Hate Me Love Me

26| One Last Chance 🌊

֍҉֍҉♥҉֍҉֍

"In the end, we only regret the chances we didn't take." --- Lewis Carroll.

֍҉֍҉♥҉֍҉֍

Chroma held a galaxy within her mind. So many atoms. So many unanswered questions. So many secrets.

And I wanted to know them all. I wanted her to want to tell me. I wanted all her words. All her thoughts. All her trust. All her rare smiles.

And that's what made me follow her from school, after watching her sniff away tears.

The petrichor emanating from the soil was the only evidence that it had rained that afternoon, as a blessing on Mothers Day. I watched curiously as she sprinkled water over the grave, using a tiny, dull-yellow watering can, covered with faded red hearts. A twelve-year-old shouldn't have to deal with this. Nobody should.

But alas, death is inevitable.

"Most people put flowers," I whispered, standing as still as possible. She turned to me, unsurprised with my presence, and let out an uneven sigh.

"What's the point if she won't see them?" she replied, pain etched in her syllables.

"Why water, then?"

We both stood side-by-side and looked down at the freshly watered grave as the wind susurrated around us.

"Don't you know? They say water has memory," she answered quietly, her voice thick with emotion. "If I collect water from places she loved and sprinkle it over her, she'll be able to see. To feel. The memories of those places won't leave her. Even if she left them."

Her words entwined like spun silk around my mind. The eyes are the gateway to the soul. Maybe that's the reason people cry. And all the unwanted memories spill out in tears, nourishing and calming your soul. Maybe that's why you feel so empty and emotionless right after you cry.

But tears have been in your head. They've seen your mind and memories. The water she sprinkled over the grave was from several taps. How could it have seen people playing in the park, or shopping, or eating?

"How does this water show her places? It was in tunnels underground," I asked curiously.

She looked at me then, her ineffable peacock eyes squinting at mine, glossy with tears. "Isn't that where the real beauty is? Roots within the ground?"

She was aquiver, but her voice was still mellifluous. She drove me into oblivion with everything but her words. They lingered between us. Danced in my blood and tickled my bones. Her eyes misted over and I could just make out my own, entranced expression reflected on them.

I was a petal and she was a thorn. I was surrounded and she was avoided. To the naked eye, we were together like being underneath the same sky. But from that ephemeral moment in the graveyard, talking about the memory of water, my roots were entangled with hers from below. Nobody would know until they dug deep enough.

And I knew, right then and there as I got lost in her inky eyes and thoughtful expression, sharing fragments of beliefs, that I was utterly infatuated, and drowning in trouble.

֍҉֍҉♥҉֍҉֍

The waves rise, rise, rise. They get lower as they come closer, and then they crash into a whirlwind of white foam and splashes onto the shore. They retreat. Repeat. Again and again and again. Taking grains of sand with them every time. 

As if it's asking me to wash away his sins.

'I knew I was in trouble, Valerie. And I knew you'd be in trouble. Because if my father found out...'