*8*

            “Gran, come ’ere! There’s so much snow!” There wasn’t really. But frozen water, falling from the sky was a reason enough for exaggeration in my mind.

            And my grandmother knew this, but she still shuffled as fast as she could from the living room that doubled as a greenhouse, smelling of loam and morning dew, like some nymph emerging from her tree.

            Her hips were as wide as the Mississippi and she could talk you ten ways to Sunday for the trip there and back about everything from astronomy, history, baking and naturally, botany. Not everyone loved Gran as mudh I as did, however.

            Our snotty neighbors, the Dilmonts, called her “that old dirt-covered bat,” and the one day my gran heard and shot back over the garden wall, “Well, it’s better than being a horse-faced, giraffe-necked nosy good-fer-nuthin’.” Which shut them up pretty quick, and quite neatly as well. That’s what I loved about my gran, her special brand of sass and strange that marked her as magical in my mind, and of course, the fact that she loved me too.

            She chuckled under breath in exasperation, and together we blinked out at the vast, glittering whiteness that was once our backyard. “‘So much snow,’ she says. ‘So much snow’ and it all just looks like white to me.” I bumped my shoulder against her side, and she clutched at it dramatically. “Assaulting an old woman! Your heart’s as cold as the day you were born!”

            I stuck my tongue out, which lead to a full-scale tickle war where I somehow ended up outside with snow down my nightshirt. ‘Punishment for your cheek,” she claimed.

            We hopped back inside on swiftly numbing feet, and my gran asked me, “All I see out there is white, what do you see?”

            I was wringing out the water from my shirt, leaning out the door. “I dunno- blues, and browns, and whites, purples… grey, too.” I loved winter, and the softly bended shadows that managed to transform everything familiar into something alien and exciting. So much white, just a blank canvas in my mind.

            “Well, you can look through the glass. Close the door, Mint, you’re letting all the warm air out.” I watched as she breathed a final stream of smoke out into the frigid blue and thought about how much I’d like for it to snow all year round. I could hear hard coughing behind me, receding back into the living room.

            I thought about that day a lot, afterwards.

***

            *23*

            Sunlight and smoke filtered through the window screen. Cars contentedly trundled along below on the roads, windows and mirrors flashing as they pushed on. The children inside them watched the scenery, while the adults only eyed the end of the road.

            The quietness of the room seemed to absorb it all, the scattered frames and paintbrushes glinting softly, as brightly as they dared. I sat in one of the old chairs from the kitchen, back facing the window for the semi-natural light, while he was folded up in one of the armchairs, jotting down quick sentences on a small notepad and flipping through a sizable tome labeled Flora’s Dictionary. “It’s getting too red.” To indicate I heard his muted observation, I nodded and slowly dragged more white across the canvas. Patiently layering petal upon petal over the darkness.

            “What am I supposed to do?” It echoed in the off the trees and rock walls, the blue sky clear and calm and all too painful.

            And again. Againagainagainagain. The mountains stood, as sightless as I, and deaf to my pleas.

            And they did not answer.

            The whites layered beautifully against the pinks, not that I could tell. But all the same, they bloomed with slient determination, tiny bushels of magnolias and meadowsweet within the dark frame. Perseverence in the face of hopelessness or uselessness. We stood, staring at the tiny swirls of color, and I realized that this might maybe, actually work.

            And I was so grateful.

***

            *8*

            In June, a couple months after that snowy morning, my gran had some friends come over for lunch in the garden. It was a fantastically sunny day, and the bees and flies kept zooming in and out of the house every time someone opened the door.

            The ladies were halfway through a pitcher of barley tea when my gran sent me back inside for the finger sandwiches. Upon my return, I came under the scrutiny of Miss Susan, a generally pleasant woman who I didn’t mind much, but didn’t talk to much either, aside from the usual, “How old are you now?” and “Oh my, how big you’ve grown!”

            But today, she looked at me for a long moment and announced over the heat and general chatter, “One day, girl, you’re going to have curves.” It was as if she’d jinxed me.

            As I grew older, Miss Susan’s prediction came to mind every time I looked in the mirror. By the time I was thirteen going on fourteen, I had hips like my gran and an almost c-cup. Needless to say, I was not the tiny China doll most people expected when they heard my name, Hyun Min Yoo. Most couldn’t say it anyway, so they called me Mint, like Gran did. Mint, in the language of flowers, means virtue. There are lots of other flowers; prettier ones with prettier meanings, but Gran figured that ‘virtue’ would cover them all. So Mint I was.

            Middle school for me was barely tolerable. It was enough being the only Asian in a predominantly white community, but with my figure and personality (I preferred a good book over actual human interaction), I was the natural choice for class punching bag.

            My gran left alyssum and apple blossoms, along with tiny sprigs of white heather outside my door when she heard me cry. Worth beyond beauty, hope and better things to come, and protection. The petals whispered to me, ‘You are more than what they say. Chin up, chest out, don’t worry. I’ve got your back.’

            They made me feel invincible.

***

            *23*

            I could hear him humming behind me, a melody that he'd probably made himself, since I hadn't heard it before. And I knew pretty much every song he liked, thanks to our noraebang nights. The muted sound of his pen on paper curled up inside the typical soundtrack of the city, like a bud hidden under the hoarfrost, waiting for the opportunity to unfurl. It felt warm, like a steady palm on my shoulder to keep me grounded while I worked up the courage to face the great wave of sadness chasing me, threatening to drag me under.

            Everything felt withered and grey. Like a nuclear winter, but stuck somewhere deep in my heart, blasting up behind my eyelids. Nothing but ash, soot, and coal. The colors coated my body, ground beneath my teeth, and burned on the way down.

