"It's Lilly... Like the flower... Yes, although I prefer roses."
I stared at her name on that slab of stone just beside her casket. Her final resting place.
The turnout at her funeral was fairly large. I assumed the people hovered around me were distant family and relatives, and maybe a few friends from her college back in America, who probably had no idea of her disease.
But to be honest, I wasn't really paying attention to the people around me. I wasn't studying them. I was just looking at that grave stone. The cursive engraved letters spelling out her name so elegantly. Lilly Ann Reynolds.
I never knew her middle name. How sad was that? Four months seemed like so much time to get to know a person. I felt like I knew every single detail. I guess I didn't. I guess there is no time limit to how deeply you can get to know someone. There will always be something you missed.
I just didn't want to think about the things I was regretting right now. I didn't want to ask myself the questions I should have had time to ask her. I didn't want to think of the things I missed.
Lilly would kill me if I had one single regret. That much I did know.
Everything from the flowers upon her casket to the rain coming down from the sky, it was all what Lilly would have wanted. It was all what she planned. The event, despite it being Lilly's funeral, was beautiful.
The ceremony was long and sort of a blur. I never really payed attention to the things that were being said. Mainly because in my head, I was coming up with my own ceremony. My own words. There were three of them.
Lilly Ann Reynolds.
Like the flower.
I love you.
Okay maybe there were nine words. Nine words and a load of memories. And a million quotes from her mouth that kept playing back in my head.
Before I knew it, the real ceremony was over. And the black mass of family members and friends began dispersing into their black cars. And driving down the black pavement path, out of the cemetery.
But I didn't move. I stared straight faced at her gravestone. Tracing "Ann" over and over. The ceremony going on in my head, wasn't quite over yet.
I didn't think it ever would be. I didn't think i'd ever move.
I let every raindrop that fell onto me, run down my cheeks and linger in my drenched hair. And when I sensed that no one was around. My eyes finally began to water. Tears falling down my cheeks and joining the raindrops.
It was the first time I had cried. I don't really know why. When Lilly passed, I just shut down. I was quiet and blank. I let each moment until the funeral, play out and I hid inside of my thoughts.
And now, as I stand in front of her. Knowing she can't talk back, the feeling was real. And it hurt. It was all too real.
I was suddenly kicked out of my hiding place inside my thoughts and I was forced to face this reality, without shelter.
I took a few steps closer to her casket until I was in arm's reach. And I surveyed all of the flowers that lay over the wood. Most of them were roses. She would have loved that.
"Hey love." My voice, in the silence of the rain, seemed so loud. But I imagined it was just loud enough for her to hear. Where ever that soul of gold may be.
"You left something at the hospital. I thought you might want them." I lifted my heavy arm and placed her box of keychains upon her casket, right below the flowers. I watched the rain hit them and I swallowed the lump in my throat.
"Your souvenir." I said. Remembering her comparison of me to those keychains. Both being her souvenirs. Just one of the millions of things that I'll always remember.
I tipped my head back towards the sky. Trying not to get choked up. Which seemed to be a pattern since, even before she passed. "Oh god." I dropped my head back down to the casket. "It's crazy. I haven't been this at loss for words since our first date."
I shook my head. My eyes went back to "Ann" on her gravestone.
"I miss you so much." I said after a moment of letting the rain fill in my voice. "And I know you promised me you'd be here. And I know I have you, so please don't get mad at me for saying that I miss you. I miss you so damn much. And I know I told you that I'd be okay. And I don't want you to worry. But Lil, I don't know what to do next. It's like, i'm stuck to the ground I stand on. Everything I do is so hard. It's hard to move, or speak, or wake up and act like i'm going to be okay. I'm sick of acting like that. So I need to just tell you that I miss you. And to please, let me feel you like I feel this rain. Let me know you're here so I don't have to beg and plead for you."
I dropped my head from her gravestone. Closing my eyes to compose myself as if she was right in front of me.
I wished she was.
"Help me not stick to the ground. I don't want to stick. If that makes any sense at all. If you can even hear me. Just help me. You're the only one who can." I whispered.
I sighed. Moving the gold band on my finger around with my thumb. "I'll take it day by day. Hour by hour. Just like you did."
I tried to imagine how tomorrow was going to be. Or the next day, or that next month. And that dreadful feeling that I had at that very moment got worse and worse. I knew it wasn't possible to miss her more than I was at that moment. But then again, there's always records to break.
But what I said to her in that moment was no option. I had to take it day by day. I had no other choice. She did what she was supposed to do in our story, she was supposed to love me forever and die. And now I have to do what i'm supposed to do
I have to love her forever and go on.
That's just how we settled it. It's time for me to brace for change and for some reason, for the most obvious reason, I still need her permission. I still plead for her guidance and assurance that she is going to be with me.
I'm still stuck.
