heart. If the static in my heart wasn't enough, his oversized paws and shinning, puppy dog eyes would be a giveaway.

"Seth," I breath out through my strangled sobs. We're here. The moment that every breath I've breathed has led up to. It's me and Seth, alone, no walls. No distractions. Just us. It's time to face all the tension that's been building up for the past few weeks.

The past few, lonely weeks.

Lonely.

It's one of those words I can say 100 times in my head until it doesn't even sound real. That's okay, I don't need to hear how it sounds. Because I know how it feels, all too achingly well.

He whines, the sound cutting through my hear. His eyes say it hold. They hold weeks of pain, weeks of loneliness just like me. Our silence has effected him more than I thought. He steps an overgrown paw forward gingerly and slowly, ducks down his massive head so our eyes are level, only inches apart.

His eyes are pleading. I know what he is thinking, he is confused. He wants to know why I am here. In the subzero snowfall, letting the flakes gently fall on my hair, my toes and fingers turn white, and my teeth chatter. I point a shivering, frostnipped finger forward.

He turns around, and his eyes land on my parents grave. He reads the tombstones for a few seconds, I can't see his face. He whines again, and turns back around to me, his eyes shinning with sadness. Like an abandoned puppy.

"That's m-my p-parents." I chatter out, knowing he can hear me. I sniffle once, my eyes meeting him. It's time for the truth. It's time to rip out my heart, and let Seth go.

"I can't let you like me." I sniffle again. His head cocks at my statement, confusion. I shiver, unsure of how to continue. We wait a few beats longer, I blink the white crystals out of my eyelashes, Seth nudges his nose against my knee. He wants me to continue.

"I can't like you like me because like... leads to love. And love isn't good." I say definitively. "If I love you, that means you'll leave me." My eyes water again, and I intake sharply through my weeping. I clumsily rub the tears away with the back of my hands.

Seth let's out a deep growl, but not a mean one. I seem to understand his non verbal whines and growls, astonishingly enough. He doesn't agree with what I just said.

"Don't say it's not true. Maybe you don't want to leave me, but we'll get ripped apart from eachother. That's what happens. That's what happens to the people I love," I say more defiantly, if that is possible with my teeth chattering and my sobbing, "The people I love go away, but I don't get to leave with them. I just have to watch it, and I can't do anything," my sobs pick up as I voice something I had never said aloud before, though I had thought it many times.

I let out a strangled, choked sob again, hiccuping after. Seth leans his warm head down and rubs his nose against my cheek, as I let out another soft whimper.

"M-my flowers die every winter," I sniff, less weepy this time, and as chilled as the air around me. "Did you know? I care for them so much, but that doesn't change that they die. My parents left me too, and everyday, I watch my papa struggle to take out the trash, and my nana grow more gray hair, I know they'll leave me soon too."

"The worst day of loving someone is saying goodbye to them," I choke out, "and I won't say goodbye to you Seth Clearwater. I won't. I won't ever do that," with my last words, Seth let's out a faint howl, lifting his magnificent head to the sky.

Seth whines with my tears, licking the side of my face with his warm tongue. He seems to jump when he feels the difference in temperatures between my frozen cheek and his heated tongue. He nudges me lightly to get off of the bench, but I don't budge. Then he starts nudging me more forcefully, off the frozen bench that's now covered in a layer of snow.

Until I'm standing, he crouches down. He wants me to get on his back. I stare at his golden back a moment longer before he growls again, he wants me to hurry. I kick my boot over his body and hold onto his fur, already relishing his heat.

He hesitantly takes a step forward, making sure I am steady, before finding a pace through the thick blanket of snow. He starts towards the exit of the cemetery, but pauses at a tombstone. It's covered with snow, so I can't read the etched writing. Seth lowers his head to move the snow away with his nose- Harry Clearwater.

I gasp at his name, and fist my hands tighter around his neck. "Oh, Seth," I sigh, closing my eyes against his warm body as he continues our walk home.