            Tiny grey petals encapsulated my dorm room, the fallout, smelling of must and decay. Their broken stalks reached out of the tiny dirt mounds like gravestones. Asphodels and pink carnations, harebells. All the words I had no words for.

            My regrets follow you to the grave.

            I will never forget you.

            Grief.

            All three flowers shivered silently in a frame now, joining the first blooms upon the vast whiteness of the wall, the first days of spring come early. As they reached out with their tiny brushstrokes, hiding the emptiness, I felt the holes carved by the unforgiving hand of time filling up too. His paint-soaked hand grasped mine as we waited for them to grow.

            He stood beside me, a sentinel, the Virgil to my Dante. The protector on our journey through my personal hell.

***

            *16*

            We moved halfway through my sophomore year of high school, after Gran’s condition grew increasingly worse, deep painful coughs wrenched out from between her ribs. She shook like the last desperate autumn leaf before the freezing gates of winter.

            She started spitting blood.

            Frequent hospital visits became the new order of the day. I tried my best to upkeep the garden in Gran’s absence, whispering to the bushes and buds that this was only temporary, just be patient, it’d all be back to normal soon. It worked for a while, but my gardening skills were just about as good as my lies. Her diagnosis came in.

            The doctors suspected the sickness had already begun to set in during the winter before I turned eight and had gone undiagnosed due to the rarity of the disease. They called it Goodpasture’s Syndrome. GPS for short, which I thought sounded a little funny. The reality was anything but.

            Gran’s immune system had mutinied, turned against her. If things continued the way they were, she’d die within a few years from lung hemorrhages or kidney failure. It was fatal either way.

            The city we migrated to was quiet and just north of Seoul, about thirty minutes out of the city. Gran’s Korean was much better than mine, but it’d been years since she’d been back in the motherland. And in that time, the country had transformed into someplace almost completely different. We were both clueless, but at least we were clueless together.

            There was a tenacity to her tone, a strength I fiercely wished I could replicate, when she sighed out, “This is our last ditch effort. Our final stand. They say the treatments are better in Asia.” Gran had sat me down in one of our overstuffed armchairs to break the news. We both cried for a long while after that, because that is what you as a child do when your entire world changes. Gran told me she was only crying cause I was, but she was just about a good a liar as me.

            Gran started taking an immunosuppressant to keep her body from attacking her lungs, as well as going to regular appointments to replace her blood cells. I started taking painting classes in the city to distract me from the isolation and culture shock.

            I threw myself into the world of art with the passion singular to the desperate and possibly deranged. Palettes and canvases quietly began invading my room, keeping corners and covering the vast whiteness of the walls. It hurt my eyes.

            I kept my paints and brushes in a terracotta flowerpot Gran had gotten me as a present years before, tucked beside my bed. They peeked out above the rim like the fake scented flowers that you get from flower shops and groceries, the only thing I’d ever be able to grow.

            Yet, the melancholy emptiness persisted well into spring, hanging around the corners of our little apartment, lining the roads and hallways of my new school like the infamous Yellow Dust. It all smelled of loam and morning dew.

***

            *22*

            Coming into the city was always an interesting experience. Even after five years, as a junior in university, seeing the buildings slowly appear above the horizon, like fingers of hands eternally stretching towards the sky, still stunned me. The palms sought to hold the horizon.

            Somewhere along the line, I gave my seat to older man who wobbled on the train with a cane and several large grocery bags in tow. More and more bodies pressed in against mine, shoulder to shoulder, eventually obscuring my view of the sky, the train car becoming increasingly full as it wound its way into the city lines.

            Before Gran and I moved to Korea, I had Wikipedia-ed it, deciding to treat moving like some kind of school project or research paper. As if I studied it enough I'd be able to change it. But it was like icing a nasty bruise, only postponing the pain to a later date. I didn’t remember much from the article, but one thing that stuck was that Seoul had twice the population density of New York. In those days, I couldn’t imagine anything bigger than the Big Apple, which having grown up in my small tight-knit community already defied the limits of my imagination.

            As I stepped out of the car onto the station, the massive crush of bodies was testament enough, swallowing me up and batting me about like a great wave. I'd've rather been with Gran, who was confined in the hospital on an indeterminate amount of bed rest, as per the doctor’s orders. The hemorrhaging had returned, determined to tear apart as much of my grandmother as possible, and daily blood transfusions were needed to replace the malignant antibodies. But she insisted that I focus on attending classes and passing. Living.

            “You listen to me, Mint. If you flunk even one class because you skipped to stay with me, I'll crawl outta this bed, into the car, and then find you and kick your . Just because my life's ending doesn't mean yours is too," I couldn’t comprehend the distance I saw lurking in her eyes, and suddenly I felt scared. Like really scared, the kind that settles into your ribcage and punches at your heart and lungs till you’re breathless and winded, heart pounding and eyes widening at what looks to other people like nothing. The soft, sterile light of the hospital room haloed her withering cheeks and deep-set eyes, the unknown sharpness in her shoulders. “But there’s life in this old horse yet. I want you to get outta here, and I don’t wanna see you for at least 24 hours. Now, get!” And the proud lift in her chin gave me some sort of confidence. I hugged her hard, harder than I should’ve, took my purse and left, hoping she didn’t see my tears.

            My Gran and I were both such proud people.

            Winding through the wild throng of people, stalls, and cars was no easier than untangling my thoughts, which had netted my heart and weighted it down. I could feel my spine scraping the pavement.

