One. Two. Three.

“…asya.”

Exactly three strands remained atop Ali hoca’s head. Would they fall off soon, unable to bear the autumn breeze meandering through the school corridor?

“Akasya.”

My fingers twitched around the shoulder straps of my school bag, itching to take my camera out for a picture of the dancing fellows.

Ali hoca huffed. “Akasya, are you listening to me?”

My eyes reluctantly met his. “Of course, sir.”

He crossed his arms over his pot belly. “And what was I talking about?”

‘Pot bellies are the balcony of the male body, Asya’ — Don’t break eye contact. “My hair color, sir.”

My hair was fully white; it had been since my sixth birthday when I witnessed just how dangerous love could be. A shiver worked to pull me out of the memory.

Ali hoca cleared his throat, looking down his bulbous nose at me. “Yes, that’s right. As you know, dyeing your hair is against school regulations.”

“Sir, as I’ve been telling you since last year; my hair isn’t dyed. The follicles lost their pigment due to a medical condition.”

“And as I’ve already told you, we need a doctor’s report as proof.”

Oh, but then my mornings wouldn’t stay the same, would they?

I smiled politely. “Sir, do you think my hair is healthy?”

Ali hoca glanced at my long hair, in two braids today that brushed against my hips as if to taunt his pate. “How is that relevant?”

“Because hair dyes hurt the hair. It would be ruined by now if I retouched my roots all the time.” My eyes returned to the dancing friends. “Though I suppose you wouldn’t know about such details.”

His face turned bright red as his arms uncrossed and his back straightened. “You—”

A playful warning chime cut him off.

Just in time.

“I must get to my classroom now, if you’ll allow it.”

Ali hoca waved a finger at me. “This conversation isn’t over, you hear me?”

Of course it isn’t.

***

“Made it,” I said with a grin as I entered 10-B, my classroom for the year.

Some classmates glanced at me but most ignored me, which I didn’t mind because my words weren’t for them.

Bilge, my desk mate and childhood friend, chuckled as she stood up to let me scoot over to my seat by the window. “Made it, my butt.”

Çınar, my other childhood friend, leaned forward to join the conversation from behind as Bilge sat back down. “You got stopped again?” His green eyes rolled playfully. “He should really give up at this point. Who cares what you look like?”

“Heh. And you think he’d like to hear that from someone who attaches decorative chains to his glasses?”

He raised a palm in front of my face with his back straight. “Now, I’ll stop you right there, Asya hanım. My chains are all precious gifts from dear Bilge. And this particular one,” he waved a hand delicately, showing off the cinar leaf charms strung on metal hoops, “—was for passing my high school entrance exams.”

“That it is,” Bilge said, narrowing her golden brown eyes at me in jest. “Respect my gifts or I’ll take away yours.”

The gift in question was the camera that counted the minutes to after school inside my bag so I placed a hand over my heart and made a show of bowing my head. “Please excuse my rudeness, Bilge hanım. Anything but that!”

Bilge nodded once. “As long as you understand.”

Our literature teacher, Ayşe hoca, came in just then. “Alright, class. Settle down.”

We stood up to greet her as she walked past the three rows of desks lining the classroom.

“Good morning.” She gazed through the rows of students as she put her bag on the teacher’s desk in front of Bilge and my desk.

“Good morning,” we greeted back, still standing.

“You may sit down. Now,” she said as she walked up to the whiteboard with the coursebook in hand. A playful smile brightened her face as she faced us. “Who here remembers where we left off last time?”

“We had just started studying a poem from late Ottoman period about hanahaki, ma’am.”

“Ah, right. Open to page 41, everyone. Now, Akasya, can you remind us what hanahaki is?”

I stood up, ignoring the way my neck prickled at the topic. “Yes, ma’am. Hanahaki is the Japanese name for a disease we used to call serpinti or şebnem. The body starts producing flowers that bloom generally within the heart, lungs, or the throat; suffocating the patient in the long run if left untreated. As it’s brought about by unrequited love, and has flowers associated with it, it used to be a popular motif during the late Ottoman period.”

“Perfect. You may sit down. Now, in this stanza the poet says…”

About 15 minutes into class, she paused to go through the roll-call.