"No i'm serious! I can see you on broadway. A few years down the road. I can see you doing musicals... I'll only do them if you promise you'll be with me. I need you, you know?... I'll be there. Not a minute late."
I've always had to make sure she would be with me. And that moment in front of her grave was no different. The changes that I knew were coming in my life, they were coming fast. And I knew that I couldn't do it, if I was sticking to the ground. If she wasn't there in some way.
She said she wouldn't be a minute late.
So where is she?
"You'll catch a cold out here." A familiar voice spoke quietly.
I didn't have to lift my head to know that Mary was standing a few feet away from me. Her black clothing visible from the corner of my eye as I stared at Lilly's casket in silence.
"I'm standing out here in hopes the rain will wash away my sadness. Something Lilly taught me." I said. I tried saying something a little less depressing than what I actually felt. I had to always act. But just saying her name instantly caused a lingering tear to pave its way down my cheek again.
Mary laughed sadly. She stepped by my side and followed my eyes to the exact spot on the casket that I was looking. Studying it as hardly as I was.
I tried to trace the outline of where she was laying in the casket. I could picture her laying so peacefully. I wondered if Mary was doing the same thing.
"You never told her about that day you came to my house." Mary said. "She never knew that you were the reason I got to see my daughter's last days."
I shook my head. "She didn't need to know." I said. "Like I told you, the important thing was that you came." I spoke in a hush. As the ceremony in my head kept going.
Lilly Ann Reynolds.
Like the flower.
I love you.
"But that's not my point." Mary shook her head. "Lilly believed in karma. She believed that if you did something wrong, you'd pay for it in the future. And if you did something right, you'd get what you needed as a reward."
I looked up at Mary, trying to follow where she was going with her words.
Mary looked up to me. "Tom, you did all the right things. You gave my daughter a future in her passing. You never lied. You kept every promise, even the hardest and most terrifying ones to keep. You did every single thing you could for that girl. Including giving me a second chance to make things right with her..." Mary placed a hand on my shoulder. "Now, do you really think my daughter would ever abandon you now? Of all times? With all of that good karma she could be giving you?"
Mary shook her head. "That's not Lilly, and you know it. You know she works in crazy ways. And somewhere deep down, you know you're going to be okay. Because you know, Lilly will be right there with you."
I shook my head. Tears forming in my eyes. "I just. I don't feel her."
Mary grabbed me and pulled me into a hug. "You will." I think she did it so that she could cry too. Because as she spoke, her voice shifted tone to a broken sound.
She let go of me and sniffled. "I need you to go, back to the hospital. And find Jen. She has something there for you. It's the rest of Lilly's things. There's something there for you. I think it'll help."
"What is it?" I asked quietly.
"I just told you, it's something i'm sure will help." Mary nodded repeatedly, holding back obvious tears. "Hurry on now, I need time alone with my daughter anyways. And you, you need to stop sticking." She referenced my speech to Lilly from earlier. Making me come to the conclusion that she heard the whole thing.
I nodded slowly. Wondering what it could be that's at that hospital, except for the few belongings I took, I thought that Mary had picked everything up the day the room was cleared.
I turned around and walked towards the top of the cemetery's path. Still sticking. And it wasn't the mud. The further I got from Lilly's grave, the move I stuck.
"Tom!" Mary yelled from behind me. In her voice, I heard a hint of Lilly's and I flinched before turning back to her. She smiled. "Don't be a stranger!"
I forced a smile. "Never!" I yelled back and then proceeded down the path to hail a cab.
-
-
Walking through the hospital's entrance was like being back at an old high school on a ten year reunion. Although it had only been a week since I last left here. With nothing in my hands but a Beatles album and a box of keychains, it still felt like ages.
It felt like ages since I had last scene Lilly alive. That's exactly how it felt. Like time decided to slow to a stop. And days felt like years without her on this earth.
And now here I am, back in this place, with two bouquets of flowers.
I wondered how Jen was. She told me prior to the funeral that she wasn't going to be attending for work issues. I knew that obviously was an excuse. But she still did so much for Lilly and I, this summer, in this hospital. Sneaking us and risking her job so that Lilly could live up to her reputation of being absolutely positively free spirited. Jen was the reason we were flower thieves and smiles on cloudy days. She deserved a thank you at the least.
I wondered about Susan too. I felt terrible for raising me voice that night she told me to "tell Lilly it's okay." She was right. She was always right. And I needed to thank her for her help just as much as Jen.
I still didn't understand how Susan knew everything she did. But I honestly didn't care. Because the only thing that mattered was that I said it. And that I was there when Lilly closed her eyes for the last time.
That last part still sounding all too real. She closed her eyes for the last time.
When will that not hurt?
I rounded the corner after coming off the elevator. The hallways seeming like a maze i've completed a hundred times over. I knew exactly where to go.
