White Petals of Time

A rush of white. Doctors’ voices are drowned out by my racing thoughts. Max is in a stretcher being raced to the emergency room. Doctors are holding me back from running to him. My throat burns. Max is receding from my vision.

The doctors manage to get me back into the waiting room. They are speaking to me but I don’t know what they are saying. They sit me down in a chair. I am silent. One moment I see a spinning white walled room and the next I can’t see anything as my vision blurs and cold tears make their path down my cheeks.

At some point the doctors leave the waiting room, I assume thinking I will behave. My right leg starts bouncing up and down. Then the left. Then I am braiding my hair. Then I just can’t sit still. I snap up to stand and pace the waiting room. Everyone here is probably also on the brink of insanity waiting for a loved one, or close to it, but I need to move.

Max got into a car accident a mere fifteen minutes ago. Within that amount of time I had gone from having the rest of my days with the guy to not knowing if I will ever talk to him again.

Our relationship is a result of the chance that we both needed an escape from reality at the same time.

The air of the Dark Forest had always calmed me when I felt insecure. I would walk down the same path that leads to a softly flowing river that would allow my shoulders to drop as it immediately released the tension from my body. 

That one one day as I walked to the leisure river, I saw the crown of a brunette boy’s head from a distance. 

It was unusual to have seen another person here. I always came here and I was the only person in the world for a while. Who was he? Why am I just now seeing him?

Once I got to the river’s edge, where the boy was sitting, I sat down right next to him. He jumped slightly and jerked his head in my direction.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Do you mind if I sit here?” I smiled at him to make him feel more comfortable.

“No I guess I don’t mind.” He looks back toward the river full of water lilies then looks into my eyes again. “Do you come here often?”

“Almost everyday. Why? What about you?” I replied.

“Same. And we never met before? Hmm.” 

He was kind of awkward but I could tell he was trying not to be. What was I doing wrong?

I came up and talked to him out of nowhere. He is probably uncomfortable. He picked up a stem of a water lily from the river and twists it between his fingers.

“Do they calm you too?” I asked him.

He twisted it a few more times between his fingers before he answered. “Not specifically. It’s this place,” he gestures to the forest as a whole, “that just helps me mentally recede from society since I can’t do that in reality. People have physically tried that before and it didn’t work out too well for them.”

“What’s your name?” I asked. His presence was surprisingly comforting.

“Max. Yours?”

“Alison. True, the Black Forest can help you mentally recede, but I also read a lot to do the same. Reading tends to be more effective for me. It’s like you can get into someone’s head with their issues and you completely forget about your own.”

“I see. I read too. I also sing.”

I turn my head to him. “Sing?”

He takes his eyes off the water lily to look at me. “Yeah, I mean, it’s not that weird.”

I shake my head. He is taking this the wrong way. He probably thinks I am judging him when he must be doing that for me. I didn’t want him to judge me but he seems like someone I would have been great friends with. “No, I think that is really cool. I legitimately can’t sing so it’s impressive.”

“Ah.”

That’s all he said. He doesn’t believe me. I probably have already ruined another relationship with someone before it even starts because I don’t think before I blurt something that seemed to have been taken offense to. 

“Alison, how long do you usually stay here?”

“It depends. Although if you don’t mind, I would like to here for a while.”

“Of course I don’t mind.”

“Alison?” I halt mid step and jerk my head toward the voice, breaking my out of the memory. A doctor came and is now looking at me with soft eyes. “You can see Max now.”

I booked myself over to the doctor. It would be impossible for her to lead me slower to the otherworldly room that held Max badly wounded from this cursed accident.

As soon as I take in his entire form lying there with his eyes closed and covered in purple bruises and red rashes, I can’t help but gasp as my hand subconsciously goes to cover my mouth. 

“Alison, before you go over to him I wanted to let you know that he is alive right now but due to the circumstances of the accident, there isn’t a way for us to keep him alive till morning.”

He is alive for now after the car accident? What even happened? I don’t want to know right now honestly. I literally cannot stand on my own two feet any longer but I manage to drag myself over to a chair next to Max on the hospital bed.

I gaze upon his perfect features and just hope that he will be able to talk to me at least one more time before he really is gone.

His face goes a bit fuzzy as I just can’t believe this is happening to him. To us. He has such a beautiful soul that took some time worth spent trying to uncover. He always hid his personality, feelings, and his presence from everyone before we met but not after too long he started to open up more.

We were ambling our way into the Black Forest when he was telling me about his irritations being an introvert. 

“People feel way too comfortable asking the most strange questions. ‘Why are you quiet?’ or ‘Do you talk?’ are not questions people should feel the need to say.”

“I’ve heard of that. I would never say stuff like that. It’s part of your personality.” 

“I know. You aren’t like those fools. You actually listen to what I say. Or there are people who treat me like a child. Can someone explain the correlation? Are these people incapable of knowing that there boundaries when communicating? They catapult themselves 7 miles past that boundary when they make those stupid comments.”

“I don’t have lengthy accounts like that but I have been called annoying several times. I do talk a lot but it’s not like I am obnoxious or like the people you are describing.”

Max belted a laugh. “Yeah, never be like them.”

We fell into a comfortable silence when there was a soft breeze through the forest that sifted through the various shades of leaves in the trees and the little water lilies growing along the river. 

“For someone like me who talks a lot you would think I would have more friends but I don’t have that many. I don’t think that people like me or I am too weird or … I don’t know.”

