Lillies

I lied. I’d bought them for Lily.

Perhaps because she’s named after them, though I don't really believe that anyone is especially attached to their names. I’m certainly not a fan of bills.

Perhaps because the small crinkled lady in the corner florist had looked like she’d needed a sale. She had sprung from her plastic stool as I’d sidled into the shop, leaving me without the option of walking back out again empty handed.

Or perhaps because I am hopelessly in love, to the point that I don’t even recognize myself, and God knows now I don’t recognize Lily.

I’d wanted to patch things up after another turbulent weekend. I couldn’t even remember what we’d argued about, but it’d probably been my fault. It was always my fault. She’s sensitive and I can tread heavily. Recently it felt like I was doing less and less to prompt the snarled critiques. As if it were just me that was bothering her.

I wanted to hit a refresh, take things back to how they’d been at the beginning, when we were just getting to know one another, and things had been loose and easy. Buying flowers felt like a more manageable alternative.

What are you doing here? she’d asked me, one foot still hooked around the door, keeping it close, something tucked inside.

I wanted to see you. Can I come in?

Her eyes flicked across to the other side of the street, as if her answer was written on the recycling bins that were vomiting pieces of plastic across the road.

I thought she looked sad and confused. There was a vertical line above her nose which usually appeared when she was reading, or when she was trying to pretend that someone wasn’t annoying her.

What’s going on? Are you okay?

As if my first reaction was to worry about her! I’ve a favorite line by Katherine Mansfield, something about people clinging to hope like trees cling to their last leaves. That was me then, still thinking, hoping, that there was something wrong with her. Something we could mop up together. Not something wrong with us.

Then something muffled sounded from inside the apartment, in which she lives alone. We’d been talking about looking for a place together, but she’d been putting it off with various excuses about work and her parents and something about her neighbor’s cat. Maybe I could have read a little more into that.

As I waited for her to grace me with a reply and she searched under her nails for something tasty, there was a creak of moving weight, and unmistakable steps across the hall. Then the tap sounded. 

Lily spat out her fingers and tightened her mouth into a line.

You should go.

And I did, half staggering backwards down the stairs, suddenly desperate to be rid of her, but scared to take my eyes off her face, lest I never see it again. She turned away and shut the door.

In hindsight, I’m surprised I didn’t even look for a fight. Maybe I didn’t want to see if he was someone I knew, or someone better-looking, more defined, or younger than me. One of those lean, artfully-tattooed types who intimidate me when I’m ordering a coffee. Maybe a confrontation would have made it seem too real, too final, or perhaps I’m just a coward. Either way, I walked away, a chastised child finally swallowing the fact that he won’t get the thing he’s been nagging for.

How she had filled things up at first, infusing life with promise and plans. Now it felt as though she hadn’t just sucked all that back out, but had taken more than she’d ever given. I could feel parts of me I’d held years before meeting her being destroyed, eroded away by an overwhelming sense of failure. I felt paper thin, like an ashy cancer patient. A woman with a pram took a stern look at me and steered her child protectively to one side.

I walked. I didn’t feel like getting into a bus or calling a cab. I couldn’t face sharing air with a stranger. I could barely catch enough of it for myself as it was.

I walked. The townhouses slid past me, out of focus. Spring was everywhere. I could smell it, but I couldn’t see it. Not the flowers spilling out of carefully trimmed baskets, nor the trees rubbing their eyes sleepily and stretching out freshly blossomed arms to the bright sky.

I walked. I didn’t have a place in mind, but my feet took me to my family home, which was only a few blocks from Lily’s place. It’s meant to be, I’d thought when I’d visited her for the first time. Mum had been thrilled. She’d thought it’d give me a reason to stop by more, though it hadn’t. Lily had reserved our spare afternoons for her own parents.

Mum was sitting out front when I lifted the latch on her gate. She pushed herself up onto her slippered feet as soon as she caught sight of me.

Goodness, I’d just been thinking about you, she beamed, genuinely taken aback by the strike of fate. As if she had other multiple people that she might have been thinking about.

Her face was full of excitement, and she leaned herself forward and back a couple of times as if unable to know what to do with this unexpected visitor. I realized it’d been some time since I’d been to visit. Between work, Lily, Lily’s family, Lily’s friends, and trying to maintain some vestige of my own social life, she seemed to slip through the cracks.

Mum caught sight of the flowers, and her face became a little question, which she shook away as her eyes sparkled from surprise to - were they tears? I wondered when had been the last time that someone had bought her flowers. Surely not since my dad had passed?

I took her hand in mine and it surprised me, feeling fragile and light. Affection for this woman who was so happy to see me swelled in my chest. Looking down into her face, I suddenly wasn’t paper thin at all, but only a little battered. I felt a fool, and had an urge to sit down and rest my head on her knees, as I’d done as a little boy.

I handed her the flowers.

These are for you, I said, because I love you.