I hope that by fluctuating in tenses I managed to convey the past and present.

When Spring Comes

buttercupbella

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Amidst the cacophony and chaos of the trains rushing past the station, you calmly fish out your vibrating phone. You're half-expecting that the text message is business-related, but you shake the thought off once you see your mother's name. It just reminds you why you're here, your bulky suitcase lagging behind you in the trail towards the subway's center, in which the carriage heading for home awaits.

You stare off into the open sky as the train begins to jerk forward. The bright blue heaven, accentuated by thin cirrus clouds, somehow brings you memories that you want to forget, yet they comprise who you are. The sky makes you remember about a certain girl's kaleidoscope irises, how you looked at them nonchalantly when you first met her and how you cried as her eyes, her bright blue eyes, shut close forever.

It's funny how a simple trip back to your province squeezes your lungs of air and makes you feel sad, angry even, that you happened to fall in love with somebody who was given a short time limit. But then again, like the clouds lurking effortlessly in the sky, you were happy. You are happy.

Five more hours and you'll reach your quaint little house by the sea. Perhaps you'll stop by the cemetery first and bring her peonies. She loved them because they were like her, beautiful and alive in every sense. Then you'll be talking, whispering to the wind, hoping that she listens to your rants about work and the flavorless noodles in the nearby convenience store. Then you'll cry because you're kneeling on a grave, speaking alone with the peonies in your hand, wishing that she's actually here.

Coughing, you refuse to believe that you'll do all this later, so you recount the good days. It's easier to believe that you could hold on to the past when she's gone—she's not yet gone, you scold yourself. She is alive in you.

Her braided brown hair is vivid in your mind. It was spring, and the peonies bloomed in the school backyard. You were such a pessimistic kid. You were a genius. When she came along, she practically bounced in the hallways and sang melodies you never knew existed.

It was when she stood in front of the class, her red bandanna bobbing while she talked, that you noticed how ordinary she was, and how you couldn't care less about whom she was. She flashed a lively smile and said, I'm May Maple, everybody. Please take care of me.

Her words only made sense years after, and you don't know if she even knew what she meant back then.

You rolled your eyes at her when she sat beside you offering her tiny hand for friendship. She didn't deserve to be your friend because she was nothing but a girl with flaws like the freckles under her eyes and unruly locks. She was nothing but a child like everybody else, running around playgrounds with the mindset that your playmates were your friends, and when they don't come for a day, you had to find others who had better toys so you could make yourself feel a little better.

But she was May Maple, and she was the first person who made you cry.

You swallow at the recollection and proceed to fourth grade. Because you read books every night under blankets, you were forced to wear glasses. It just made you look smarter when you already were, and the black frames somehow brought out the strength of your green mane.

Not everybody appreciated it, though. After school you experienced being pushed to the lockers and shouted at with various names. Your notes were torn and your uniform was always greased. You were bullied, but you never cried because you had to pretend that every bad thing that was happening to you was proof that you were beginning to be a man.

May Maple could not stand it. One afternoon, she handed you your dusty notebooks with a bruise on the edge of her mouth and a bleeding wound on her knee. She had always been a fighter in spite of her cheery display, a fighter who never hurled a fist but stood her ground until the end.

You realized that she wasn't so ordinary. You had a debt of gratitude, and somehow, you thought that you were tied forever until you could pay her back.

But you didn't know how, because she was always the one who gave.

Remember that Sunday morning, when she arrived in front of your door? She was wearing a polka-dotted dress (maybe she wanted to please your old folks) and she had on one of her best smiles. Next thing you knew, you were chasing the breeze and panting, trying to catch up with May as she held on your hand.

She taught you how to cook noodles (she ate her whole serving for two minutes and you gaped at her until your own serving became cold enough), she introduced you to her parents (her father was a professor so you became interested in her family tree), she showed you the stars at night and led you to the rooftop where she kept her home-made telescope. It was ugly with uneven pieces of tape and cardboard, but when she forced you to peek, you saw the most beautiful view you've ever seen—nebulae of all sorts, planets and stars, and a comet that streaked across the night sky.

While the train indulges in multiple motions, you grin unconsciously.

Seventh grade—your heart clenches when you remember her asking one question that shook you off your sturdy ground. It was winter and you were huddled in bed sheets, watching a horror movie that managed to make you mutter profanities.

She looked at you with her sky blue eyes and asked, "If somebody told you they loved you, what would you tell them?"

You were highly intellectual, so you just scoffed at her and leaned in closer. "Depends on who's saying it."

"And if it was me?" May told you with a hint of joke in her tone. She made a peace sign with her two fingers and giggled, elbowing you in the process.

You were speechless. You were a genius, not some love-struck teenager who watched too many chick flicks. You weren't an expert on romance. You were intelligent when it came to paperworks and examinations, but clueless in indirect confessions. She looked at you with a hopeful gaze and you knew it was time to return your gratitude.