            The bright lights and sounds of Itaewon wound around me like a puppeteer’s strings, helping to bring me to my senses and right me for the time being. Showtime, boys and girls. Come one, come all! See the Living Doll! Here for this week only!                 

            Caught by a whim, or a desperate need for a distraction, I slipped past a woman with birght pink highlights and a fantastically tall man filming themselves and entered a café that I remembered served good, strong tea and one hell of a éclair. I placed an order, and sat down to wait, fiddling with my phone, hoping that Gran would call, or at least text me that she was fine. I attempted to reason with myself, she’s probably sleeping, or watching one of those stupid daytime dramas, reading that plant dictionary I got her last Christmas. But the funny thing about reason is, when it comes to those you love, it simply doesn’t seem to apply. And so I sat and worried and waited for that awful, terrifying something. It felt unbearably like loneliness.

            Time dragged on, my phone pressing insistently into my side through the soft material of my cardigan. I folded a paper napkin to keep myself from checking the time; meticulously ironing the creases and corners the way I wished I could right my world. I tossed it into the steadily growing pile beside the salt and peppershakers and picked up another while feeling vaguely sorry for the custodians. A slight rush of heated air and car exhaust rushed in with the next customer, and I heard the barista call out a distant greeting, then the red-gold glow of light-lit hands filled my vision. “You look like you’ve been stood up. Care for some company?” 

            I smartly slapped the hands off my face and childishly stuck my tongue out, “I didn’t think it was possible, but you may have actually gotten lamer since I last saw you. You do the same thing every time I see you. So quit trying to surprise me with the whole cover-your-eyes-I’m-so-sneaky thing.” I spun in my seat, and glared up at my sad excuse for a best friend while he protested indignantly, “Yep, short as ever, Eric.”

            He laughed, and scrunched his nose up, “You’re terrible! I haven’t seen you in like three years, and all you can say is ‘short as ever”. How about an actual greeting?” He opened his arms wide, and tilted his head with a look of expectancy. I begrudgingly stood up and gave him a hug, rolling my eyes and mumbling about how dumb he was to keep him from picking up on just how thrilled I was to see him. The dork.

            I sighed, a tactical error on my part, and when he stepped away he looked uncertain, but serious. He was always so observant when I didn’t want him to be. We settled down into the seats, my hands grabbing another napkin absentmindedly while he called out his order to the barista. “What happened to Gran?”

            I knew it was useless to try and deter him, but it certainly didn't stop me from trying. "What are you doing back here, though? I thought you doing college in the States?" I wasn't quite ready to admit just how sick Gran was. Saying it out loud made it more real in my mind.

            "I've decided to work on pursuing music. Mom isn't happy, but that's beside the point," He shot me a deadpan stare, wholly unimpressed with my weak attempt at distraction. I simply shrugged in response. Worth a shot. “Come on, you think I wouldn’t notice? You’re my best friend and you’re hurting and I happen to know, as your best friend, that the only thing that gets you this down is when Gran is in trouble. So, talk.” Like the flowers Gran and I loved, there was another message hidden in his tone; it said, ‘I’m here. I’m in your corner.’

            So finally, I did.

***

            *16*

            We’d been meandering around for about half hour after a long visit to the convenience store, snacking on triangle kimbap and soda while vainly attempting to ward off the dusty heat and mosquitoes. The first summer after my 10^th grade year had begun sluggish and fantastically uneventful in the light of the Gran’s recent diagnosis. Though I still had no close friends due to my truly abysmal Korean, I was more than content with just Gran on her good days, because that’s how it had always been. Just Gran and I.

            At least, until I nearly ran over- “Nam Yoon-do! Where have you been for the last hour? Young man, you’re old enough to know that when you’re in an unfamiliar country, you don’t wander off on your own! Do you know how worried your aunt and I were?” I could hear Eric’s mom, even through the phone. I hadn’t met her yet, but if I was being perfectly honest, I was only a little bit terrified.

            “I’m fine, Mom, I’m hanging out with the neighbor gi- Moooooom- I told you to call me Eric!” I snorted into my drink, and he wrinkled his nose in my general direction and playfully took a swing at me, which I sidestepped.

            Our whole relationship, which to be fair had only started about two weeks earlier when I’d very nearly flattened him riding my bike to pick up Gran’s meds, was at least to me, inherently strange. The foundation was shaky enough as is, despite the fact he assured me he had no hard feelings about our initial run-in, and the only thing keeping us together in my mind was our foreigner status. This coupled with my limited (positive) experience with my same-age peers and overwhelming disinterest in boys, I, for lack of a better phrase, simply didn’t know how to deal with this. Whatever it was.

            However, looking back, Eric and I did have one other major point in common: the quietly insurmountable alienation we felt and kept hidden from the rest of the world, our dire thirst for friendship. One we were currently trying to drown in carbonated beverage.

            A sudden nudge yanked me back to the present, “Hey, Mint, my mom wants to meet you. Do you wanna eat at my aunt’s tonight?” Frantically, I shook my head to convey that No, this was a terrible idea. What are you doing, dumbo?  “Yeah, she said that sounds great. Yeah, okay, Mom, I’ll see you.”

            I thumped him hard across the back of the head, messing up his already horribly boyish bedhead, “You dork! Are you blind or something? Cause the last time I checked, shaking your head means no.”

            “Come on, why’re you mad? I mean, I know my mom seems scary, but my aunt’s cooking totally makes up for it, I swear.”

            “Cause I don’t want to go, that’s why!”

            “That’s a lame excuse.”

