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It all started with a flower. That’s not where we met, where we had our first date, or even our first kiss. It’s not like that. No, it started with a flower because everything starts somewhere and I decided that it all started with a flower. Flowers have meaning, in my mind. They grow wherever and they look beautiful. They start off weak but become strong. They look fragile, but they can hold on to life the way nothing, not even humans, can.

 So it all started with a flower. Strong, but weak. Beautiful, but fierce. Everything he is.

 *

 In my mind, you see, there’s a place before birth and one after death. I usually think it’s the same place. I like the idea of not being atoms on an earth. I like the idea of having a mind that would live longer than my body.

 I’m not religious, but I still believe there’s more to life than death. I’m not atheist either. I’m agnostic, I suppose. I like solid, hard facts, but I still like the idea of a completely supernatural thing to happen.

 Maybe there’s a place we go, maybe we stay here. Maybe we never really die. Maybe we never really live. He used to think like that. He changed. He isn’t a boy anymore. He is a man. He is a tall, handsome young man with thoughts I don’t always share. He used to think like I do now.

 He would think that life was part of death or that death was a part of life. He said that, for all we knew, life might be death and death might be life. In which case, why are we sad about death when we should be sad about life ?  He was so odd. I think that’s what drew me to him. That constant need  for knowledge and oddness within the knowledge.

 *

 I loved him when he was a boy, only a few years  younger than me. He had black hair and green eyes. His eyes would pierce into your soul and see things you didn’t even know about yourself then he would smile and welcome you as a person as well as a friend.

 He changed, though. He changed a lot.

 I could barely recognize him when he and his family came by for dinner. I had just gotten back from my four years in uni so he must have been in senior year of high school and I remember gaping at him and his sheepish smile. He looked like he was guilty about something which made me on edge. It was surrealist. He was there, really there. And he was smiling and dancing and laughing and singing along with  my sister.

 My sister who was beautiful and nice and funny and apparently was his girlfriend. Now I understood why he felt guilty.

 I left for uni, told him to move on. And he did. He went on a date with my sister and they started going out and were, from what I heard, completely in love.

 That stings a bit, but it’s not his fault. I mean, I dated quite a bit in those four years. I suppose I just hopped he would wait for me.

 What an idiot I was.

 *

 He loved flowers. I suppose that’s why I say that it all started with a flower.

 You see, our story isn’t like others. It’s sad, but not because one of us died and it’s happy, not because we got back together.

 It’s sad because we were each other’s first loves and we’ll probably always love each other that way but it just won’t ever work again like it did during that year.

 It’s happy because  of the exact same reason.

 *

 We started when my sister introduced me to her friend. I was a senior and they both were  in freshman year. Though we had four years of difference in school, we only had a two year difference in age. I fell in love slowly, he fell fast from what he told me. We hit it off immediately, but we were nothing more than friends back then.

 One day, at lunch, he kissed me. Just like that. He told me to think about it and he walked away. Back to his friends. Back to my sister.

 *

 I suppose we always kind of were meant to be, unfortunately life happened.

 After that day when he kissed me, my thoughts became confused, I just didn’t know anymore. I didn’t know what I felt for him, I didn’t know why I had those thoughts. I didn’t know why I was ready, if not eager, to try something that will hurt us both.

 *

 Exactly one week after he kissed me, I waited for him at lunch.

 I remember that day because he was wearing the cutest smile I’ve ever seen on him. I have never seen him wear it for anyone but me. It was one of the things that made me fall in love with him. It’s one of the things that make me stay in love with him.

 As soon as he was close, I pulled him in. I kissed him, hard and bruising. He didn’t even wait, he replied as hard, if not harder.

 *

 We didn’t ever talk about dating, it just kind of happened after that day. We started hnging out, we’d hold hands in school, kiss once in a while, made out when we were alone.

 The rest of my senior year went the same way. Of course, came the end of the year, I had to go to uni, which meant leaving him.

 I took him to this small house I used to go to as a freshman. We watched the stars (there’s no roof to this house, and only one level) and I told him I got accepted into the university I wanted to go to, the one that was all the way in New York. He asked me when I was going. « As soon as summer ends. » He held on to me so tight that night, « We still have a few months, then. »

 *

 The summer was hard, but it was our best time. The day before I had to leave for uni, I took him back to the house. We never thought we’d have sex that night but it happened anyways. It was his first time, he told me. I told him I was glad he lost it with someone that truly loved him instead of a random fuck… or anyone else really…

 The next morning I told him to move on from me, to never look back to how we were. That it was best for the both of us, I was about to leave for 4 years and I’d be all the way in New York. I wouldn’t see him again until I was done with uni.

 We both cried that morning, stayed close together, cuddling, telling eahc other I love yous over and over, kissing when we felt like it. Then we had to go back. I said goodbye to my family, goodbye to him, and I left. We looked to one another, then he turned around and I looked straigh ahead, I knew he was walking away and I was driving away. I never looked back and, somehow, I knew he never did either.

 *

 I thought about him the whole four years of uni. Couldn’t fall in love with anyone else.

 When I came back, he had moved on just like I told him to. For some reason, I hated how he was. He had lost something.

 After a few years of seeing him often due to my sister going out with him, I realised he was missing his passion for things.  I asked him about it and all he did was bring me to the house, our house. He gave me a piece of paper with ‘I’ll come back here tomorrow’ written on it and left.

 I looked around the house, things were how we left them. Exactly how we left them.

 There was just one difference. A tiny difference that I never would have noticed if I hadn’t known the house so well. On the ground, next to the mattress, there was something carved in the ground, it was a question.

 I carved something there as well, right under the older words. An answer, in a way.

 It was, I suppose, our closure. He went on with his life, I went on with mine. Even if we still loved each other like we wouldn’t love anyone else.

 But, who knows, maybe we’ll give us another chance one day.

 *

Why won’t you give me my heart back ?

 The same reason you won't give me mine back.

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