Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 19:50:00 -0500 (EST)
From: Sean R <seanr_13@yahoo.ca>
Subject: Wilted Petals - 5

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.