He puts his hand on my arm to stop us walking, forcing me to look at him. “You think everyone around you is judging you? Look around, including me. Not only is everyone more worried about themselves, but if they are, why let it bother you? Nobody is perfect enough to be justified to judge someone else for their flaws when everyone has a laundry list of flaws themselves.”

“Am I that easy to figure out?”

He gave me half a grin. “You think I couldn’t tell that about you the first time we met? I practically read people for a living.”

“Alison.”

I am clutching his hand firmly but his eyes are still closed, and he still knew it was me. 

“Max, how do you feel?”

His lips widen into a beautiful smile and chuckles lightly. “Your hand is sweaty. Still nervous when I am around?”

My leg starts bouncing again.

His smile fades. “Wait. Where am I?”

His eyelids stiffly flutter open a bit but squints as he acclimates to the fluorescent lights above.

He squeezes his eyes and lips tightly shut as he grabs my hand tighter.

“Why am I in a hospital?” He slowly whispers. 

I cover our joint hands with my other hand and gently rub his until he lets his grip loosen slightly.

“Max, what is the last thing you remember?”

He starts slowly lifting his eyelids again and looks me in the eyes and speaks disconnectedly. “I was driving. It was night. It was … bright … headlights. I was in a car accident. Oh yeah. Alison? Have the doctors said anything about, you know, my time?”

I dig my nails deep into the skin of my own hand, hidden from his view, so I could manage the words without doing something stupid, like ball my eyes out until I am dehydrated or scream until my throat catches on fire. “Yeah. You don’t have much time. A few hours by now at the very latest. I want to spend every moment we have left with you. Tell me everything you want me to do and it is done.”

He just stares into my eyes with a blank expression. He looks away as his eyebrows draw together and his face contorts like he is going to cry but he doesn’t. He stays like this for several minutes before he breaks into a wide grin again and meets my eyes once more.

“Don’t you remember when I finally got the balls to tell you about what I feared?”

I arrange my features into a confused expression then he recalls the memory.

We were sitting by the edge of a river again in the Black Forest with our legs swinging back and forth within the flowing water. When I had a question for him.

“What was your first impression of me?”

“You know, when we first met I was glad some stranger approached me out of nowhere and started talking to me. It may shock you but that I thoroughly enjoy that. Strangers don’t know me so I just try my best to say whatever comes to mind, which can be hard when your mind is blank in social situations. I fear the pressure of socializing with people but I want to fit in, hence trying.” He looked over and smiled. “What about my impression?”

“I enjoy talking to new people, I always have and when I started talking to you, I didn’t want to mess it up. You seemed like someone that everyone needs in their life.” I paused for a moment. “And I wanted to impress you.” I picked up a nearby almost fully grown water lily by my knee.

“Impress me?” He scoffed. “I think you are the one I needed to impress, considering what society thinks of me. You remember that conversation.”

I giggled and leaned my head on his shoulder as he took the water lily from my hand and put it in my hair.

I couldn’t help the smirk that pulled at my lips at that one. I thought Max was adorable for what he confessed that day.

I flip my hair over my shoulder. “You can’t help becoming the best version of yourself when you are with me. I will respectfully take responsibility.”

He clicks his tongue. “Don’t act like you didn’t have your fair share of confidence within yourself that I am respectfully responsible for.” He darts his eyes out of eye contact and purses his lips so the smile doesn’t escape them.

“What are you referring to exactly?”

He meets my gaze again and grins.

This time, we had walked up to the top of a steep hill that overlooked a large scene of the forest. A mass of green took over my vision from below with dots of red and white from the leaves changing color and the water lilies that peered up at Max and I. He puts his arm around my shoulders as we admire the scene for several silent minutes except for the distant birds and the wind rustling the leaves around us. 

“Do you think that we could find more strangers around here ‘escaping’ like we were?” Max said. He snickers. “We could form our own little gang.”

I turn my head from one beautiful scene to the one of Max and speak seriously. “I wouldn’t want that.”

He meets my gaze and his face falls so close to mine. “What do you mean? I didn’t actually mean we should do that.”

I tilt my head back and let out a breathy laugh. “What I mean is that all I want is this.”

I close the tiny distance left between our faces and meet our warm lips. My heart started pounding faster as he responded with the same affection. 

Once we pulled away after several minutes, I briefly bit my lip and spoke. “Let’s just say I wouldn’t want a third party.”

His face turns a little rosy. “Well it’s good news that I feel the same.”

We were both laughing at that as we looked back at how far we have come together. 

He starts coughing and I immediately stop laughing myself as the situation slaps me in the face.

He stops coughing but he looks to be getting worse every moment.

“Alison. Remember earlier when you asked if there was anything you could do for me when I am gone?”

I focus on his eyes that are trying to stay open to get these words out but it is clearly a great struggle. “Yes, I remember. Anything.”

Several doctors come into the room at that moment and quickly work with the machines around me and are telling me to get up but I can’t wait until I hear what Max has to say.

“Bury me with water lilies.”

Beeeeeeeep

A doctor pulls me out of the room as I stare at Max as long as I can before the door closes. 

Everything is so hazy I can’t walk right without the doctor supporting me.

What was the meaning of the water lilies? What did he see?

I break free of the doctor and run outside where I can do everything that I couldn’t in the room with Max: scream and cry.

It’s something that I will realize later when Max is lying in his casket with a bouquet of lilies on his chest. Everyone has beautiful petals that someone may or may not discover, even if a person doesn’t see it themselves. Max and I not only grew as people together but with the water lilies that we were escaping to everyday. We met with water lilies, and we will part with them.