            My heart knew what it wanted to say; my mind simply lacked the words to actually say it. Such is the problem with wholly overwhelming emotion. So instead, I stuttered out, “I just, I mean, what if…what if Gran needs me for something, and I don’t, y’know, get there in time…”

           His impish face was surprisingly serious and empathetic, as if he somehow knew the sheer sickening terror I felt at the prospect of losing Gran, and for the first time I thought to myself that calling myself Eric Nam’s friend would be something of an honor. Then the moment passed.  “Call her up and ask her then. I know it sounds cold, but your Gran’ll probably be excited that you’re actually interacting with people.”

            He was right, the bastard.

            Eric’s aunt, who he and his mother were staying with while visiting for the summer, lived two floors below Gran and I, and about six doors to the right. I counted while we walked up to the building, just to reassure myself that Gran was somewhat close by. I could get there quickly if she needed me.

            Both women were very polite and composed during the unavoidable initial awkwardness of introductions, and I attempted to emulate them, with a questionable amount of success. Eric’s aunt insisted I call her by her first name, Jina, saying that ahjumma or Auntie didn’t suit her since she was unmarried. His mother was as intimidating as I’d imagined, a small, but intensely fierce woman, though not quite as loud as she’d sounded talking on the phone. Laughing and smiling along with them was simple enough, but hurt and sadness are not so easily disguised.

            After a few minutes of idle chatter, we gathered around the table, and Eric and I made plates for Jina and Eric’s mother. Then we served ourselves, Eric loading his plate enthusiastically, while I vaguely wondered just how big his stomach was exactly. I was still pretty full from our convenience store run, and nerves had killed the rest of my appetite, but I took a small serving of everything anyway. For a few moments, the room was silent except for chewing. “So, Hyun Min, Eric tells me you’re living with your grandmother?”

            I hadn’t been called my full name in so long, it caught me off guard, and I could feel the redness snaking up my neck while I attempted to respond. “Yes, ma’am.”

            “How long has it been like that?”

            I played with some of the banchan to stall for time, “…I guess since I was a baby. I don’t really remember otherwise.”

            Eric’s mom made a slight noise in the back of . I felt ashamed for some odd reason, and unexpectedly, my mouth started running without my permission. “I mean, my parents aren’t dead or anything, as far as I know. Gran tells me that they dropped me off with her and sorta disappeared after I was born. She always says that my dad was a dumb teenager at the time, and that when my mom said that she was pregnant, he wanted an abortion. Gran convinced her not to by saying she’d take me instead. I don’t know much else, cause Gran always gets too angry talking about it.” I clammed up afterwards, the heat from my face enough to cook on. Jina kindly shook Eric out of his shock, he’d frozen with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth, which had gone slack somewhere around the middle of my confessional.

            Eric’s mother had a strange look on her face; her lips pressed so tightly together they were nearly white, but a new sort of softness to her eyes. “Well, it may not be my place to say anything, but your Gran was right. I’ve no sympathy for parents who abandon their children. You’re welcome here anytime, Hyun Min. And call me Momma.”

            Jina jokingly chided her sister for handing out open invitations to her apartment, but backed her nonetheless. “We lonely people have to stick together, you know,” she winked and bumped my shoulder. Eric theatrically bemoaned his mother’s strangeness and his aunt’s lack of personal space, but for the first time since moving, I had felt that I belonged. And it was nice.

            Summers became the best part of my year, when I could pretend that I had a full family, people other than my Gran that cared.

***

            *23*

            The morning was filled with the quick shift of pages, text flashing by while I tried to find the words I wanted. Daffodils, bellflowers, and hydrangea. Yellow, purple, and blue. Simple flowers I knew my heart.

            I didn’t want Eric’s help with these; these would be my secret, the start of my own special diary. The morning traffic had begun rolling in by the time I picked up my brush. I closed my eyes and concentrated on remembering how bright the world used to be before it was overtaken by ash. 

            Everything was cloudy, like someone had stitched thin sheets of old, warped glass in front of my eyes. Needlepoints of pain pricked around them when I opened my eyes. “Eric?” I called out in the foggy abyss of the hospital room. Leaning backwards, and closing my eyes, I willed myself to picture Gran’s garden, fighting against the searing, steady stream of pain coursing through my head. Small starbursts of color danced behind my lids, taunting me, as if they knew I’d never see them again in the waking world. I felt horribly alone.

            Complete colorblindness.

            “Yeah?” His voice came from the left, the side closest to the window; I could feel the sunlight streaming through the panes. My hand moved between my collarbones, where the aching absence of my heart resided. I tested the soreness with curious, cautious fingers, like I had when I was younger and got three of my teeth pulled in one sitting, trying to familiarize myself with the phantom sensation of nothingness.

            “What…what does the weather look like today?”

            “Well, it’s sunny, and it was pretty windy at one point, when I was coming in.”

            “Say it like you’ll never see it again.”

            Seconds ticked by, then minutes, then haltingly, "The sun is dripping off the brushstroke clouds, like someone rushed to painted it on and used too much in one go. The leaves and the pavement are shining like those glazes you told me about, the kind that start growing the crystals after you fire them, cause of the way it rained before you woke up.” I could feel the way his hands were twisted in the sheets; I imagined that he was trying very hard to keep the tears out of his voice. But sadness is not something easily hidden or pushed away. Sadness and pain are creatures of immediacy, demanding and greedy. “And the wind is racing in the mountains, and the mountains, they’re calling for you. They want you to get better soon.” I found one of his hands, and smoothed it underneath my own, whispering how thankful I was to have have him there.

            The tears spilled over then, though I pretended not to hear, for his sake. And my addled brain thought about how strange and faraway the world of tears is.