When my eyes met Jen's, she smiled, tilting her head with watery eyes. She came speed walking up to me and she gave me a hug.
I hugged her back.
"How was it?" She asked, talking about the funeral. "You're drenched."
"It's raining." I let go of her.
"I'll get you a towel." She went back to the nurses station and I followed her. Waiting at the desk, looking past the people to room 126. There was someone new in there already.
Cancer sucks.
Jen pushed a folded towel across the counter. "Here."
I grabbed it. "Thank you." My eyes pulled off of the room and back onto Jen. Who was searching the bottom cabinet behind the counter.
She came back up with a small tee shirt that I knew was Lilly's Beatles shirt, my script, and a little white envelope with nothing written on the front. "This is the last of it."
I picked up the envelope. "And this?" I said, my heart fluttered. As I gathered up different ideas of what it could be.
"Mary said it was under the vase of roses in the room. She said it was for you. I took her word for it." Jen answered.
I nodded. Taking the note and sticking it in my back pocket. No matter how badly I wanted to tear it open and find out what it was.
I took the towel and lazily ran it through my hair.
My suit was a lost cause. A towel wouldn't help.
"How are you? Or is that a dumb question?" She asked, cautiously.
I lay down the towel on the counter and Jen tossed it aside, back behind the counter. "I'll tell you when I can breathe." I answered.
Jen frowned. "I can only imagine."
"I bet you have your own image." I said. "I knew you loved her. She did too."
Jen half smiled. "I hope so." She sighed. "I was outside her door, when it happened. When you were telling her it was okay. I heard the whole thing. I heard her last words. I just, I hope she knows I couldn't..."
"She knows." I assured her. "She understood, Jen."
Jen nodded. Pressing her finger to her eyes to keep tears from falling. "Do you understand?"
I smiled. Lifting up one bouquet of the two in my hands. "On behalf of Lilly and I, these are for you. As a thank you for everything. That should answer your question."
She took the flowers. "It was my pleasure." She admitted.
My eyes couldn't stop catching the other person in Lilly's room. I finally had to ask. "That's a new patient already?"
Jen looked behind her to where I was looking. "Yeah. She's not my patient. All I know is, she's young."
I shook my head in shame. Lilly was young when she first got her cancer. I just hope that child knows, how important fighting for this life is. Lilly learned a little too late, nevertheless, she learned.
"Who's the other bouquet for?" Jen asked, causing me to look back to her once again.
I looked back down to the bouquet. "Oh um, you might know her. Susan? She's a nurse on this floor."
Jen scrunched her eyebrow. "Susan?"
"Yeah." I answered studying her face. "Why, you don't know her?"
"Tom, there's no Susan that works on this floor." Jen tilted her head in confusion.
"What? She has to work here." I said, shaking my head.
"I can check the system." She walked over to the computer and started typing. I followed her along the counter, just as curious. "Did she give you a last name?"
"No, she just always helped me. She always gave me advice. She never really talked about her..." I said. Trying to see the computer over the counter.
"There are no Susan's in the wing of the hospital, on any floors. Are you sure she works in this wing?" Jen asked.
'Yes. Because I was always in one of these hallways when she found me, she always got to me when-..." I paused. Rewinding to the three times I had encountered Susan. The woman who always seemed to be there when I was alone and no one else was around. Who always knew something I didn't. Who always disappeared out of nowhere. Who never really answered any questions about herself with an actual answer, but was happy to help me with mine and Lilly's life. Our talks were always about Lilly. I could've sworn sometimes she knew her.
It all began making sense.
"Are you a nurse?... Something like that."
"You think it's the end Tom, but you have so much more to go. With her, with her love."
"Tom, please just trust me and don't ask questions. You need to tell her everything. This is it. I have to go. There's not a lot of time."
She had to go. She had to go and take someone with her.
She had to go, and take her.
My mind traveled back to every single time I talked to Susan. Every talk had to do with Lilly. Because every time I was sitting in a hallway, or any time I was by myself, I was thinking entirely of Lilly.
Susan's goal wasn't to help me, even if she did, without knowing. Her plan all along was to help Lilly. It was always for Lilly.
She took Lilly.
Lilly. She's in good hands.
I covered my mouth with my palm as I came to the conclusion that all this time, I wasn't just seeing one angel in this hospital. I was seeing two.
"Tom. What is it? Are you alright?" Jen asked, standing up from the computer.
I focused back to her. "Yeah. I'm okay. I'm really okay." I smiled genuinely. "Hey, I have to go. But i'll hopefully see you around." I reached over the counter and she met me for one last hug.
"Yeah, I hope so. Just hopefully it's outside of this hospital." She paused, studying my face. "You sure you're okay?"
"I'm okay." I assured her. "I'll be okay... I'm not sticking." I said the last part under my breath.
