Smell The Roses

Sebastian, 

I’m sorry I had to leave the way I did. And I’m sorry to say that you’ll never hear from me again. Please don’t start on any detective work like I know you’re already thinking of doing. The me that you know… that girl is dead and gone. Forget about her, or at least try, cause she’s not coming back. I’m sorry if you’re hurting reading this letter, but really, I'm especially sorry that I'm not all that sorry. You know this is what I always wanted. Catch you in the next one. Smell the roses and whatnot

• You know who

Sebastion

I couldn’t sleep last night, the deep feeling that something was out of balance was engrained so deep in my being that I couldn't even shut my eyes without the anxiety taking over me. I thought about calling Delilah, but God knows she’d be cranky if I woke her up. She’s always been a night owl, ever since we were eight years old picking daisies in the field behind her house. I would be complaining, telling her how my mom would get upset if I wasn’t home soon, but she always insisted on just one more flower, just five more minutes. My mind wandered to Delilah and got stuck there, as it always does. The smell of her hair, her gap-toothed smile that she always hated, those big brown eyes – a window to a soul that I could tell I might never reach the depths of. Delilah has always been a mystery to me, no matter how long I know her, it still feels like maybe I don’t know a damn thing.  

I’d been tossing and turning, letting my mind wander for so long that the sun started to rise. An eerily sunny December morning was waiting for me outside my bedroom window but I couldn’t shake the sick feeling in my gut that it should be gloomy. It was always strange when the weather outside my body didn't match the storms I felt inside my body, coursing through my nervous system. Nevertheless, I got up and eventually made my way downstairs where my mom greeted me with a pitiful look on her face, crumpled piece of paper in hand…

“Someone slipped it under the door late last night Seb, It’s for you” 

Seven Years Earlier

Delilah

“God, I’m so bored, aren’t you just so bored?” Sebastian looked at me as he always does, like he was trying to see into my very brain matter. He closed his book and sat up from the blanket we’d laid down in the middle of the flower fields.

“That’s kinda the point of relaxing D, it’s not meant to be exciting.”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. My best friend’s fatal flaw was that he took everything at face value. And my fatal flaw was that I was always on the hunt for hidden meanings.

“That’s not what I mean!” I said, twiddling with broken iris stems around the soles of my sneakers. “I’m just fucking bored. I’m bored of this life, this existence. I’m bored of Maine. I’m just fucking bored.” He looked at me with sad eyes and I knew he had taken everything I said all wrong. I guess some people have the innate urge to start over and some just don’t get it, and never will. 

“You’re bored of me?” He asked me, and I didn't know how to tell him that no, I'm bored of me. 

Present Day

Around halfway across the country, the bus had its third stop in Missouri. With pins and needles assaulting both legs, I hobbled to the rest-stop bathroom where I was met with a long line of truckers and travelers waiting to relieve themselves in the ladies' room.  

“I hate these places. They smell like piss.” 

I turn my head and am met by the gaze of an older woman, no older than 65 but certainly no younger than 40. She had a wild, almost young energy about her, with frizzy tangled hair stuffed under a backward Yankees hat. I laughed at her remark, then looked down at my phone. Message after message from Sebastian and my parents inundated my lock screen and I immediately powered off the device – if I start thinking about them, I’ll turn around. That’s not an option. The woman saw me do this, and interjected:

“See somethin’ you didn’t like?”

I replied monotonously, “Something like that”. I’d never been much of a talker when it came to strangers, call it a childhood habit. But there was something about this woman that intrigued me, and when I eventually made my way back to the bus and saw that she was taking the same one, I sat in the row adjacent to hers. 

I leaned against the window and pulled my knees to my chest, whipping out my notebook and a pencil from my backpack and opening to a blank page. I got to work drawing tulips, roses, hydrangeas, carnations, anything that came to me when finally, the woman spoke up yet again.

“So, do you take a special interest in flowers or are they just the only thing you can draw?”  

Under any other circumstance, this comment would have pissed me off. But the way she said it with a smile and a mischievous glint in her eye told me she meant no harm, so it didn’t bother me. 

“Maybe a little bit of both” I replied, looking up from my drawings and instead to her. She studied me for a moment – people are always doing this with me – and then finally replied

“Have you ever heard of the Pasadena Rose Parade?” 

