Chapter 1
Some roses are just meant to be left to wilt. All roses are born to die, some are just destined to die faster. Some are just destined to die alone. Some are just destined to be stomped on and ignored.
And that’s how it is. It was destined. Right from the start. His bold, dominant walk. His big black boots used to represent his soul. His piercings from head to toe. The tattoos littering his body. Not a single area uncovered. Not a single space left between the tattoos in his heart that he would use to keep me. To keep what I thought we had.
One day, he came. Just like that. The brightest smile, so genuine it seemed unreal. It was unreal. He looked at me as though he cared. I knew he never did, but then again, did he? Maybe there was just a part of me that wished he did care. So much so, I create an image all the while being blind as to what has always been in front of me. He cared for me like no one ever has. He seemed to know me better than even myself. He was made for me. I was convinced. Convinced by the whispered reassurances he gave to me when we were alone. Little did I realise, there was a reason it was always only whispers. There was a reason it only happened behind closed doors.
He’d tell me the world outside that cage he locked me in was too dangerous. Nothing a frail flower like me should or could handle. Nothing worth the time of such a rare and beautiful flower. Turns out, what was outside that door would soon find a way through the cracks of the walls. Like the cracks within my heart. Seeping through like a crashing of tidal waves. It started slow, like it always has. Single drops, parted distantly. No way was a dumb delusional flower like me supposed to know that it gets faster. No way was I to understand the law of physics.
I would be told every time tears rolled down my cheeks in fear that the walls were going to break down on me, “Look away. Just cover your eyes with those petals of yours. Just like this” and he would reach out and hold my hand. So gently I wasn’t sure if I was moving it myself.
“See. Now there’s nothing to see. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” he would reassure with a gentle smile. I would bloom back at him. He was my saviour. He was the one to deal with my problems when I didn’t how to. Just like that, those cracks were gone. But I should’ve known better. Nothing ever just disappears. Nothing. Nothing except maybe him.
One day, he broke. He exploded, like mine bombs. He wasn’t designed to tick away and combust at a certain time, it seemed as though I created that time. Right when we locked eyes, I had stepped on him. I had stepped on a mine bomb, I just never realised it. Because mine bombs aren’t meant to explode until you release you pressure on it. That’s all it took. When I no longer had to depend on me as much. When he no longer had to put the flower on his head. When I lifted myself out, and there was no longer pressure on him.
The screaming. The thrashing. He was the tidal wave that I never knew. All this time, fearing the water dropping from the ceiling. The chatters that passed through under the doors and between the hinges of the windows. The biggest threat was here all along. The biggest wave, the loudest remark. It was him. It was the only thing I was aloud to let in through the doors.
This time I cried, he no longer held me close, in his palms. He no longer sheltered me from the external rain. Rather, he was trapping me inside of his hands. Pushing in closer and closer until I was suffocating. He was trapping me in, inside all the unknown, inside my own confusion. He was using myself against me. He was holding me to make sure that my thorns were the ones stabbing my delicate petals. This way, it was never his fault. It was never him pushing me, it was myself. I was his weapon against me.
This time I looked back the cracks on the walls, they weren’t just tiny lines. The were gaping holes. Salt water streaming steadily inside. All of it pooling beneath my feet. Just enough for it to touch my toe. Just enough for it to hit me. The fragile flower. I cried. Unable to move. How was I supposed to know how to when he had always been the one to move me around.
Now that I could see behind these doors, I understood more. I felt more on my own. There was pressure on me, and it wasn’t soft and reassuring, but bold and dominating. It was him, it was the him I had forgotten. It was the him I had chosen to forget. His fingertips on my skin was enough to bruise layers of my petal. One push he had forced on me was enough to tear my petals apart, shattered into millions of tiny pieces. One hard pinch from him was enough to pull out a whole petal, clean off my skin. That’s exactly what happened. Petal by petal, I was slowly dying alive. I had never realised how many times I had to go through this. He made me blind. Made me numb. Numb enough for him to tear it all apart without me even flinching. It was easy. It must be. After all, I was just a stupid fragile rose.
One day, he left; left without warning, without a goodbye, without connection. Leaving me lifeless on the floor. Facing all those massive holes on the walls that was used to blind me from the outside. Now, it was open for me to see. It was all here, the freedom, the explanation I had asked him for. Only, I no longer needed to see it.
Before him, I was stuck somewhere I wasn’t sure I belonged. I was lonely and uncared for. From the moment he turned around to look at my limping body, I thought this was where I’d find the answers. When the doors clicked behind us, I never prepared myself to be stuck in here for eternity. From the moment water started seeping in, I had thought he was there to protect me. From the moment he broke, I had long realised what I never had. When he left, there was nothing here anymore.
What could a rose do when it was thrown onto the dry, hard floor. All it could do was starve, shake, cry, and slowly but painfully await it’s day of death. A rose only learns that it is beautiful to the eye. A rose never learns how to think, say, or feel. A rose has never been taught to walk, to fall, and to get back up. This was destined all along. He was meant to walk out since they day he walked in. But the rose never learns does it.
It is just a rose, after all.