            I hung them while Eric wasn’t looking, leaving them for him to find later, when my feelings weren’t so fresh and raw. ‘Thank you for understanding my pain when I asked you that. There are no words for my gratitude. The sun is always shining when you're near, though I don't know why.’  

            To me, thoughts like that are best when left unsaid. Words will only ruin them.

***

            *16*

            A streetlight flickered uncertainly on the corner of a cupcake shop and an alleyway, where Eric and I stood, debating. “This is so sketchy. We’re totally going to die. And I will be blaming you.” He poked at my shoulder playfully, and I lazily swiped at it.

            I tugged his wrist impatiently, but kept up my good-humor, secretly amused, “C’mon, you’re the one that wanted to go out!”

            “Yeah, but when I said ‘go out’ I meant somewhere where I’m not running the risk of having my organs sold on the black market by morning.”

            I scoffed, and feigned wounded pride, “Do you really think I’d let you get killed?”

            “Mama didn’t raise no fool.”

            “Your mother’s a lovely woman, but you’re still a dork. So shush your face, it’s like five minutes away.” Eric wrinkled his nose and I stuck out my tongue, like a well-oiled machine, right on cue.

            Admittedly, the place was slightly out of the way and run down, but the man who ran it was a good one, a rare breed these days and his noraebang was one of the best and cheapest around. So I hauled Eric in, laughing at his confusion and requested a room and some snacks. We stayed till midnight, the longest I’d ever been out at night without Gran, goofing off and singing every song whether we knew it or not. 

            I’d heard Eric sing for the first time earlier that day, just along with the radio while Jina and Momma made lunch, and had known right then and there, that his voice was something special. I could see it in the way his scrawny, adolescent frame seemed to swell up with sound, bright and incandescent. 

            From there on out, that rental room became ours in all but name, and my summers were filled with music. I wasn’t the one singing, though. I sang just enough to keep Eric from getting suspicious of my lack of participation, but there was always an obvious difference between he and I when holding the microphone.

            Every song he sang felt like a secret. His clear passion transformed them in my eyes, from the mundane to something magical. Even when I had heard it a million times on the radio, or I didn’t understand the words, I would try to snatch the notes out of the air and bury them deep within me, like seeds into dark soil. I might’ve loved him as much as I loved Gran. Not that I’d ever say that to his face.

            But, to steal the words of certain someone, dreams are only precious because they, as all good things are wont to do, come to an end. Ours always blew in on the bitter North wind, and made its presence known as the trees began to wave their fiery standards, lighting up the mountainsides with a season-long sunset.

            It always made fall and winter seem so much darker. 

***

            *22*

            As a very intelligent man once said, “The dead stay dead. And that is how they haunt us.”

            Two weeks before my twenty-third birthday, while watching the steel wool clouds shake out heaps of snow onto the trees and rooftops, Gran passed away.

            I didn’t realize, at first, but when I turned to ask her if she saw any color in the snow now, she simply wasn’t there. Her body remained, of course, but Gran, the crazy, fiery woman I loved, who could talk your ear off about just damn near anything, planted words and feelings in the forms of flowers, raised me, taught me, loved me even when my own parents couldn’t, was gone. We’d talked before about what would happen after she died, about being in university and the apartment and money, but nothing could’ve prepared me for the pure, undiluted desolation of gone. I sat, deaf, dumb and blind to the world around me, nurses and doctors and that horrible solid screech of the heart monitor. I simply sat, a stone in the shape of a young woman, heart somewhere impossibly far away, never to return.

            There were no words powerful or vast enough to describe how I felt afterwards, preparing for the funeral. Even the flowers failed to speak.

            Eric, Momma, and Jina all came, and wrapped me up in their arms as if it could keep me from shattering into a million pieces, which is all I really wanted to do. But instead, I greeted and bowed and talked to the countless number of people who’d come pay their respects to Gran. I even saw Miss Susan, who grinned sadly at me and remarked that I looked just like she’d imagined.

            I didn’t see my father. Even if he had shown, I wouldn’t have recognized him.

            Fennel. That’s what I laid in her grave. Sure, there were fancier flowers with fancier meanings, but fennel meant, “worthy of all praise”, which I thought suited Gran just fine.

            The two weeks came and went, spent curled in my bed because I couldn't face the rest of the apartment, eyes swollen and glued shut with tears, tissues permanently stationed in my hands. Eventually, I replaced them with paintbrushes and threw myself into my works with a fever, a deep-seated anger at the injustice of everything, things I had no names for. I neither slept nor ate during this time, driven and determined to create something worthy in my eyes, to remind the world of Gran's existance. To prove that her pain was not for nothing.

            I collapsed of exhaustion six days in, and from my vantage point on the living room floor, I watched the sun rise, tears pouring out of me even though I was sure I'd run out cause I hated to think about the world turning without my grandmother. But it also opened my eyes to what I was doing to myself, and I knew that I’d accomplish nothing continuing on as I was.

            I bought my first set of seeds as soon as I’d recovered enough to stand.

            Months passed, one and then two, the third staggering in drunk and weary, raining and hailing and sleeting one minute, and then calm as you please the next. Eric left text messages and voicemails, and so did Jina, Momma was back in the States, so she could only email me, but I had withdrawn into myself and the apartment, and made up my mind to stay that way until I was ready. For what, I didn’t know.

            Wilted flowers lay scattered covered the floors and counters, the fallout of a war I knew I was going to lose, but kept fighting out of two parts determination and one part stupidity. I knew I was absolute rubbish at gardening, but flowers were my strongest reminder of Gran and one of the only constants in my life.

            In those months, I rediscovered the reason as to why flowers have meaning, why they’re so beautiful. Because flowers are heartbreakingly ephemeral, forever fleering. Frustrated over my failure, I left the apartment, and headed for the mountains.

