The White Rose
Rachel Turi

I remember the first time she told me she loved me. How could I forget? I had taken her to the bakery that morning for breakfast and let her pick whatever she wanted. So while we sat outside, munching on freshly baked scones and blueberry muffins, I noticed her watching me strangely. She only ever nibbled on her breakfast, she never finished things because she said she didn't like the way her clothes fit on her. I told her she was beautiful no matter what, but she would always just roll her eyes. This wasn't it though, her eyes looked kind of scared and her lips kept opening and closing as if she had something to say, but was too scared to say it.
"What is it?" I asked her.

Then she looked at me, her light, sky blue eyes twinkled in the morning sunlight. I'll never forget the little grin that snuck upon her face when she told me she loved me. I smiled and leaned over the table to kiss her, our lips fit together like puzzle pieces. "I love you too." I whispered back. Which was true, I fell in love with her the first moment I laid eyes on her. Her long blonde hair was tied back into an intricate braid and she was wearing raggedy jean shorts and a pink Floyd t-shirt. And when I came up to her and told her I thought she was beautiful, she seemed sort of surprised, as if no one had ever called her that before.

"Turn it up! I love this song!" She squealed as she blasted up the car radio and sang at the top of her lungs, very off pitch I might add. Her sneakers tapped to the beat of the music on the dash of the car, and when I laughed at her, she turned to me with a wild grin on her face and punched me hard in the shoulder. I tried to hold her hand but she was too busy dancing, and I smiled and tried to focus on driving. I was taking her to a doctor’s appointment where she was meeting her parents there, I had asked her if I could come along but she rolled her pretty blue eyes and through a smile she told me everything would be fine. So I was surprised when she called me later that night, crying. Her words jumbled together and I tried to calm her down.
"Baby slow down, what happened? Is everything alright?" I asked her.
"No, um… So when I went to the doctor today they told me… um, it turns out… I have a Leukemia ."

I told her I would be right over and stayed on the phone with her as I drove over. She immediately rushed into my arms and I held her until she stopped shaking. I had so many questions… but she was so distraught i figured it would be better to wait until she was more stable. Soon, she was back to her normal self, both our stomachs hurt from laughter and our lips warm with kisses.
"You still have this?" I asked as I walked over to a small rose plant that sat on her bedside table. I had bought her this on our 6-month anniversary a few weeks ago. She hated cut flowers, she always cried when they died a few days later. She also hated red roses, "They're too cliché." She would tell me, but she loved white roses. "They're delicate, and they bruise easy if you're not careful." The rose buds had all bloomed and even though a few bruised petals had fallen, it looked like it would make it.


Weeks went by and I saw her begin to change. Not dramatically at first, just in the little things. She doesn't blast up the radio anymore and sing and dance, and she never really wanted to go out and do things so we mostly just stayed in and watched old movies- which was fine by me, I just wanted to be with her. Her hair was growing thin and as much as she tried to hide it, her beautiful blonde hair was falling out from the chemo. Her sky blue eyes were beginning to be clouded with a sadness I never wanted to see upon someone I loved. And even though she looked tired and far off, I still told her she was beautiful. Because she was, she would always be beautiful. And I would always love her, I promised myself i wouldn't let this sickness take away the girl I fell in love with.
"Do you like it?" I asked her as she lifted up the golden chain with a blue topaz heart dangling down from it. The blue topaz was her birthstone and i thought it would look good on her since It was the same color as her eyes.
"I love it…It's the most beautiful thing I think I’ll ever own." She told me, and then she moved her frail hair off to her shoulder so I could put the necklace on her. I never really saw her back since her hair was so long, and i never noticed how her spine and ribs were growing defined and sickly looking. Her cheek bones were sunken in, and her skin was beginning to grow a pale, ashen tint that overcame her once darkened tan.
“Damn it, I forgot to take my medicine this morning. My mom’s gonna kill me if I forget again. Would you go upstairs and get it for me? It’s on my bedside table." She asked me, and before i left to go fetch her meds, she slid her hand behind my neck and pulled me in for a kiss that she hadn't given me in a while. I told her i loved her, and i did. It almost hurt how much i loved her. Every day I fell a bit more in love with her and it killed me to see her so weak. I knew she loved me too, so she didn't have to say it back. She just smiled gently and looked at me with the same sky blue eyes I was always enamored by. So I hurried upstairs and turned into her bright pink bedroom. Everything seemed so much darker in her house now and days. She didn't like the bright light anymore so all the windows were kept closed and the curtains were drawn. And there, on her bedside table stood the white rose I had given her on our 6 month anniversary, which seemed like forever ago. The petals were growing brownish and the leaves started to curl from lack of water, and before I went back down stairs I watered it, and almost immediately a little life seemed to flow back into the rose. "There you go…You just needed a little love and care." I whispered softly, making sure no one heard me talking to a flower.
Then one day she called me over, I came into her bedroom and saw her huddled in a dark corner, crying-which she did a lot now and days.
"Baby…" I tried to put my arms around her but she stopped me.
"I might not make it…" she began, I tried to cut her off but she kept talking.
"And I love you, more then I planned on. I love you so much that I'm going to…um… let you go. You shouldn't be part of this sickness. And I'm bringing everyone around me down, I know it." I watched as crystal tears rolled down her cheeks and off her frail collarbones.
"I promised to love you and stand by you, I've kept that promise and I never plan on breaking it. Whether you're sick or not, you're still the same girl I fell in love with. Hey now…don't cry… I'm not going anywhere…"
And I never left. I visited her every day after school and spent hours cradling her as she wept and it killed me inside, it physically was destroying me to see the person I loved most die in my arms. And there’s nothing I could do about it but make sure she knew I loved her. I continued watering the rose, but it just seemed to keep dying a little more. The buds were wilted and what was left of the petals was crusty and bruised.
One day, I was driving to her house for our usual visits when I got a call from the hospital. The doctors didn't know how much longer she had left and she asked to see me.
Everything in my body grew cold and I could feel my heart stop beating. there she was, lying motionless on the hospital bed. IVs ran up and down her arms and she wore a gray gown that was almost the same color as her sickly skin. I had never seen her look so weak, and I immediately thought the most selfish thing of all: What am I going to do without her? I still don't know… but I rushed to her side and kissed her forehead gently, the next few hours I spent stroking what was left of her wispy, thin hair. I held her frigid fingers in between mine; I held them gently, afraid if I squeezed too tight then I would break her fragile bones. Then I looked over to see the white rose, almost all the way dead. No amount of watering and love could bring this flower back. I just had to make peace with the fact that something so beautiful and perfect couldn't last forever. She died a few hours later, still wearing the blue topaz necklace that hung from her delicate neck. I’m glad she wore it as they covered her casket, it’s almost like a piece of me was buried with her. And she still was beautiful, no amount of sickness could blind my love for her. When I first laid eyes upon that beautiful girl in the pink Floyd t-shirt, I never thought I would be giving a speech at her funeral. But here I am, still in love with her. Forever in love with her. And now it's like someone yanked out my heart and crumbled it into a million tiny pieces, then threw it back at me and expected me to fit the pieces back together. But I will never be whole again, there is a space in my heart that no amount of time can fill. She died with it, and hopefully she knew how much I loved her. Hopefully she knew how much I always will.