"What about the flowers?" She asked, gesturing down to the second bouquet.
I smiled. Handing them to Jen. "Give them to the patient in 126. Tell them to keep going. Never stop."
Jen grinned, taking the second bouquet. "Will do, see you around, Tom."
I turned around and headed towards the elevator. Each step I took I could feel my face cooling. I could feel this weight that I didn't know was on my shoulders, slowly be lifted. Like the pain of losing Lilly was smaller than the realization that she's okay.
Susan told me a long time ago that mine and Lilly's story doesn't have to end. I believed her. And I still do. I believe Lilly's promise. I believe that the gold band on my finger is not just for show. I believe that, she'll show me the way. Even if I can't hear her, or feel her like the rain.
I hailed a cab and climbed in.
Watching the rain come down in buckets as I shut the door. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the note. The note that seemed to be burning a hole through the fabric since the moment I grabbed hold of it.
I opened it up and read.
Note for Tom: Are you doing anything tomorrow? If not, meet me at that coffee shop we met in earlier. At about noon. If you are too busy. Than meet me there any day you can. I'll be there at noon. Everyday. I hope to see you again... Lilly (who prefers roses) - That was where it began. Roses, ferris wheels, and roof top flower shop dancing. Being crazy in love. You always told me those were our things. And I believe you. But when I think about it now, as you're sleeping next to me on this tiny hospital bed. I know, it wasn't those things that made me fall in love with you. It was you. And how everything you touched had meaning again, including me. Even in my dark world, my love, you were my calm before the storm. That reassuring peace that gave me the strength to get through my darkest clouds. And I can't thank you enough for keeping our love story going. You have a long and eventful life to live. Chapters with ups and downs. And a lot of storms to get through. Just remember me, i'll be there, everyday. And I will see you again. -Love always Lil. (who prefers roses) p.s "A love like ours could never die, as long as I have you near me."
"And I love her" I whispered the song title in the last sentence a song I heard so many time this summer on that Beatles album, but not once did I ever think those words would ever have a meaning like they did right then. I swore I heard her voice say every word. And I smiled at the angelic sound.
That's all I needed. She's with me.
Every day. Not a minute late.
"Hey buddy. Where to?" The cab driver asked.
"Someday, when you are alone. When you have nothing else better to do, I want you to get into a cab and when the cab driver asks 'where to' I want you to say..."
I folded up the note and looked out into the rain. Squinting my eyes and almost picturing her, in that white spring time dress and her tennis shoes, dancing and laughing and letting the drops of water hit her skin. With that vision, I can go on.
I smiled. "Surprise me."
-
-
So that's it. I don't really know how to end a story like this. This whole story has been basically telling you how, endings don't really apply to me. So I guess I'll start by saying what you all are probably wondering.
It's been eight years, since she passed. In those eight year I've won countless awards for acting in various movies and franchises.
I've acted on broadway and I've met more celebrities that I thought existed. Apparently I am one.
So I guess Lilly was right when she said I was going to make it big. Of course she had everything to do with it. If it weren't for that first movie, I wouldn't have made it as far as I have.
So of course I thank her every night. My guardian angel.
Lilly has impacted me in more ways than my career. I'm still that crazy and fun loving person. Only now, it's all for my fans. And for some crazy reason, I have a lot of them.
I still blast the Beatles any chance I can. I still smile at the rain and even dance in it at times. And sometimes when I leave a room, I whisper 'I love you' out of habit.
I'm everything I want to be because she taught me how to be it.
It's been eight years since I made that promise to Lilly. That if I see a girl that affects me the same way she did, to go after her. Well, I have yet to find her. Although, I'm not exactly looking. Because I wasn't looking when I found Lilly. I was oblivious. It just happened. So I don't mind the wait. That promise, along with every other one, still stands.
Until I see her again. And according to her, I will.
So, for the newspaper articles and the magazines that just don't know the truth. Here it is. Word for word. I'm so deeply in love.
If you're wondering what's next, let me tell you.
I'm going to do what I've been doing since that first April afternoon, eight years ago.
Just as easily as you hold a rose, I will hold onto her.
And just as peaceful as a song sounds or a Ferris wheel feels, I will love every second of it.
Just like the rain spends its entire existence, falling from the sky. I will spend mine, falling for her.
A/N: ITSELF ALL OVER! Tell me if you're happy with the ending! I promised a good one so I hope it meets your standards. I want to thank all of the people who stuck by me through the beginning middle and end of this story! Who cried at the sad parts and laughed at the happy ones. And who gave me the sweetest and most motivating comments. I've been writing this for eight months! And you all are here for the ending! I love you all and be sure to keep this story in your library, because next week I'll be informing you about my brand new fan fiction! (It has a child in it!!!) thank you all again and I love you dearly. X. Ashley ❤️