***

            *15*

            Eric and I spent the last day of that first summer bumming around, unsure of what could measure up to the importance of the end with such little time left. We switched between my apartment and Jina’s, both more than a little sad, but not willing to admit to it. High school kids.

            In the end, we got complementary cup ramen and soda from the convenience store cause at that point the ahjumma who ran it knew us by name, and sat outside Jina’s apartment basking in the cool, midday light. Gran was inside with Jina and Momma, to help with the packing. I could hear her through the door talking to Momma, which was cracked open to make moving the bags and suitcases out easier. “I’m Jung Seon Mi, Hyun Min’s grandmother. I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to introduce myself sooner, and I wanted to thank-“

            Momma cut in with, “You don’t need to explain anything. Hyun Min’s a good girl. And she looked after Yoon-do as much as we looked after her. I don’t think he would’ve left the street if they hadn’t met.” The ladies all laughed together, and I wanted to hug Momma and Jina extra hard, cause I hadn’t heard Gran laugh without a little tinge of sadness coloring her tone since we’d gotten her diagnosis.

            I tuned them out for a little while, until I heard Gran clear , “I’m sure Eric’s told you, I mean it’s not much of a secret, what with how poorly I look. But I’m dying.” Eric and I had finished our ramen and were in the middle of trying to remember how to play Spoons, a game Jina had taught us, but my mouth went dry as a desert when I heard Gran say that. Calm as you please, like she was talking about the weather or gardening or what we were planning for lunch.

            “And this might be out of the blue, but I’m running out of time and options.” She took a deep breath, like the great bellows of a forge, fanning the flames of her courage,  “After I’m gone, I want you to watch out for Mint. I’ve still got a few years left in me, but I haven’t the foggiest idea as to where her Daddy is, and I don’t know if I could trust him to do the right thing if it came down to his interests or hers. So believe me when I say that child’s got no one in this world but me.”

            Her voice got real watery then, and even though I couldn’t see her, I knew that her chin would be wobbling and her hands trying to find something to fiddle with. She and I both did that when we got upset. “I seen the way she goes on and on about your son, you and your sister. She’s never talked to me about any of her other friends before. So I can’t think of anybody else I’d want looking out for her.” Then all I could hear was crying, and Momma and Jina saying Yes, yes of course. It’ll be all right; we won’t let her be alone. Don’t cry.

           I could feel Eric’s arm flush against mine, but my mind was out floating somewhere in the realm of disbelief and denial. And then my arm was nearly pulled right out of its socket as Eric dragged me away, pretending not to see my tears.

            My bedroom was paint-splattered and altogether a huge mess, but Eric thankfully didn’t seem to notice. In fact, he was uncharacteristically quiet while he waited for me to cry myself out. The ceiling fan was slowly spinning its way into my retinas as I laid face up on my bed, but I was afraid to look away, knowing that I’d have to face reality once I did. And I’d just messed up, big time.

            One thing I’d learned growing up is that people, especially kids, will jump at the chance to take advantage of weakness. And even though I considered Eric to be a friend, my best friend as a matter of fact, I was still wary. I felt exposed and raw, with my heart bleeding out on the floor in front of me, mixing with the paints I had lying about.

            I waited for the inevitable betrayal; the disgust and ridicule I’d become accustomed to from school, the hurt I knew came with caring. Instead, he shifted out of the corner he’d folded himself into and started playing idly with the ends of my hair. “I didn’t know you painted.”

            In the midst of my shock, I remembered that this was in fact the first time he’d seen any of my painting stuff, normally when he came over, I’d clean up beforehand or we’d stay out in the kitchen or living room. I was a selfish person, I wasn’t ready to give that much of myself away.

            He continued on in lieu of my reply, “You’re really good, you know. Is this what you want to do when you grow up? Cause I think you should.”

            I nodded, eyes still riveted upwards. My heart had gotten stuck on painting, and Gran always told me I was nothing if not stubborn.

            He chuckled softly and gave a gentle tug on my hair, “I’m jealous, I don’t have a clue as to what I want to be. Mom tells me it’s because I’m fickle, can’t make up my mind. But, I don’t know, I just don’t think I’m not that good at… well, anything.” My head turned so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash, and I might’ve scared Eric right out of his skin. Not good at anything?

            My look of wide-eyed disbelief must’ve spoken for me. He returned it with a slight shrug, as if to say, well, it’s true.

            I rolled my eyes and then rolled out of bed, digging underneath for a few moments before I felt what I was looking for. I handed him the bundled up canvas, the same way you pass on a secret or shake hands on a promise.

            No bigger than a microwave door, the painting inside carried all of the feelings and words I was too chicken to actually say. I could only hope he heard me.

            He unwrapped it with the proper amount of reverence, and I was inexplicably happy that he was the one I’d painted it for. Because I was sure he, of all people, would get it. I watched him take in the colors and shapes, the moment of stunned recognition when he saw his profile inside them. It was a portrait of him singing the way I saw it, with the look of luminescent joy and light I’d come to love. Then, he laughed. “So, this means you think I’m pretty great, right?”

            I knocked his shoulder and then turned away, face the color of springtime poppies. “Oh, get over yourself.”

            He wrapped his arms around me from the back and tucked his face into my neck. The feel of his barely-there smile against my skin burned like a brand, and in that moment, I knew Eric and I would always be in each other’s lives, one way or another.

            “I think you’re pretty great, too.” 

            Later, when we all hugged goodbye at the station, I let the strength of their love sink straight down into the marrow of my bones. I never felt so whole in my life.

