I feel like painting flowers again when I wake up Saturday morning - but I don’t - just lie staring at the ceiling for ten minutes - willing myself to exist.

I guess that’s an improvement.

I feel heavy - basic existence starts to feel like one of the labors of Hercules.

My mind is heavy - thoughts move sluggishly like shards of ice through a frigid river.

Mrs. Moon is back from San Diego. Her Christmas party/not Christmas party since it’s really the 28th/celebration of me is tonight, and I don’t want to go, but I should - should put on a pretty smile, and good clothes - do my makeup, maybe.

It would be ridiculous for the woman of the hour to show up looking ratty. 

But Kattar will be there, and I couldn’t bear to look him in the face.

I bite my lip.

Flowers. I whisper to my heartache. Just go get flowers.

I force myself out of the covers and into an old, but clean, hoodie I have folded on my nightstand, and try not to remember when and where exactly I got it. It’s barely even mine, and more Kattar’s that I just never returned.

I push that thought away - but pull the drawstrings - making the faded fabric hug me.

Thundering down the stairs with all the force of my resolve - a padded thud - I put on my gloves and wool jacket like a somnambulist in a drugged sleep. 

I take one slow breath to brace myself for the cold, and another - because I really should keep breathing - and stand with my hand on the doorknob, trying to remind myself why I’m moving at all. Bed - Sleep - Shadows - Misery - they all call to me from the dark corners of my bedroom and subconscious, like drowsy sirens - but I choose numbness and let my feet guide me down to the main road, a zombie in kid-sized boots. 

The Dryad’s little shop is closed, so if I want to get fresh flowers for my still life, I’ll have to go all the way into the city, down the roads I walked to the hospital.

Strolling headlong into yesterday, I hit my head against past traumas - or is that an oxymoron?

-See stars-

-I guess by definition, trauma never really ends.

My head hurts.

Just go get flowers.

I avert my eyes as I pass the chocolatier as if it’s haunted - even so I feel the gaze of the chocolate angels in the display case staring at me from beneath their long, tempered lashes, like the shadow lilies from the dream - just one more reminder of that day…  

The insurgence - virulent emotions rise with a violence - noxious flavors in the back of my throat and a poisonous shade in my wind-licked cheeks-

I push it down -

Think less and do more.

I purchase a bouquet of green-house marigolds - almost ugly, orangey flowers like baby suns on fragile stems. 

Etan always hated these, but I loved them, defiantly. I kept a regular little plant nursery in my bedroom by the big window that looked in on my dresser, all a-blossom with red-faced tulips and geraniums, marigolds -

At least until the breakup. 

I didn’t care whether anything lived or died at that point, and the flowers wilted along with me, and after me, when I allowed myself to be rescued. Those poor beauties had no dithering prince charmings coming looking for them.

I set the geraniums down in a jar by the bay window in the living room, and draw back the curtains. As if by magic a chickadee lands on the sill and pecks paradiddles into the glass. 

I imagine it’s the same one, but I don’t really know. I’m not a chickadeeologist. I’m probably just bird-racist.

Methodically I pull out my acrylics in their white tubes squoozed into hourglasses, my brushes - fill my collectible cups with clean water for mixing paints and cleaning bristles, spread paper towel on the coffee table - though it’s already stained to the point of no return - and set up my easel, like a being moving through water.

I mix two or three pools of color- unoriginal green and a couple shades of plain old orange. I make two or three dabs at the canvas.

Nothing. 

She can’t do this today. 

She doesn’t care- doesn’t get frustrated  Doesn’t even want to try to force it.

She doesn’t know whether that’s improvement or complacency. Apathy. 

Her phone rings.

Shannon.

“Hello?” 

Too quiet.

Buck up a little…

“Hello?”

It still sounds hollow, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

His voice is electric with excitement - verging on positive ecstasy - explosive irrepressible exhilaration.

“We got the showcase! Oh my gosh! Alicia! The gallery-! They want you to have a whole section in the gallery - and to do a speech thing  - a talk at the big event for the unveiling. I didn’t even think we’d be able to get it this soon - this is insane. I know it's Saturday and you probably have plans but start thinking about what collection you’d like to put together for the gallery because this is going to be momentous - can you believe it? Alicia?”

“I-I can’t. I’m just so…so…”

Numb.

Sparked out.

Fizzed up and fallen flat.

A volcano that’s emptied itself out - from the very depths of my creature-

I don’t care.

This was supposed to be my big moment.

The moment when I was validated for all the hard work - and all the hours - days, months, and years spent fighting the criticism and the cruelty - and keeping on, despite the voices inside and outside of my head -

Where it wasn’t for nothing  - wasn’t a waste -

All he lost.

I did it, Kattar. Just like you wanted me to.

But would he even care at this point?

Who knows what that man is thinking?

Still, I should go tell him. This was all his doing, and he deserves that much, at least.

The door is closed but unlocked when I arrive at the apartment.

That same mild de ja vu knocks politely on my memory.

Today seems familiar.

Caregivers?

I thought they would have been gone by now, but there’s no reply when I knock.

Kattar would never leave the house or go to sleep with his door unlocked.

A mild anxiety begins scratching at my chest with needle-thin talons - 

What if he passed out - or was rehospitalized - first responders don’t lock doors do they? How could they? They wouldn’t search for keys…

But who would have found him?

Mrs. Moon has to be at her place setting up for the party - 

I push the door open expecting to find nothing less than a white-faced ghost like the one I saw that night in the emergency room, with the blood on its face, and that sickening glow-

Instead, I see Kattar, standing - and that’s enough to leave me flabbergasted - make me wonder if I’m not dreaming again - but then I see how hard he’s leaning on the dining room table, the walker knocked over on its side like it fainted-

And he’s crying…face flushed up to the roots of his hair, now grown out, framing and clinging to his face like black damask as the choked breathless sobs wring themselves from his lungs - and thin rivers of glass, like hairline cracks, stream down his pointed nose and plummet onto the polished wood shining like a mirror - a mahogany ocean.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so fragile and beautiful, and for one fraction of a second, that powerful urge to kiss him tears me in half - and my heart in two-

-I should go over to him - and give in. I should stay right here-

He jumps when he sees me.

I catch the flash of horror - almost fear - as his eyes round out in his burning face like ebony night lights. He looks down quickly, blinking, trying to hide the tears-

And I can’t explain why that makes me so angry…but the sympathy seems to melt into fury - like a horrible evolution - from a worm to a fiery butterfly - bloody nova.

“After all this time…” I try to still my trembling and fail, my voice quaking even as my voice tears the quiet to pieces. “After all this time, you still insist on lying to me?!”

Kattar looks at me stunned, so completely taken aback that there isn’t an ounce of anger or frustration- just confusion, and surprise…

And panic.

“‘It’s okay.’ ‘I’m fine.’ ‘It’s fine.’” I rant, fuming until the whole room seems to burn red “ - can’t you tell me the truth for once in our lives?! Haven’t we been friends long enough for you to trust me with how you actually feel rather than force-feeding me this false front and these white lies made of silence?! Why won’t you just talk to me?!”

I’m crying myself now, weeping and screaming, streams of salt running down my cheeks and into my mouth. It tastes like drowning.

He stares at me from oceans away, still frozen where he was when I started my feverish tirade-

But there’s something in his face that I’ve never seen before.

A new sort of pain - and longing - burning him from the inside out.

The rosy lips part - 

But…

We’re not ones for telling the truth.

Old habits die hard.

Harder than wishes and fantasies and castle-in-the-sky-day-dreams-

Harder than feelings ever do.