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Sam could still remember the first flower Josh gave her. It was a lily—Pure, white and sweet. He plucked it from the ground prematurely, with it's white petals still slightly enclosed by the green bulb.
It had grown amongst wet grass and dirt, with it being the first sign of spring against the cold winter air. Much to the dismay of his mother who wanted to use the lily as a staring point for her garden, Josh gave the flower to Sam, neglecting the reprimands he would receive in the near future.
She remembered the cocky smile on his face as he brandished it before her, presenting it with a dramatic sway of his hand, offering it to her like an old-timey gentleman.
"Why thank-you, sir." Sam laughed, offering a curtesy and a smile as she took the flower from Josh's hand devoid of any scars. The stem was wet against her hand, but she brought it to her nose and smelt it—Like the stem, the petals smelled damp yet fresh. "It smells—"
"Like dirt and bird shit?"
"I was going to say natural, but I guess that works too."
That lily used to sit in a vase atop her bedside table, sitting in foggy water that evaporated and condensed. Sam knew it was silly to be lying on her side every night staring at that weeping lily like Josh meant anything with it, but she still persisted.
She dreamt without falling asleep, and she dreamt of him.
She would toy with the bud, carefully peeling it apart to unsheathe the blooming petals beneath it; She would twirl the stem and watch the petal spin like a bride during her first dance, the petals being the elegant white dress.
Spring came and went, and as the lilies died out and apple blossoms bloomed, the one that remained was the one that Josh gave her. The first, and—at the time—the last.
That was until Hannah had spilt the vase, of course. The water that kept it barely alive spilt over Sam's bedsheets like a wave pulled by the moon. The glass shards scattered like stars.
Shattered glass lead to blood, Sam had experienced enough broken windows by the hands of Matt's baseball practice to know that. So when the carmine of her hands trickled down onto the white petals, she shouldn't have been surprised.
She should have taken the petal and thrown it into the bin, but instead she held it between two fingers. The red, much like a drop of ink against a blank piece of paper, bled into the ivory, staining the purity.
Sam knew better than to hold a dying thing, so—after a moment of silence—she threw it away.
The second time she saw Josh with a lily, it wasn't meant for her. She remembered seeing the darkness around his eyes as he placed the lily on a casket without a corpse, a silent gift for his sisters that both left far too soon.
Josh had been different ever since.
In the depths of the night, the moon and stars had watched as they sat on the front porch, Josh smoking a hand-rolled cigarette as they allowed themselves to whisper the names of the girls they had lost as though they were hushed curses.
She felt her head lean on his shoulder, her cheek against the fabric of his shirt as he paid her practically no mind, staring off into the distance with a furrowed brow. She watched the smoke fall from his lips and drift away like a daffodil seedling.
Josh had turned to look at her, and the cigarette was put out. His lips met hers, and in a moment of delirium, she let them. He tasted of the tobacco that she had grown to hate, but she had learnt to tolerate the taste as long as it was coming from him.
Her eyes were closed, but she felt his scarred hands cup her cheeks and hold her tight. In an odd way, his fingers against her jawline was an act of comfort—A comfort that only he could give her.
"I love you." Were three words that she barely heard Josh whisper beneath the roaring winds, pushed out by grief and mourning, and Sam was far too deep in her own delusion to know that the words were built on an unstable, emotional foundation with no true merit.
Still, she allowed herself to keep in her own fantasy, where the dreams she created only a year before were practically reality. She had failed to recognise that, like a lily, Josh quickly began to wilt after his life had been deprived of the sun which was his sisters.
Like a lily, Josh’s time would always come once spring had concluded—Sam simply tried to keep him for longer than possible through a watery vase, and of course, that vase was always meant to break.
The lily was a sign of the beginning, a promise of something new; Josh’s grave, however, was a sign of the end, a promise that the cycle would never continue.
Now, Sam was the one giving the lily, and as she placed the white flower on his grave without a body, the three words repeated in her head like a silent prayer, but she refused to say it aloud—Not after all he had done.
Lilies are resilient. Like a weed, they can grow anywhere. And even in the coldest and harshest of storms, they can bloom. Even in the cold remains of a love that had been ruined, and tarnished by Josh’s cruel actions, Sam’s grief still blossomed.
There she realised, that the lilies were never for her, or for Hannah and Beth—They were always his. The lilies were the innocence that was lost, and with the loss of his sisters, he gave it away with their casket.
The thing about lilies is that they change, they grow from a seed to a flower, and then they wilt. Josh, like a lily, changed—His innocence wilted, and he needed a vase of Sam’s tears to keep himself upright until he couldn’t anymore.
Like the first lily, Josh was plucked prematurely; Taken away far too soon with no time to grow, or bloom into a man no longer consumed with grief.
Rather, Sam had to watch as he began to decay like a browning flower in autumn, and she could not provide him with a vase, for it had already been shattered.
With a heavy heart, Sam left the lily behind, and like the cycle of a seed to a blossom, she—like Josh—left a piece of herself behind with the flower. A circle of grief with seemingly no end.