Wilted Petals By: Sean Roberts
Author's Note: We have come to the final chapter. I would like to give a heartfelt thank-you to everybody who has written me--it is you who keeps me going. I would love to hear any comments/questions about the story. I hope you have enjoyed it.
seanr_13@yahoo.ca
Chapter 10
A fuck. This is what it has taken for Johanna to completely forgive Leslie. Forgiveness that has come from her guilt.
In about a month's time Jonathan will be in his car, a girl underneath him. She is beautiful and sexy but her body will never compare to Johanna's but it is all he has. He fucks her, hard, as loud rock and roll plays around them. After he comes he is no longer interested in pursuing this relationship, but he doesn't break it off. Slowly they drift apart. He has hurt this innocent girl but it is a pain she will learn from.
For a month he has not talked to Johanna. He has avoided her as much as he can at school, and she has not pushed him. He needed this time to forget about her; to try to get over her. He discovered, during this time, how lonely he was without her company. The girl he slept with did not keep him warm at night.
For the last time, Johanna feels Leslie inside of her. Leslie's fingers the substitute for a penis she will never again have inside of her. After they have come they lie together, Leslie breaking the silence.
"I'm leaving."
"Already? Where do you have to be?"
"Pittsburg. My father got a new job."
A tear falls on an arm. It doesn't matter whose tear or arm.
The swamp is deeper than she imagined and because of this Johanna has destroyed the roots. Another flower will not grow in its place, nor will the one she has taken survive for very long. She doesn't care because now nature is contemptuous. Around her three colours display themselves prominently. Green yellow and red: mould piss and blood. Suddenly she wants to vomit. The flower in her hand is the only thing safe from the bile.
She puts it quickly into a plastic bag in her large purse. Nobody will search her bag. She looks around nervously to make sure nobody has witnessed her taking the flower. She does not allow herself to cry until she is back in the car.
Leslie does not question where it came from. She does not need to question what it is. She carefully pulls off a petal and encloses it in Joanna's hand before they kiss. For the last time. The severed roots of the flower Leslie now holds in her hands will never heal. The softness of the petal in Johanna's hand will not last forever.
Jonathan can no longer stay away from her. He needs to hear her voice, to know that she is still a part of his life. He knows that she will be alone on Thursday night because it is the night they have been spending with just each other. During this period of separation he has never made other plans, and somehow he knows that she hasn't either.
He shows up at her door in jeans and a black t-shirt. His nervousness on his way over made him take off his jacket and he stood outside in the rain for ten minutes before ringing her doorbell. The door opens and when Johanna sees him she bursts into tears and throws her arms around him. He has never been hugged so tightly by anybody.
Because nobody knew about them, Johanna had nobody to talk to after she broke up with Leslie. Until tonight she has not cried about losing Leslie. They both knew that a long distance relationship would not work. They needed to be physically close with each other and since this could not happen, they decided to end it. Johanna explains this to Jonathan outside in the rain, in the cold. Neither of them is bothered by the weather.
Finally, when they go inside, they sit in Johanna's bed and he holds her. It does not matter that they are both wet. Jonathan knows that she needs this comfort from him. But he also needs it from her. So he returns to Johanna, with whom he has a closeness he will never get from anybody else. But there is no more sex. Jonathan knows he will never have her again. They return occasionally to his cottage, just to be with each other.
They do this the first night they have off at the end of the school year. It is night time, and they do not sleep but sit up at night watching the moon in each other's arms, remembering what they have lost but knowing that they have each other's love.
"The future will bring great things, right?" Johanna asks him after a long silence.
"Of course it will," is his reply. "If everything is just supposed to get worse, I never would have met you. I love you."
"How do you do it Jonathan? How do you sit here with your arms around me, with the way you feel about me, and be okay?"
This is something that he has never thought about, but he immediately knows the answer.
"Because I love you. It doesn't matter that I don't get certain things from you because I know that one day I'll meet someone who can give that to me. You're here for a different reason. I don't know what it is but I'm glad for it."
"I love you too Jonathan," she whispers, looking up at him. They are both smiling at each other, the moon lighting up their faces. They fall asleep very quickly in each other's arms, under the cover of a summer's warmth and bright stars and each other's love.
The End