Girl Meets the Language of Flowers

Maya's Garden

On the roof of Maya’s apartment building, Maya carried a bag full of gardening tools and had gloves in her hand.

            Maya found the roof a long time ago, but the garden on it was fairly new. As a little girl, Maya thought the roof was scary. She’d heard of people who’d go up there and then take the short way down.

            She glanced over at a certain area of the roof. She liked to refer to it as the Jumper’s Ledge. Maya had looked over it a few times before and she had seen a permanent red stain on the pavement below. She shuddered, remembering the image.

            Instead of thinking more about that, she turned to her garden. Maya didn’t actually have permission to have a garden on the roof, but that never stopped her. The roof used to be a barren depressing place, but now, thanks to Maya, it was the most beautiful place in her neighborhood. There was grass growing on the roof along with hundreds of flowers. In between the grass, Maya left walkways that were the actual part of the roof. In her free time, she’d go up to the roof and paint on them. Every walkway was covered with different pieces of art Maya created.

            The garden was Maya’s biggest accomplishment. No one knew about it but her, not even Riley. It was the only secret she kept from her best friend. Maya created this place herself, and although she was the only one that knew about it, it still made her feel proud of herself.

            At school, most people think Maya is the tough, edgy, rebellious, bad girl, but she's really not. She just has a hard time opening up to people. No one thinks that she expresses her feelings. She does, just in ways people don't understand. Over the past few weeks, things have happened. What some people don’t know is that after each event is over, there has been a flower.

            Maya was responsible for the flowers. She planted the one on Lucas’s locker, the one in Riley’s backpack, the one on Farkle’s desk and many, many more. Maya learned a long time ago that every flower has a meaning. Maya’s favorite flower was the lisianthus, which means calming. A little while ago, Maya began to give people flowers whenever she wanted to express her feelings. She didn’t really know how else to do it.

            But, no one knows where the flowers came from. And no one knows what the flowers mean. Maya wanted to keep it that way. Almost everyone in school had received a flower, and no one knew Maya was the one behind everything. At least, no one knew, yet.