4 days later I got off the bus for the final time and left my phone on my seat. Did I do it on purpose? Well, if someone asked me, I’d say no, but subconsciously I think I did. I was sick of the reminders of home and, frankly, those things are cruel little machines that suck the life out of everyone who touches them. I pause on this thought, realizing that this is probably what Seb is thinking about me this morning, but I force the nasty thoughts out of my brain and focus on what lies ahead of me. The anticipation courses through my chest down to my legs where it comes alive in my feet, guiding one in front of the other and leading me away from the bus stop. I find myself on the side of a major highway with my thumb out; flashbacks to lectures about stranger danger race through my brain, but eventually weasel their way out through my ears. Overthinking was a habit that belonged to the old me. 

I never thought I’d think the words “my savior” when seeing an old red pickup truck, but I also never thought I’d step foot on California soil and here we are. When the truck pulls over to the side of the road I’m waiting on, I finally get a good look at the driver. An older man stares back at me, wearing a 49ers hat and an intriguing smile. 

“Where you headed sweetheart?” the man asks me gently after rolling the window down, causing my nose to be met with a waft of cigarettes. 

“Pasadena,” I tell him, and he looks at me like he already has me completely figured out, like he’s looking straight through me. I think back to the years I spent with Seb, how he used to study me trying to achieve what this man seemingly did in under a minute. 

“Ah…” his mouth curves upward into a smirk, “Rose parade?” I look at him in a confused manner, wondering how he could possibly know my plan. He clocks my confusion and pulls up his sleeve to show off a beautiful rose tattoo on his upper arm. 

“I go every year kid. Hop in” 

Sebastian

I’d always heard stories about an abundance of emotion overwhelming the brain and resulting in utter numbness, but I had never experienced it until this morning. From the moment I saw that crumpled-up little piece of paper, I had a sick feeling that Delilah was gone with the frigid winds of December, floating somewhere better like a snowflake landing atop a snowman. Only she would mindlessly stuff our last ever point of communication in the front of her jean pocket like it was nothing, crumpling it in there with her last stick of gum, a piece of clover and some spare change.    

It all of a sudden becomes very clear to me that from this moment on I will never be anything but pissed at the universe. I stare into space over a breakfast table of overcooked eggs and undercooked bacon and I wonder to myself: Is she unaware that this killing of her old self killed me too? Or does she just not care?

Delilah

We had been in the car for what I’d assume to be around an hour. The clock by the dash of the beat-up truck was broken, and so was the radio, and so was the AC. The seat under me was lumpy, and I let my mind wander to how many people had probably sat in this same seat, polyester cloth molded to the asses of many. I was quickly snapped out of my trance when the man started humming the melody of Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.   

“What a tune,” he said aloud; to himself, to me, it didn't make a difference. “When are you gonna come down? When are you going to land? I should have stayed on the farm I should have listened to my old man.” He sang with a look in his eye that said he was thinking about his past. “You know, I spent my whole childhood running from things that I had no reason to run from. Eventually, you run so much that your feet forget how to be still and you find yourself right back where you started.” 

“I’m not running,” I interjected defensively

“Ain’t nobody talkin’ bout you girl,” he said with a scoffing laugh. “I’m just saying that so many are blind to how good they have it, go searching for better, and simply never find it.”

–

I guess I drifted off, but I was woken by a gentle tap on the shoulder and a “We’re here kid”. I wiped the sleep away from my eyes and looked over at my road trip companion. How strange that I’ll never see this man again, that he played such a big part in the beginnings of my new life, and that’s it, he’s just gone with the wind. I try to memorize his face, imprint the pattern of his language into my mind, and then I mutter a thank you and hop out of the car. 

“Don’t lose sight of how good you have it!” and he drove off into the California sun. 

The Rose Parade. I made it. I actually fucking made it. Swarms of people surround the street filled with beautiful floral creations. I make a mental list in my head of all the colors and new sensations around me. So many new people, and so many possibilities. I can’t help but smile, tilt my head towards the sun, and feel it all. But with the ‘all’ comes the guilt that I had been pushing down since leaving, and a sense of panic I’d never felt before. I’m no one here. I have no one here. With the ‘all’ comes the missing my best friend, and wishing he could see this with me. As I watch the floats move leisurely down Orange Grove Blvd., I let the feelings wash over me, finally noticing how alone I am, and also that I don’t need to be. I hear Sebastian in my head, “Smell the roses”, and I try to memorize the notes so perfectly that I can bottle them up and take them home to him.