***

            *23*

            The mountains seemed to call, their beckoning echoing off the cliffs and peaks and thundering in my head, drowning out any common sense. I could just barely see them crest over the jagged line of apartment buildings and skyscrapers as the train car sped past.

            In hindsight, everything about the idea was absolutely horrible. It was March and therefore only about fifty degrees or so, but there I was, wearing an old flannel shirt and sneakers preparing to scale a mountain. I also hadn’t told anyone where I was going, which is one of the first things any hiker worth their salt will teach you, because nature has the nasty tendency of swallowing people up with no traces left behind.

            Still, I forged ahead, following the first trail marker I saw, crashing up and up, like a rocket jettisoned out into space. The only thing I could think about was how Gran was slipping father and farther away from me. How pretty soon, she’d be nothing more than a passing thought, a pressed flower between the pages of a once beloved book. And that broke my heart more than anything.

Hours passed, and finally I reached the end of my rage-induced energy, leaving me shaky and exhausted. I’d just begun to top the summit and as I looked out, I thought that if I looked hard enough, I would be able to see the end of the earth. Maybe I’d find where Gran had gone.

            I started screaming like a wounded animal, a raw, feral sadness from the deepest, darkest pits of my soul. WhyIdon’tunderstandI’msoaloneandhurtIjustwantherbackbringherbackBRINGHERBACK. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?

            But only the wind, whipping through the trees and the stone hearts of the mountains heard me. And of course, they could not reply.

            I shut my eyes tight against the tears and turned to go. But the world was suddenly crumbling out from underneath me; the blue, blue sky stretched endlessly above me the last color I ever saw.

***

            *23*

            I couldn’t stop rubbing my eyes, as if I could clear them out and set them right again. My world had been stolen from me, replaced with this shadowy mist while I slept. The fall down the mountainside had done so much worse than just breaking my body, legs, ribs, even arms I could handle, but it had broken my mind instead. My cerebral cortex, to be exact.

            The doctor had called it achromatopsia, otherwise known as complete colorblindness. Like someone had gone in and rewired my brain, setting it to grayscale. I didn’t pay much attention to what came after that, instead trying to figure out how to keep myself sane now that the two things I loved most in this world were out of my reach. 

            Four knocks on the hospital room door in quick succession shook me out of my stupor. Eric inched his way in, bearing a painfully fake smile and a bouquet of equally fake flowers.

            He laid them on the edge of my bed, “Mom and Jina are outside waiting for the go ahead. We didn’t wanna overload your brain with too much activity, sounds silly I know, but Mom’s really worried actually- she’ll be thrilled that you’re awake-”

            I meant to speak, to tell him to shush because he was gonna overload it anyway with his rambling, but all that came out was a sharp inhale and a little sob. Because I realized, that in the fading afternoon light, I could barely distinguish him from the all-consuming ashes of my vision.

            He was at my side in seconds, tucking me tightly inside his arms, his back making a valiant effort of shielding me from the pain of all the recent events. But there’s not a thing in this world that can stop pain from being felt. You can only muddle through it and pray you come out stronger.

            Momma and Jina had come rushing in when my heard my sobs, and after fussing for a few minutes, scolded me for avoiding their calls and messages. I had enough good sense by then to feel guilty, but then Momma’s façade cracked and she was hugging me harder than Eric, till I had to gasp out that my lungs were being crushed. They’d left about an hour ago having successfully distracted me from my misery, though not before another round of very firm hugs and a promise of a quick return.

            I was trying to keep myself from wallowing in my loneliness by listening to Eric detail the story of how I’d ended up in the hospital. “I was coming up to your apartment when I saw you walk out the bottom. So I followed.”

            I nodded along, only half-listening. Not because of boredom, but because I happened to have a lot of other things going on distracting me.

            “I thought you’d gone crazy when we got to the mountains, but I was too nervous you’d do something…dumb. I almost lost sight of you, climbing. I did for a little bit at the end, but when I heard you shouting, I ran over. I was too slow, though.” His voice trailed off, and I stared at him, trying to make eye contact. The grey kept throwing me off, though, and I couldn’t make out what he was looking at. Everything but me, it seemed.

            Then it hit me, “Are you feeling guilty?”

            He shuffled awkwardly in his seat, and looked away harder, if that was possible. “I mean, a little I guess. I just keep thinking, if I’d’ve been a little faster… You didn’t see what you looked like, down there at the bottom. Mint, I was for sure that you’d died.” His eyes finally caught mine, and even with my skewed eyesight, I could see the terror. It was the same kind I carried in the back of my mind for months when Gran was hospitalized. The fear of losing someone you loved.

            So I took his hand and gave him that same thoughtful look he’d given me all those years ago when he’d seen through my lies, straight down to the truth of what I’d wanted to say. And I thought that it maybe could be love. “I’m here though. I’m here, I won’t leave…”

             “I still have that painting you gave me, do you remember?”

             I was my last week of resting, then I’d be free to return to whatever life I had left. Though, when I looked at Eric, I realized that it might be more than I previously thought.

             The early morning sun crept through the blinds, giving everything a nice amount a contrast that made it easier for my eyes to distinguish objects and people. Eric had figured it out by the end of his fourth visit, if only because I was less sad in the mornings than I was at nights.

            I yawned, and sipped some of the awful hospital coffee from the downstairs cafeteria. “Yeah, of course I do. I made it, remember?”

            He laughed lightly, and put on a strange smile I hadn’t seen before. I shot him a questioning look, but instead of acknowledging it, he continued on, “I never told you how much that painting changed things for me, though. Did I?” I shook my head, curious. “Cause I told you, up until that point, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. Kinda just floating along, hoping that things would just work themselves out. And then, in you come, literally crashing into my life and you’re crazy and fiery and passionate, and I might’ve loved you right from the beginning, but who knows?”

