The Boy Who Made Flowers Sing

28 | Tarence

Part 2:

It had been about a week since she came back. Elena woke up at 8:00 AM on a Saturday to the sound of the steady wind occasionally tapping on her window pane. She could hear some black-capped chickadees chirping in the distance as she admired the thin blanket of sparkling snow covering house rooves and their chimneys. 

Elena was a work in progress and she was okay with that. She was finally okay with a lot of things. But, she needed to right a lot of wrongs. She needed to make amends with her sister and mother. After experiencing what she did in Cartagena with Andreas, one may think she would become a completely different person. But, that's not how addiction works. Drugs take a lot of time and commitment to get off of them for good. At least for Elena. 

The orange and yellow cover of The Alchemist sitting on her dresser stared at her, yearning to be opened. She still hadn't opened up page 24 of The Alchemist partly because she was afraid. She had no idea what Andreas had for her on that page and though she was curious, she wanted to open it up at the perfect moment. So, she gave it a couple more days. She decided she would take the book with her today to the cemetery.

She tiptoed downstairs and grabbed her navy blue coat, wrapping it around herself. She put on her snow boots and opened the front door as quietly as possible, careful not to disturb her mother or sister. The sun was a pale pearl in the winter sky. She took out her leather gloves from her jacket pocket and put them on as she headed toward the bus stop. As she sat on the bench and waited for the bus to arrive, her breath made puffs of visible cool air which quickly disappeared into the cold morning. After a couple of minutes, two large headlights appeared and she stepped into the approaching bus. 

The bus was empty and Elena sat down in the front on a cold seat. When her stop arrived, Elena stepped off and grabbed two bouquets from the nearby flower shop. Conveniently, the cemetery was just two blocks away. 

Elena entered the eerie graveyard with no one in sight. She passed by grey tombstones and her breathing quickened ejecting a cloud of smoke in front of her. Elena felt a pit in her stomach and was consumed by overwhelming nausea. Hues of various flowers peeked out from under the blanket of snow. The blinding white of the graveyard made it strangely beautiful to look at. 

She arrived at Melissa's grave. She hadn't visited it since she passed away. The memories with her were as sharp and clear as glass. The tombstone read:

In Loving Memory of

Melissa Carter

1982-2001

There was no epitaph. Her parents were in such shock and disbelief that they could not think of any words. Elena remembered their horrified eyes staring into Elena's as if they had seen a ghost. But, Elena could hear Melissa's careless laughter in the air around her.

"What are you doing here?" A voice all too familiar asked, approaching Elena from behind.

Elena whipped her head around, shaken by the sound. 

It was Melissa.

****

Melissa had one of her thick eyebrows raised and her long arms crossed. Her curly, chocolate brown hair was parted in the middle and fell to her shoulders. Melissa's dark eyes looked at Elena in confusion as Elena began to tremble. Was she hallucinating again?

"I-I came to see you," Elena's eyes widened looking at the girl.

She couldn't believe she was interacting with her hallucination.