Sapphire went outside and kicked things.
When she was sad, she got angry, and when she was angry—this Sapphire knew from experience—it was better to just let it all out. She kicked the grass, the trees, the rocks around her. She kicked and yelled and screamed in frustration. She kicked and punched and threw and crushed and vented in the most destructive ways she could think of, all while furiously wiping tears from her face.
But she didn't touch the flowers.
The flowers were his. Not just this particular garden bed—to Sapphire, all the flowers in the world were his, because he had loved them and cherished them like no one else. She had once thought it was silly, the way he loved flowers and prissy things like that. She'd told him so plenty of times.
Now she couldn't bring herself to insult him.
It was as though she had undergone an overnight transformation, and everything she had once wrinkled her nose at now seemed... endearing. All because of him.
It wasn't fair.
Why did he have to make her feel this way?
Why could one person have so much influence on her?
And why did that one person have to be the one she lost?
"This is yer fault, Ruby," Sapphire growled, tasting salt as the tears continued to fall. She carried on kicking the tree in front of her, raising her voice and yelling, "All—yer—fault!"
And finally, when she had tuckered herself out, Sapphire sat down, held her head in her hands, and cried. Then she began to pick the flowers.
Not in the normal way—she didn't want to kill the flowers. Instead, she got down in the dirt and pulled them up by their roots. Finally, when she had a nice, dirt-clod-filled bouquet, she set off for her destination.
The brunette continued to mutter angry things under her breath, staring at the flowers in her hand, her feet finding the path on their own. It had only been a couple months, and already she had been here too many times to count.
Sapphire sat down in front of Ruby's grave and began to replant the flowers.
There was already a row of multicolored flowers growing alongside the grave. Sapphire got down on her knees and began digging, adding new holes to the row and planting the flowers, making the space as beautiful as she could.
He would have liked it.
She liked to think that somewhere, Ruby saw it, and he did like it. It was wishful thinking, but Sapphire had lived on wishful thinking these past few months. One of her favorite things to dream about was what he would be saying right now if he was alive.
"He'd tell me I ain't doin' it right," she mumbled, the thought making her smile slightly despite herself. "He'd say I've gotta make 'em more even, or somethin' prissy like that. Then I'd say, if he's so smart, why doesn't he fix it himself? And he'd freak out about gettin' dirty, 'course, as usual."
Her hands worked mindlessly, planting the flowers with a carefulness she didn't know she had as she lost herself in memories of her best friend. She still wondered if they could have ever become something more than just friends, and it looked as though she was destined to wonder forever.
"Stupid Ruby," Sapphire choked out, wiping tears off her face as quickly as they fell. "Stupid flowers."