What you said destroyed you, and you regret it until now.

"I'll probably just laugh it off because there is no way in hell that I'll be feeling the same," you said. You were a bastard who was stupid when it came to these things. You registered the shock on her face, and eventually, she just burst into laughter. Strained laughter. It was evident how she tried to beam at you and tell you "Yeah, we're best friends so it's impossible" when in fact she was dying inside.

You knew about it, but you just let it go.

The train halts for a while at the next station and you could imagine her standing there, waiting while carrying a steaming cup of noodles. You visualize her with rosy, freckled cheeks and red lips, as if she hadn't suffered from a chronic disease that caused her permanent absence in your world. She is sitting and waiting there, constantly checking her watch and smiling to herself.

You choke unexpectedly, because when you see her watch, you immediately think of the time that remained before she stopped breathing. It appears to you as if she is there, with her newly-cooked noodles, listening to the countdown of her own death.

You flash back on eleventh grade. You gazed at the wooden seat beside you and you wondered why it was empty of the girl who had her smile plastered on her face even when she was sad. In the coldness of autumn, you scribbled down notes and walked towards her father's laboratory, because you knew that she usually spent her weekend there, trying to contemplate the difference between acids and bases.

When you knocked on the door, you assumed that May would be humming the slow tune and jumping on you with the smell of peonies. But her father was there, looking a bit troubled, when the door swung open. You wondered if he had messed up in his experiments.

"Excuse me, Mr. Maple," you whispered with worry lacing your voice. "Do you happen to know where May is?"

Her father's eyes dilated in alarm but the professor just winked at you and chuckled. "Oh, she's with her mother in the hospital for some check-up, I'm sure there's nothing wrong, just a fever, that's all."

But you both understood that there was something wrong. May always ate vegetables, she never became sick in her sixteen years of life, and she never, ever, went to the hospital even for check-ups. Since you had nothing to do, you hopped on a taxi and made your way to your best friend.

You learned that she was already confined, and when you went to her room, you saw her smiling with her pale lips.

You were a genius. Of course you noticed the symptoms before.

She was wearing a mint-green dress with dextrose injected in her right hand. Her eyes were tired and you sensed that her breathing was out-of-place, as if it was the only thing that created a sound inside the hospital.

You handed her a bunch of freshly picked peonies. Instantly, she regained color and nodded at you with thanks. She couldn't even mumble your name through her oxygen mask, and she was slowly drifting off to sleep. No matter how exhausted she looked, you didn't want her to close her eyes, so you began telling her stories about school.

A faint laugh escaped her lips, and she brought her hand up to her oxygen mask. You stared at her, lungs heaving, breathing in, breathing out, and you took in how beautiful she was even with her corpse-like stance. She whimpered, "If…somebody told you they loved you, what would you…tell them?"

May had a hard time speaking, but you understood her perfectly. Her question was as familiar as your heartbeat, and you promised that you would not lie again. "If it was you, I'd be very happy that I could die."

She wrinkled her cute eyebrows. "But I'm still here. If you'll die, I'll be alone."

It took you minutes to comprehend that she was talking about herself.

"You won't be alone. I'll be there, invisible to everybody, but when you whisper my name in the wind, I'll listen. Think of it as your chance to confide whatever there is to confide without someone interrupting."

That made her laugh, and perhaps, that's what made you laugh, too.

The train doors open and you forget that the view of home peers at you openly, the trees swaying with the winter breeze and the snowflakes resting on your green head; when spring ends, you think of dreary atmospheres and melancholy and the painful past, but you are partially wrong. Though it is winter, the blue sky stays with a dash of life in it.

You keep the peonies close to your chest to protect them from the numbing cold, and before you walk home, you proceed to the cemetery, the plan playing out in your head as it did hours ago.

Yes, you kneel on her grave, where her name is written in dainty cursive. She would have spit on this, saying that she isn't made for lady-like penmanship and whatnot. The peonies lay on the grass like breaths of spring, and you remember how you cried winters ago on a hospital bed without someone to rub the back of your neck. You remember how she managed to save you from all the big kids at your school, yet you couldn't save her from this terrible fate.

You are a genius, and you could do nothing to prevent her from leaving. You could just stand and calculate how many days she had left, how many dosages of medicine she had to endure, and how many breaths she still had to take.

"You won't be alone. I'll be there, invisible to everybody, but when you whisper my name in the wind, I'll listen," you told her before. Maybe she is there, standing over you with her same old smile and watching as you sob alone. You want to tell her that you love her, but she couldn't reply; all she could do is listen, hiding behind a veil you cannot see through.

It is years after she had died, but still, you cry knowing that even if you screamed I love you, she won't be there to say it, too.

End_

|Author's Note| Okay so feel free to flame if you see any errors

Happy holidays even if this is a tad bit angsty what is wrong with me are you supposed to feel angsty during holidays

Dedicated to my best friend's mom.