For every person who steals your heart, you plant a rose. For every person who breaks your heart, you leave the rose to wither and die.

***

#1

You were twelve and Jason stole your heart when he walked you home on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. You never had a boyfriend before and didn’t really know what to expect. You were nervous. But Jason was a sweet boy and the truth was you were curious. Was this how love unfolded? He helped you in science class, bought you chocolates and wrote you letters. He was everything you’d ever wished for. Two months in and you were convinced you were in love. You even had this stupid fantasy of marrying him. But of course, he just had to ruin the fairytale.

Ironic how it was also a rainy Tuesday when he told you he couldn’t love you anymore. Not that you understood exactly what love was. You asked him why, tears and all, and he said he liked another girl who was prettier than you. He was too honest and you hated him for it. You didn’t water his rose when the sun rose the next morning.

#2

You were thirteen and had a better understanding of what love was, and those two months with Jason weren’t love. It was just two best friends holding hands and exchanging silly I love yous. You knew that because every time Tyler smiled at you, you felt butterflies in your stomach, you felt so jittery and fragile at the same time. Like a feeble gust of wind could topple you. You never felt that with Jason.

So Tyler was your second boyfriend. This time, it felt real, like falling in love for the first time. You loved how he would let your head rest on his shoulder, you loved the spark that ignited whenever his skin brushed your own, and you loved how your name sounded in his voice.

But Tyler wasn’t as honest as Jason. At least Jason never lied. You caught Tyler having lunch with another girl, holding her hands! You thought his hands were forbidden space, to be held and reserved for the girlfriend only. You were heartbroken, for sure, especially after he promised that you were the only girl he loved. You realized that his compliments and confessions were all lies and sweet-nothings. You didn’t want to hear his excuses, and you let his rose die.

#3

You were fourteen and high school sucked. With only one friend, you braved through your school days under the judging eyes of other students. Everyone shunned you, except for that one guy, Chris. He didn’t look at you like you were a freak, but like he adored you. Eventually, he found the courage to confess his feelings, and you were enamored by his eyes.

He serenaded you with self-composed songs and wrote poems for your ears alone. He was by far the best boyfriend you’d ever had; you even gave him your first kiss. How his lips touched your own was all the things you never dreamed to have –so tender, so sweet, so heavenly. It was unlike anything you had experienced.

In the end, however, Chris broke your heart too, just like the first two boys. But he wasn’t a jerk. Your relationship didn’t end because of another girl, nor was it him being too honest or a liar. It ended because Chris had to move across the country. You had no idea how to date a guy thousands of miles away, so you two decided it was best to let each other go. In one way or another, he still broke your heart, so you had to kill off his rose.

#4

Chris took the longest to forget, and once you had moved on, you swore to concentrate on your study and not let any boy distract you. But you were seventeen and boy, was Jackson charming! Not only was he a gentleman and extremely kind, he had the looks too. As captain of the football team, he raised your status from wallflower to the hottie’s girlfriend. Your life, at that point, was almost dream-like.

The semester flew by and things were as smooth as ever. You thought, maybe his rose will never have to die. But of course, you were wrong. At the end of the year, Jackson’s friends revealed that the only reason why you were dating the most popular guy in school was because of a stupid bet. His friends had bet that Jackson would never be able to own you. You, the girl nobody noticed. It was the worst thing that could’ve happened to you, to any girl, and you broke down like a train wreck. To think that you lost your virginity to that bastard, a complete shame! You didn’t think twice before throwing his rose in the cupboard, away from the sunlight and stealing the life it never deserved.

“You didn’t think twice before throwing his rose in the cupboard, away from the sunlight and stealing the life it never deserved.”

#5

You were twenty-four, a college graduate with a steady job leading a happy and content single life. You weren’t interested in finding a lover, not after Jackson. If someone was truly meant to be yours, you knew you needn’t do the labors –life would lead him right to you. And indeed life did.

You met Oscar at work and dated him for four years before he proposed. Nothing could go wrong this time, you were dead set certain. He was your man and you were his lady. The moment you both said I do and your lips locked as husband and wife, was the moment embedded deepest into your heart. Even to this day, you could play the scene over and over again and still feel giddy every time.

You had four preserved dead roses. All served as a reminder of the time and journey it took to get to your true love, so that you would never take him for granted or forget to cherish him as you should. And the fifth rose, Oscar’s, you took from your garden and planted it in a ceramic pot by the window of the bedroom you shared with him. And you lived happily ever after.

Except you didn’t. Why life would pull its cruel strings on you, you would never know. What you knew was the phone call which changed everything.

Your husband was found dead on the side of the road, hit by a drunk driver.

It was too much for anyone to handle. The eulogy his parents wanted you to write, the motionless chest that would never rise again, the cold lips that you would never kiss anymore, the black dress you had to put on, the weeps of relatives and friends. Not even you, who’d gone through four heartbreaks, could handle one as heart-wrenching as this.

But the worst of all were the nights when you lied alone in bed, the dry rose by your side mocking you with its withered leaves.

This piece was first publicised on deviantart, 23 July 2015.