Green

Green was the color of my mother's vomit, from when she had a fetus in her stomach; me. It's easy to be disgusted by that, but green was also the color of the grass on which I found my first steps.

Green painted the picturesque hills I saw on my first ever road trip, when I was nine. And there were about a million shades of green in your eyes, that day I met you.

Never would I have dreamed that those green eyes would haunt me until now, five years later. Those precious emerald pupils that would soften upon spotting me in a crowd.

You sauntered over, didn't you? Offered your hand and told me your name. Lucas, you said. Charlotte, I replied. Sandy hair tousled on your scalp, and your green eyes flashing with amusement and a soft mischievousness that made my heart race.

The first thing I ever noticed about you was your eyes, the color of a forest after rainfall. Vibrant, full of life, shimmering in a way that made my heart beat in a rhythm I never knew existed. I remember thinking that green was a color that had always been part of me, and now, somehow, you were too.

Green is such a foundational part of me, something that has always nestled in my roots, whether as a child or, now, as a full-grown adult. That's why, maybe, I was named Charlotte Greene, against the fact that I was supposed to take my father's last name like my mother did.

Maybe my mother saw something in me before I even knew myself. Maybe she knew green would follow me for the rest of my life, like an omnipresent force wrapping around my soul, binding me to every memory, every moment that shaped me.

The color green for me is like having an eternal crush. Whenever I stumble upon something green, whether in person or in private, my heart would do a little flip that has nothing to do with the object itself.

Is it because it reminds me of you? And green fills me with a twinge of regret and longing. Green... green. I wished the line on the monitor was green that night at the hospital.

Instead, it turned red, a color that I deeply dread. You lay there, wide green eyes staring right into mine, before you took my hand and lisped with your last effort my favorite word.

"Green."

I'm sorry, Lucas. I should have been there. Maybe if my presence was present earlier, that monitor line would have stayed green. Like the treetops on our adventures together. Like the lake near the old farm, where we used to share stories and stolen glances.

Do you remember that time we got lost in the woods, too caught up in our laughter to notice the sun had set? We had made crowns of leaves and danced like we were kings and queens of our own tiny, emerald world. The fireflies danced with us, twinkling in the humid summer air. You had leaned in close, your breath warm against my ear as you whispered, "We'll always find our way back to green."

We never found our way back, did we? Instead, I lost you to a fate crueler than any villain in a fairy tale. I lost you to a night painted in sirens and flashing lights, to doctors with hollow eyes and hushed voices, to the slow, shattering realization that nothing would ever be the same again.

The color green mocked me at your funeral. The wreaths were fresh and full of ivy, the trees swayed gently in the breeze, the grass over your grave lush and defiant, as if life itself was trying to taunt me. I stood there, hands trembling, clutching the bouquet of white lilies I knew you'd hate because they were too plain. You always said I should bring something green. But what was I supposed to do? Bring you leaves? Bring you a reminder of everything we had and everything we'd lost?

The world still moved on, even when I couldn't. People smiled, laughed, held hands under canopies of green leaves. How could they? How could the world still turn when yours had stopped spinning?

I started to see green in a different way. It was no longer the color of life, of adventure, of love. It became a sickly hue, a reminder of all the things I could not fix, of all the things I had failed to prevent. It was the color of envy as I watched others live the life you should have had. It was the color of decay, of wilting flowers left too long in vases, of the mold that crept along the edges of forgotten things.

And yet, despite my resentment, I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t stop myself from searching for you in the folds of nature, in the twist of vines, in the glimmer of jade rings on strangers' hands. I kept you with me in every blade of grass, in every breath of fresh air, in every aching, hollow part of my chest that still remembered the way you laughed.

I visited your grave again last night. The wind was gentle, whispering through the trees. The grass had grown taller, the leaves above me rustling softly, as if whispering secrets I wasn’t meant to hear. And then, for the first time in years, I let myself say your name aloud.

"Lucas."

And in the hush that followed, in the stillness of the night, I swore I heard your voice, just barely, just for a second. A whisper on the wind.

"Green."

And suddenly, I wanted to hold onto it again. The green of the world, the green that you left behind. Not as a ghost, not as a haunting, but as a promise. A promise that you were here once, that you loved, that you laughed, that you existed. A promise that maybe, one day, I could look at green and feel something other than pain.

But for now, all I feel is blue, and red, and yellow. Anything, please, anything, but green.