Life began to blur in and out of focus for Karlie and Taylor once the summer had ended. School began once again for Taylor, in New York, and before September was over, her lilies had wilted.
“Summer flowers,” she told herself, “It’s because they’re summer flowers.”
Still, the bouquet remained in a vase in her room until the end of the year, until her mother finally was forced to throw out the dead flowers.
Taylor came home one day and longed to see the bouquet, but found them missing instead. She did not bother asking her mother or one of the maids where it went – she had known that it would only be a matter of time before she needed to let them go.
And so she continued on with her life, until the school year was over and she no longer came home wishing to see a bouquet of white lilies, no longer crying herself to sleep at night.
Karlie eventually returned to work again, and when school started, found that there were plenty of distractions for her to keep her mind off of Taylor. The hurt was always there, but the memories were pushed back to a distant part of her mind, so Karlie could focus on other things instead. But she was in the countryside and appreciated the sunrise and sunset every day, was reminded almost constantly of Taylor – Taylor could not do the same.
They only thought of each other from time to time now, when someone struck a nerve or mentioned flowers and sunsets, but these longings of each other, too, had been pushed aside.
The summer came and went, and Karlie could not help but to wonder if the big manor on the other side of town would stay empty. Taylor secretly wished that her family would go back to the manor, but to no avail. They were separated like this, thinking of each other but never being able to see one another; it was the first summer apart, the summer trying to push all thoughts of each other aside.
Taylor would be entering college that fall, and Karlie would be staying in the same town as she always did, so she could live and breathe by the sunset and be plagued by lilies every summer.
They distanced themselves like this, and finally managed to store each other at the back of their minds so they could continue living – but never forgetting.
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Taylor entered her college with many hopes. She felt like it would be the commencement of something new, felt like it was time to leave a part of her life behind her and finally move on.
She was walking down a corridor one day after class holding some of her textbooks. She turned the corner and ran into another person, spilling all her books onto the floor. The man quickly picked up all the books before she even bent down and handed them back to her.
“Sorry,” he said with a big smile, “Didn’t see you there.”
“It’s fine,” she said.
She would have been slightly annoyed, had not his smile been so charming. She took the books back and continued walking, the man walking away in the opposite direction, glancing behind every few steps at her retreating figure.
It was the start of something new, indeed.
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Karlie awoke one morning and headed downstairs to eat breakfast. School had finished, and now all Karlie did was work. She never spent any of her wages, so although she received relatively small pay, she had amassed enough money for her own house if she ever decided that she wanted one.
But for now, she was still living happily with her parents, who were now gone by the time she woke up and often didn’t come home till she was preparing to go to bed.