“Akasya.”

I raised my hand. “Here.”

“Ateş.” Her eyes traveled over the classroom in the following silence. “Ateş Temmuz? Looks like he’s absent again,” she murmured as she jotted a note onto today’s page of the class journal.

“Do you think he bloomed?” a student whispered from the back of the room.

“Bilal.”

“Here,” the student just now replied.

“Ateş notified the school that he would join us soon. I understand that speculating can be fun but hanahaki is a dangerous sickness. Let’s not joke about it, hmm?”

“I understand, ma’am.”

“Good. Bilge.”

Bilge raised her hand next to me. “Here.”

“Çınar.”

“Here,” Çınar said from behind Bilge and so the roll-call went on as I stared out the windows.

The breeze from earlier had picked up into a howling wind, hindering the work of the janitors down in the front yard as they did their best to rake the falling leaves into a pile.

I shivered in sympathy as I sent a ‘good luck’ to them. They wouldn’t hear it, but whatever moved this universe surely accepted wishes, right?

Not that I would know.

My mind returned to the classroom when Ayşe hoca concluded the roll-call with a hum.

“Looks like, other than Ateş, everyone is here.” She pursed her lips as she tapped a foot, making her low heel click on the marble floor.

My lips made a small ‘pop’, a small habit I had picked up the day my hair turned white.

Windows shivered next to me, fighting against the wind trying to pry them open.

“Well, nothing we can do about an absentee!” She put the class journal back on the teacher’s desk and returned to her spot in front of the whiteboard. Her dyed-blonde ponytail swished as she turned to us with sparkling brown eyes. “Let’s return to the lesson. So; who wants to tell me about..?”

***

“Are we eating in the back yard again?” Çınar asked in a buzz brought about by the lunch break chime.

“No,” Bilge said and they exchanged a glance that made my stomach churn for some reason.

Still, I did my best to smile. “What is it?”

She grinned at me. “It’s nothing bad. We just have something to tell you.”

Oh.

“It’s so stuffy in here!” a girl, Sude, complained as she opened the windows next to me, letting the howling wind burst its way inside.

Bilge shivered a bit, glaring at Sude but her smile immediately returned when Çınar leaned forward to wrap his lanky arms around her shoulders.

Oh, they’re going to bloom.

“I’m going out for a breather,” I blurted. “Move out of the way.”

Çınar looked at me with his brows furrowed. “Asya, before that we—”

“Move!”

The chatting inside the classroom stopped as my friends looked at me with wide eyes.

I can’t stay here. I need to move. I need to—

I pushed the desk I shared with Bilge, making it screech against the floor until it stood perpendicular to its usual spot.

“Asya?” Bilge asked, her voice shaking a little.

I snatched my school bag and ran. I ran out of there, picking my coat off the wall hanger on the way, as the wind continued to howl around me.

Thuds from my combat boots turned to slaps, and slaps turned to splashes upon the pavement as I ran through the wind and the rain.

300 meters along the school street, then turn right.

50 meters and wait for the light to turn green before crossing the road.

Turn left and cross another road onto Lalren Boulevard.

Continue to run, splashing puddles everywhere; all the way to the entrance to Lalren Park.

The path was familiar, as was the destination. I had wrestled into my black coat at some point but, as early autumn winds continued to mourn the annual death of life, my hood kept falling down to let the tears of the sky wet my hair.

I want to cry, too.

But I couldn’t. I was too used to swallowing tears since that sixth birthday when my mom bloomed.

Are my friends going to bloom, too? Am I going to lose them because of this? No. Please, no.

My phone lit up with notifications inside my coat pocket, the sound barely grazing the surface of my panicked mind.

I’m going to lose my friends. Love takes everything away. Flowers take everything away. Everything and everyone and I’ll be all alone at the end.

My lips made a popping sound over and over again as my hood fell back once more and, this time, I let it stay down.

“Pop. Pop. Pop, pop, pop, pop, poppy goes pop pop, pop pop pop…”

A gentle, warm voice came from somewhere nearby. “…Are you okay?”

I couldn’t answer because pop went the poppy and pop my friends would go, too. I continued to sing and mumble to myself as warm, long arms wrapped around my shivering frame and guided me away.