            My heart was set to beat right out of my chest, but he forged on before I could think to stop him, “I’d always liked singing, but then you took me to that noraebang and the way you looked at me when I sang made me want to keep doing it forever, just so that light in your eyes wouldn’t ever go out. I started writing awful, cheesy love songs that I was so ashamed of, but I kept them anyways cause they made me think of you.”

            Everything was grey, yet his words brought back the memories in full color and I marveled at the difference. “And then the painting. The way you made everything so beautiful, it gave me hope that you maybe felt the same way. But then I didn’t see you for years and Gran was sick and you were hiding away, which I understand, but it was so hard to just stand by and watch you get hurt over and over again and not do anything when I loved you so damn much. So please, before you get let out and possibly go back into your apartment and I never see you again, can you-”

            “I don’t love you.” The words had come out without my permission, and seeing his look of devastation, I hurried to continue, “Not yet. I mean, I do love you, but I’m still reaching that point. Just give me time. Time to heal.”

            His voice was softer than I'd ever heard it. "I want to help you do that. Tell me what I need to do.”

            “Could you-could you maybe help me paint?”

***

            *8*

            Loam and morning dew. That smell permeated everything in the house, the couch, the kitchen, but most importantly, Gran. It clung to her like toadstools to trees, even on the rare occasions when she dolled up and put on perfume.

            Growing up, I’d hoped it stuck to me too.

            By my eighth birthday, the snow had piled up three feet high, truly mountainous in my eyes. Gran and I crouched in the living room, hiding amongst the impossible green. Gran’s own Eden. She handed me a good-sized flowerpot, plain and robust, identical to the multitudes present nearly everywhere in the house. The smooth terracotta felt cool and clean in my hand. So much potential, like unfurled buds, like canvas, like love.

            She cleared , so that I knew this was A Very Serious Talk.

            “You know why I garden?” I hadn’t thought about the why much. It was something that just always was. Like death and taxes.

            I shook my head no, a little embarrassed, but Gran only chuckled quietly before speaking again, “Because everyone needs something or someone that they can really be passionate about without being ashamed. And that’s gardening for me, but you’re not me, Mint and that’s wonderful. I didn’t raise you so that you could be like me.”

            I didn’t really understand, but I tried to look like I did so that Gran would feel proud of me. But Gran, who knew and loved me better than anyone else saw straight through that. She smiled anyway. “But loving something makes you responsible for it. I’m responsible for my garden, and that means I have to do everything I can so that it grows well. I’m responsible for you, too.”

            She wrapped her hands around mine, still holding the pot and looked me square in the eyes. “You are responsible for the things you put your time into, whether it’s a relationship or a plant, or a kid. I tried to tell your father that, but I’ll be damned if it actually got through his thick skull.”

            I was caught off guard for a moment; Gran and I never really talked about my father much, half because Gran would always get steaming mad and half because it still hurt my heart a little. Even though I always tried to tell myself he wasn’t worth it.

            Gran sighed through her nose like she did when she was exasperated and trying to calm down. “And don’t get me wrong, he’s my child and always will be. And the funny thing about kids is that even if you don’t always like them or agree with them, you still love them.”

            I decided then and there that as long as I had Gran, I wouldn’t need anyone else to love me. Because her love was special. Her love was enough.

***

            I loved Gran like I knew I’d never be able to love anyone else again, because love, as I’ve found, is tailor-made for the person it’s given to. I will always love her out loud and unabashed, no matter how many Dilmonts there are in the world. And I am determined to love Eric and Momma and Jina in the exact same way, rooted deep within my soul and continuously growing until the day I die. I hope to find more people to love like that, so that when my time is up, my heart and soul are overrun with flowers so bright you can hardly stand to look at me.

            Because the world is one gigantic garden and we are heartbreakingly ephemeral.

            Heather, water lilies, buttercups, azaleas. The story of my life thus far, all the sorrows and delights, Gran and Eric, Momma, Jina, everyone I desperately loved hidden within the petals, waiting for someone to peel them back, look just a tiny bit closer.

            They are splayed out on the walls, corner to corner, bright white spots floating above and around me, like the stars in my perpetual night. They are everything I was and will be, a blank canvas so vast I will never be able to fill it all. At least, not by myself.

            The future, though foggy as ever, looks just the tiniest bit brighter. More colorful, even. And it smells like acrylic and sounds like every cheesy love song you've ever heard.

A/N: So that was The Transient Nature of Flowers. A.K.A How Many Obscure Diseases Can I Cram Into One Story. Also, I Lied About It Being Slight Angst, Totes Full-on Angstssss. I’d like to apologize for all the crying, but it sort of felt unavoidable, what with all the angst xP

Bonus points to those who found the Soul Eater, Doctor Who, and EYK references.

But, anyways, Mint is based off a woman I met while apprenticing myself with the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh. She was a painter, but was mugged and left to die in a Target parking lot. She thankfully survived, but went blind as a result. When I last saw her work, she was making bronze wire mobiles with embroidery floss woven in, which were absolutely gorgeous. Her husband worked with her, telling what color she was using. Gran is based off my mom’s mom. She’s crazy and I love her. This entire thing was inspired by TLP, as mentioned in the forward. My style’s changed a bunch, Markus Zusak, J.D. Salinger, and Exupéry being my main influences now. Also J.K. Rowling. Always J.K. Rowling.

Leave a comment if you like, I’d really appreciate the feedback.

Peace out.