I knew her so well. Knew the warmth of her smile when she ignored all the struggles we had. Knew the smell of her hair, when she twisted it between her fingers to distract herself from all the eyes on her. Knew the sound of her laughter when she played pretend about what her life was. When she imagined what the future could hold. The way she would tell her own fairy tales was dictated by nothing but her fantasies, dreams, and make-beliefs. In love with the moment and the moment was then, was never-ending, was forever. How big would we dream if we knew we wouldn’t fail? If there was never a limit, never a restriction, never a rulebook to follow – if there were no guidelines and no expectations - because think about it, we live only for a little while and our lives are temporary. Compared to this universe we are nothing but maybe the blink of an eye and still, we are the centre of our own little world, constantly spinning around ourselves. And still, we weigh the little things, and we care and care and care for anything so tiny that in a few years it will be forgotten anyway. I see this fear, this doubt, these concerns in the eyes of almost everyone including myself, the concerns about the next assignment, the missing toilet paper at home, that one person that is getting on our nerves, the concern of being late and missing out and wasting time and growing old without once being truly seen.
It gets loud, doesn’t it? It gets so loud that all I dream of is quiet. It gets so loud that all I long for is a break in the woods, where I can run around screaming and I wouldn’t be bothered by what is expected of me and I wouldn’t be bothered by what others might think. No, all I’d care for is that feeling in my chest when I jump and hear the wind and the branches cracking below my feet, landing, and falling and then - just quiet.
And her - she did that. She escaped into that quiet, but she didn’t need a forest or the ocean, she didn’t need to be alone or by herself, she didn’t need the wind or the branches or the sun. She did it right there in those white cold sheets, with syringes attached to her arms and the metal arms of her bed next to her and this smell of disinfectant and the white walls surrounding her. She did it in a place that was anything but quiet. And here I was looking at her feeling sorry for myself. Feeling sorry for my empty heart, and my shallow, superficial mind that couldn’t understand her. A mind that couldn’t grasp the idea of happiness, although my body had it all at the tip of its fingers.
I was ashamed, and I had to look away. Couldn’t bare the thoughts that I had. What a coward I was. I sat down next to her. Started observing what was around her instead of staring straight at those eyes. I looked at the fresh flowers on the nightstand. So fresh that I could smell them over the stench of illness.
Red Roses, her favourite. They had always been her favourite. In Amsterdam, she had painted them and hung them everywhere in our tiny apartment to the point that I started hating those flowers. Roses in general, white ones, yellow ones, and especially red ones. And now I was looking at them and hoped they would stay fresh forever, hoped they’d never fade and get all crinkly and old until you had to throw them out and with it all the memories.
I got so cold, I went and closed the windows.
“Hey, wake up.”, my eyes felt heavy. Blurry pink walls appeared and with them a face - brown eyes and freckles and black curly hair. The smell of rosemary hit me. Still dazzled by sleep I nodded: “Mm.” She laughed. “Get up sleepyhead, or do you want to skip work today?” She left the door open and went into the kitchen from where I could hear dishes clashing and water running. I sat up straight and the sun tickled my eyes. The streets of Amsterdam looked back at me from behind my little crooked window shelf and I smiled. “Mm, it was a dream.”, I said more to myself than to anyone. I relaxed my muscles and shook off the small headache that was still tormenting me. I guess it had to do with what I had just seen seconds ago. Was it even seconds, probably minutes, maybe hours? But this thick lump in my throat that had urged me to no look at her was still there and I couldn’t swallow it. And it had still been difficult to look at her when I had woken up, it just felt wrong, as if there had been too much truth to my dream. A truth that I didn’t dare to question.
The wooden floor creaked familiarly, and I threw on my favourite hoodie and cosy pants. I froze for a minute when I walked past the big canvas full of roses and colour splashes in our hallway. I forced myself to appreciate the fine lines and the smooth edges that flowed beautifully together and gave the impression of a bouquet. Why had I never done this before, looked – and I mean really looked – at this drawing. I had rather given it a grumpy face every time I passed it in front of her so she would see how discontent I was with these drawings. With her covering our apartment in red roses. And she had laughed it off - as always. “There are worse things than an apartment full of flowers.” I remember it had made me so mad when she said that.
