Wilted Petals By: Sean Roberts
Author's Note: I would appreciate any feedback you have so far. Please write me at seanr_13@yahoo.ca Thanks.
Chapter 5
When he sees his brother that evening, he says to him: I have to give up on this one. At this point I've really done all I can.
It was a gift from her mother; a woman who knew what it was like to grow up as a girl. She understood the need for somebody to talk to and the privacy a girl wanted. She bought her daughter a diary. It was leather-bound; refillable with no lock. Still Johanna left it everywhere in the house. She would always find it where she wrote last. More often than not it was in her father's study, the space in the house she loved the most.
He liked seeing her in there. Whether he was with her or not he liked it when she was in his room with the large, wooden furniture. It was a room of books and computers and plants and love between a father and a daughter. He too understood the privacy of a diary. Even if she left it in the middle of his desk, he would not touch it. He would work around the book he knew contained his daughter's soul; the smell from the worn leather making him remember her. It is because of this that Johanna feels secure leaving it anywhere.
He has her to himself for one evening a week. Every year since she started high school Leslie has been involved in an art club who met with the same frequency. This year it's on Thursdays.
Johanna and Jonathan are in an almost deserted, dark theatre; a comedy playing on the screen. But she isn't laughing. She's barely paying attention to the movie because Jonathan is beside her. Since Saturday he really has given up. He hasn't said anything to her about them seeing each other; about his feelings for her. This change hasn't brought about the relief she thought it would.
She misses it--the attention he would give her; the satisfaction she gets from knowing that she is desirable to men. And he would only do it when Leslie wasn't with them. This private desire of his was comforting to her whenever she was with him. But today he has said nothing; he has been acting like they are friends and neither has any feelings for the other.
Johanna takes his arm into hers and leans her head on his shoulder to watch the rest of the movie. He pretends to ignore this and laughs louder than he normally would have at the next joke.
She brings him inside with her, insisting he stay for dinner. Her mother sees him and begins to say the same thing; Jonathan cannot refuse.
The paint on her bedroom wall is lilac, her bed spread only slightly darker to provide a contrast. He lifts something beside the lamp on her bedside table, a blue and white bracelet, made out of plastic.
"You keep this here," he whispers.
"Pardon?" She is on the other side of the room, looking for a picture she took once that she wants to show him. He replaces the bracelet. His legs and breathing have become heavy. He is staring down at her bed, his eyes fixed on one of the flowers of the pattern. It is an elegant, flowing design; the purple flower unmoving. If he concentrates on it hard enough he can stop himself from crying.
"Here it is!" she exclaims. She rushes over to him, an open photo album in her hands. "When I was little, my dad bought a new camera just in time for my birthday. I was so fascinated with it that I barely let him take anything with it because all I wanted to do was play with it. This is the first picture I ever took."
She sits on her bed and he sits beside her. She passes the album gently into his lap and places her finger over the picture. Then she removes it. Her mother, half-turned in the doorway to their kitchen. Johanna's mother's profile, parts of it silhouetted and other parts--like the white of her shirt and the black of her hair--in vibrant colour. The outline of this woman can be seen perfectly. There is nothing in the picture except her. The wood of the door frame is concealed in shadows; because of the angle nothing past her mother can be seen.
"She looks just like you. Not just in this picture. Has anybody told you that?"
"Nobody's seen this picture since it was developed. When I was little I looked a lot more like my father. Now I'm looking like her more and more."
Before he leaves she tells him that he should come over more often.
"My parents love you, we live pretty close to each other-- Jonathan I'm sorry."
"What for?"
"For this. For never asking you over before. I don't know why I never did; you must have thought of me as such a ..."
"No. Johanna I never have. It never mattered to me. The important thing has always been to see you."
You're not a virgin. Johanna you told me you were a virgin. I'm sorry to wreck the mood like this but, believe me, I can tell that you're not a virgin.
The first time they were together they weren't naked. They were both dressed in short skirts and t-shirts, their underwear on the floor. Leslie was going first, Johanna's legs spread and Leslie's arm in between them concealed by the skirt.
Johanna was at a loss for words. Finally, she said: You're the first, Leslie. Trust me.
And then a kiss. For the first time in her life she was pleasured by another person, Leslie's fingers deep inside her, caressing the most sensitive area of her body. Her heart started to beat faster; she was feeling absolute ecstasy. Especially when she came. The feeling of the orgasm combined with the look of excitement on Leslie's face was almost more than she could handle.
Halloween night. The day was fitting: it was cloudy and windy; trees swaying and occasional drops of flying rain making it down from the sky. Now, in the evening, Johanna, Leslie and Jonathan sit in his living room. They have rented two scary movies. The kind that teenagers laugh at because they know it is fake. The blood doesn't look real; the stories are nonsensical; but on this night especially they are fun to watch.
Jonathan is in the middle; the girls on either side of him. The lights are off and the volume is loud. One of his team mates is throwing a party tonight, one he decided not to go to so he could spend time with the girls.
Leslie excuses herself. She picks up her purse from the floor beside the couch and takes it with her. Quickly she hurries up the stairs. All of the doors on the top floor are shut, she doesn't know where to go. She goes up to the closest one and presses her ear against the door. Music. There's someone inside, probably his sister.
The next door is silent. She turns the knob slowly and pushes it. She peers into absolute darkness, and slips inside. She turns on the light and knows immediately she is in the right place. This is the bedroom of a teenaged boy: the bed is un- made; clothes are lying all over the floor. His knapsack leans against his desk, not having been opened at all that evening. Halloween is not a night for doing homework.
She walks up to his desk. The leather book she took earlier from Johanna's bedroom comes out of her purse and lands on it, beside his keyboard.
Leslie has always known about the diary but has never read it. Until now she has always respected her lover's privacy but she needs Jonathan to know. She loves him as her friend and will not lose Johanna as a lover; so she wants his feelings for Johanna destroyed. She is sure that this will do it. She is absolutely convinced that he is like everybody else, that he will not accept them for who they really are.
She returns and he smiles at her when she sits. This is the best way, she thinks. She will talk to him tomorrow, first thing in the morning, and get Johanna's diary back to her before it is missed.
She was sitting in her car on her way to pick up Johanna. He's a boy, she thought. Seventeen years old, still playing soccer with the team that beat the shit out of him two years ago. He's our friend because of what we did for him; we have his respect only because of that. He is not going to be pleased when he finds out we're lesbians. He won't tolerate it, in fact. Johanna will be crushed if she loses him. It's best that it happens now, while I'm here for her, in case he decides to be a prick about it.
Jonathan goes up to his bedroom after they leave. It is late and he has to wake up early for school. He shuts his door and strips down to his boxers. He goes over to his computer to turn it off when he sees the book. "What's this?" he says out loud, confused. He forgets about the computer and lifts it up. The book is heavier than it looks; the leather cover is worn, multitudes of cracks running through it. He runs his finger along the spine as he opens it. He knows immediately what it is. He knows her writing and he reads the date at the top of the first page. "When the fuck did she leave this here?" he asks out loud again.
He sits on his bed, his legs stretched out in front of him, one of his ankles resting on the other. He knows this is his only chance to find out whatever it is she wants to tell him. Jonathan begins to read her soul.