Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 23:25:10 -0500 (EST)
From: Sean R <seanr_13@yahoo.ca>
Subject: Wilted Petals - 6

Wilted Petals
By: Sean Roberts

Author's Note: I hope you're enjoying ... please send feedback to
seanr_13@yahoo.ca

Chapter 6

Leslie stands at his locker, waiting for him to come.  He
doesn't show up.  Fifteen minutes into her first class she gives
up, hoping she will see him later.



He has been reading almost the whole night.  He slept
through his alarm and he woke up at one in the afternoon, his
curls messy; his eyes dark, tired; his hand resting on leather.
He picks up the book beside him and throws it, hard, against the
opposing wall.  Jonathan glances at the clock beside him; if he
leaves now he can still make his English class.

He is a few minutes late.  Johanna looks up when he walks
into the room and smiles at him.  He glares at her in return and
takes his seat.

"What's the matter?" she whispers to him.

"I can't believe you need to ask me," he says.  They cannot
finish the discussion during class.  When it is over he gets up
quickly and leaves the room.  He stands just outside the door,
waiting for Johanna to come out.  When she does, he shoves her
diary in her hands.  "Two fucking years of my asking you out;
you couldn't have told me any of those times.  You couldn't even
tell me in person, you left this in my fucking house instead."

He walks away.  Johanna has not even looked at what he put
in her hands.  She nearly drops it when her eyes land on it, the
surprise of this object being in her hands overwhelming.

How did it get here?

*

Leslie picks up her phone quickly that evening, knowing who
it is.  She does not say hi.  She knows they had a class
together today; she knows that Johanna left school without her.

"I thought he should know.  This was the only way I thought
of to tell him.  Johanna I'm so sorry.  I don't know what I was
thinking."

"Have you read it?" is all she can ask.

"No.  I didn't.  I just wanted him to find out, that was
all.  I couldn't bring myself to tell him and you obviously
couldn't either and I thought this would be the best--"

"He doesn't know it was you who gave it to him.  He's mad
at me for doing it.  He's angry with me for something I haven't
done; for something I wouldn't have done in a million years.  I
hope you're planning to do something about this."  Click.  She
hangs up the phone and steps into the shower.  Her anger for
Leslie is overwhelming.  She never thought she could hate
someone so much.  Later, she will realize that this hate comes
from the amount of love she has for Leslie.



When she was little her mother took her to an amusement
park.  Together, at the ring toss, they won a large, stuffed
bear.  The brown animal sits beside her bed.  Now, when she
comes out of the shower, her bathroom full of steam and her skin
glistening, wearing only panties she sits on her bed, hugging
the bear tightly against herself.  She needed the warmth from
the shower because she could not get it from Leslie.

Whenever she was upset she would find Fred and sit with
him, resting a hand or an arm on his stomach, feeling his
breathing.  He loved this sort of company, especially when he
was older.  He wanted to play less but he still loved her; he
needed her as much as she needed her parents.  The bear has
taken his place.

She tries to make herself cry but she can't.  She isn't
sad.  She knows that her anger towards Leslie is temporary.  But
Jonathan--he knows everything.  It doesn't bother her so much
that he knows she is a lesbian but he knows much more than that.
He knows every detail of her life that she felt was worth
writing down.  And now he's upset with her.  She wants to
confirm this; she wants to have a conversation with him to see
how he feels.  But she knows that if she picks up the phone and
dials his number that he will not say more than two words to
her.

At dinner, her mother immediately notices her mood, knows
what she is feeling.

"What's wrong sweetheart?" she asks.

"My friends are idiots," Leslie replies.

"Just remember, they're still your friends," her mother
says.  Words of wisdom.  Her father lifts up the jug of water
and refills her glass.  She smiles at him.  From him she can get
silent understanding; from her mother she gets advice.  She
takes a sip of water.

"I know mom.  It'll be okay.  Let's just talk about
something else."



She turns towards her bedside table to turn out the light
when she sees her diary sitting beside it, the smooth parts of
the leather shining under the bulb.

He's not talking to me, she thinks.  For the first time
since she has known Jonathan she knows that he actually doesn't
want to see her; or hear her voice or even think about her.
This is why she does not tell anybody everything; this is why
she has secrets, why she has thoughts and feelings that belong
only to her and the pages in her book.  She pushes it forcefully
away from her, off the table, and it slides off the end of the
desk.  The sound it makes when it hits the hardwood floor is no
match for the force with which it was pushed.

Now she starts to cry because she has lost Jonathan.



Johanna asked him once if he was embarrassed.  When he
asked what for, she said: "Well, a girl sticking up for you.  I
mean Leslie told four guys to fuck off when they were picking on
you, and they did.  Most guys would have been embarrassed."

"I don't know what got into those guys that night.  There
was no fairness in it; it wasn't just them fooling around.  If
it had been, I would have been really embarrassed.  But they
weren't fucking around and I've always been very, very thankful
that she came to help."

She touched, lightly, a bruise on his cheek bone.  "Does it
still hurt?"  He nodded.  The bruise didn't feel like anything;
it felt like the rest of his face, like bare skin.  She did not
know why she needed to touch it.  But there was something about
his face that bothered her: there were no indications of facial
hair; no moles or dimples or any other marks.  There were small
imperfections but she found that to see them she had to be
extremely close to him.  There was no after-shave or cologne.
The bruise gave it colour; a personality.  Something to touch,
though it ended up feeling just like everything else.

"What did your parents say when they saw your face?"

"I told them it was dark and that I had no idea who did
it."

"I still don't understand why you wouldn't tell somebody;
get them kicked off the team or something."

"They're good players.  And they left me alone after that,
like I knew they would.  What would have been the point of
getting them pissed off at me again?"

There was one more hole in the story he had given them.

"I was also wondering ... what exactly did you say to them
to get them so angry?"

"I was alone in the locker room with them.  Everybody had
already gone; they weren't letting me leave.  Nobody did
anything about it because nobody wanted to piss them off.  You
saw them, they're big guys.  They had obviously gotten tired of
just calling me a faggot so they told me they would fuck me up
if I didn't admit it.  So I did, just to get them to let me
leave.  That's when I saw the look on their faces.  After I told
them that I was gay; that's when I actually got scared.  That's
when I ran."

"What the fuck is wrong with people?  What does being gay
have to do with anything?  I mean--say you really were--you're
not are you?"

"No."

"Okay.  Say you were though.  What difference would it
make?  You'd still be here with me, sitting in McDonald's and
eating shitty burgers.  You would still have ketchup on your
cheek."  She reaches over with her napkin to wipe it off for
him.

"Thank-you," he says.

"You're welcome sweetie."

She never would have called him that if she knew then how
he felt about her.  At that moment, he was just a boy with an
innocent face on which he had spilt a little bit of sauce.  She
did not know how he felt about her because he did not know.  He
enjoyed spending time with her; he got knots in his stomach when
he knew he would be seeing her; but the realization that he had
feelings for this beautiful girl had not yet hit him.  But when
it did, all he could do was smile.

This is the friend she has lost.  The friend who loves her
so much--not because she helped take care of him when he needed
it--but because he is able to talk to her about anything, even
uncomfortable subjects, without the slightest bit of discomfort.
Because there is a connection between them that neither of them
thinks they will ever understand.