The little café I worked at was still empty when I stepped behind the counter. I grabbed a cup and poured myself a coffee whilst she sat down on the bench in the corner. “You want one?”, I stirred the cappuccino and caught myself shaking a little bit. “Did you really just ask me that? Come on, you know me well enough by now.”, she shook her head in an overly dramatic way indicating how unnecessary my question really was. I laughed. It really had been quite weird. But there was something very strange about today and I felt goosebumps on my skin just thinking about it. Goosebumps that urged me to say: “Hey, I was wondering – You know that tiny gallery you always talk about, the old one just ten minutes from here.” I kept stirring my coffee. “Yeah? What about it?”, she was doing that thing again, being dramatic, raising her eyebrows to challenge me. “Maybe it was a good idea, you know when you said you were thinking to buy it, making it your studio.” I kept stirring and a bit of the coffee spilt on my jeans. “Wait,”, her expressions were genuine, “You're actually saying you changed your mind? What about “the waste of money” and “the risks” and “the fact that it’s too early” – I mean the list goes on…” She bit her lip as if trying to figure out what was going on with me. To be honest I was trying to figure that out myself. I still had exactly those thoughts, it was too early to buy a property, too risky to invest all that money in an artistic dream, too wasteful when thinking about saving up for other things, more important things – or was it? “I was thinking, why not. I mean you have been spilling your paint all over the apartment so why not give you a proper place to do it and share it with others.” Her eyes were open wide: “But you hate my roses.” That stung in a way that it had never done before. I mean, yeah it must come across like that but hearing it from her confused me. “I don’t hate them.” Not anymore. I shook my head. “I always plan these things for the future – our future – and I get so focussed on what will be that I forget what is going on right now. Why not just follow the consequences of who we are? You love painting, you start doing it the proper way. I love you; I start supporting you the proper way. I think I get caught up in the what-ifs too much.” She smirked, “You do? I hadn’t noticed.” I took a sip of my coffee to process what I had just openly established about basically the essence of my being. I didn’t dare to dream, didn’t dare to let go. But why did that have to mean that she couldn’t do it? “Let’s buy it.” I grabbed her coffee To-Go from the machine and handed it to her. She got up and kissed me with a smile so big that it was rare, even for her: “I love you.” Then she left and winked at me, and I had to take a few deep breaths before getting back to work and opening the café for the day.
When I came home that day I was relaxed, I felt free and almost untouchable like the weight of doubt had been lifted off my shoulders. I had thought out how we could pay for the gallery and was already planning concepts for the first gallery nights and exhibitions. Maybe we could have real roses on the window shelf. It would look beautiful, and I was highly confused by how excited I got knowing well enough how hard the beginning was going to be. But for some reason, I knew I was ready for the change that she had longed for a while now.
She was sitting on the couch her head behind one of her many books and her feet spread on the couch table. I sat next to her and kissed her forehead. That’s when I heard her. Her swollen eyes, hidden behind the pages. She was crying. My heart stopped for a moment and once again that day I froze. Then I held her in my arms and wrapped myself around her without saying anything. I planted more kisses on her head and started crying myself. I thought I didn’t know why but weirdly enough something told me that I did know exactly why.
It felt like hours passed, or minutes, maybe seconds? I lost myself in that moment because I feared whatever was going to come next. I smelled rosemary and saw red. And I felt her. Her, who was the reason why I felt anything at all. And when she pulled her body away from my mine it was like part of me was already missing.
“I love you.”, Her eyes were wet but still I saw that light in them, that endless hope. “And I love you.” She smiled. “I got that call from the doctors that we were expecting. The one where I tell you it’s bad news.” That was all she had to say. Because I already knew. We had already known. Even unconsciously I had predicted the answers to months of praying for a miracle to happen. And I had pushed it away hoping it would vanish. I had hoped that by changing the future, by getting over those stupid limits of mine, we would overcome hers. And by buying that gallery, I would have chosen a different path from what life had planned for us, for her. For her, this beautiful, brave, loving woman who lived as if the moment was all that mattered - who lived without caring too much. I thought I could buy her a life so there were many more moments where she could not care too much – where she could be free. I could buy her what I didn’t deserve. The coward that I was. But sadly, that’s not how life goes.
-
I knew her so well. Knew the warmth of her smile when she ignored all the struggles we had. Knew the smell of her hair, when she twisted it between her fingers to distract herself from all the eyes on her. Knew the sound of her laughter when she played pretend about what her life was. When she imagined what the future could hold. The way she would tell her own fairy tales was dictated by nothing but her fantasies, dreams, and make-beliefs. In love with the moment and the moment was then, was never-ending, was forever. How big would we dream if we knew we wouldn’t fail?
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