Violet Rose

by Renny Abbas

  It was a picture. A photograph taken of Charlie and his team in Afghanistan.

  Finn stood deathly still. He was only wearing underwear and Charlie could see the tension in every muscle across his back and shoulders.

  “Finn.”

  There was the slightest of twitches in his shoulders. He didn’t reply. Charlie’s stomach clenched and he felt his heart rate quicken.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. There was no time for trying to find excuses here, “I know I should have said something and I was going to – first time I came into the shop - but then I – I don’t know I just couldn’t do it and I’m sorry.”

  Charlie came to a stuttering halt as Finn turned around. Where Charlie was expecting to see anger, instead he only saw confusion and disbelief. Finn had the picture in his hand and he held it up.

  “I’ve been stood here for twenty minutes, staring at this, trying to convince myself that this is some big coincidence and that you couldn’t possibly know that this man was my brother because, how could you? You would have said something if that were the case, right? But now you’re standing there apologising which means… you do know and not only that but you’ve always known? So, what? Did you come into my shop by accident that first time? Or had Toby said something to you?”

  Charlie closed his eyes and guilt settled heavily upon him. He knew there was a lot to be said but he couldn’t speak. This was a mess of his own making and it hurt and he immediately felt a wave of exhaustion hit him. He was so tired of hurting. Why did he do this?

  “Charlie, come on, you owe me some answers here.” Finn said, desperation in his voice. “Why didn’t you tell me? What was the plan here? I mean, no wonder you never told me about anything to do with your time in service. It’d be too much like my brother’s, right? I would have clocked that something was up. I guess you never expected this to happen between us but it is happening so why did you not say anything? God damn it, say something, Charlie.”

  Charlie winced.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  “No. Fuck that. Say something other than that. Explain to me why you have never told me that you are the guy my brother told me about when he’d call home. You’re the boss. You’re Woody. That was his nickname for you, right? You all had nicknames. He never told me your real name. Just Woody or Serg or Boss. And that’s fine, never bothered me much. But you have been coming into my shop every damn week for months. He died out there and I was broken up about it and then you came into the shop and you know what? Making your bouquets started making me feel better. It was something to look forward to every week. And I thought ‘hey, this is a nice guy’ but here you are and you never said anything. Why not? Why the hell did you not say anything? My brother died under your command and you never fucking said anything.”

  There were tears in Finn’s eyes now and Charlie just felt numb. The guilt was overwhelming and he felt his body grow heavy under the weight of it. He moved over to the sofa and sat down. His head dropped into his hands and he sighed. The silence was thick between the two of them and when Charlie next looked up to Finn, he saw a tightly clenched jaw, a slight shake in the arm that held the picture, and a look of pure desperation in his eyes. And Charlie nodded.

  “Okay. Okay,” he said. “Let me just say that I know I should have said something. I’ve known that every day of every week since I first came into the shop. But the things I needed to say… they weren’t – aren’t - easy. I had it all planned. I knew who you were. Toby talked about his family constantly. He said his brother was the bravest guy he knew. Military family and his brother becomes a florist. He used to say he could serve a hundred tours in a hundred different wars and he still wouldn’t say he was braver than his brother. So yeah, I knew who you were. And I knew you deserved to know something about him from someone who really knew him in service. And that was going to be me. I was given an honourable discharge after the incident when we lost Toby. The rest of the team went back out but I couldn’t.” Charlie lifted his shirt up and over his head. Finn just watched Charlie in solemn silence. Charlie got back to his feet, bare chested and scars on full display.

  “Toby hit an IED. We were on a routine outing. Nothing was meant to go wrong. There was crap all over the road. Scrap metal, plastic, all sorts of stuff. And there was just no way to see it. He was out in front of the rest of us, I was a little behind him and the other three were behind me. And he stepped right on it. He was walking backwards, facing me, talking, joking, smiling, he was always fucking smiling. And he stepped on it and he didn’t even have time to realise. He was gone before he could stop smiling.” He paused to point at a smattering of small scars around his hip bone. “These came from a few shards of glass and little pieces of metal. They weren’t too bad.” He then pointed at a long, jagged line down his thigh. “This one they said probably came from a bit of plastic that tore up my skin on its way past me. The ones on my arm were pretty much the same as my hip. And then there’s this one,” he ran a finger over the large, dark scar on his ribs, “when I came to and started realising what had happened, I didn’t notice the pain at first. I was on the ground, disorientated, my ears were ringing like nothing I’d ever known, and then I looked down. And there was this huge hunk of black metal sticking out of my chest, about the size of my forearm. It had somehow not ruptured any of my organs. By all accounts, I should have died but I was just far enough back that I didn’t. Instead I lay there and screamed. The pain was unimaginable. Not the pain of the shrapnel. I couldn’t really feel that what with the shock and adrenaline. But I knew that there was no way Toby survived that. That was the clearest thought in my head. And I screamed. Even after the other guys got me out of there and I was air-lifted away, I was still screaming and crying. Because, here’s the thing, you and Toby are brothers by blood. Toby and I were brothers in service. Some people believe that bond is just as strong. I wouldn’t be able to say, I don’t have any true brothers so I can’t make a comparison. But I do know that that was the worst day of my life. Losing him.”

  Charlie had to pause, his voice becoming thick with tears. Finn was openly crying now, his entire body was tense and still, hanging on each word and there was still confusion there. Charlie took several deep breaths, put his t-shirt back on and sat heavily back onto the sofa before continuing.

  “I had actually been very close to the end of my tour. So, had Toby. Just a few weeks and he would have been home with you guys. Just a few weeks and that would have been the end of my enlistment. I was ready to be done with the army. And, when that happened, they just gave me my honourable discharge and sent me home to recover. It took a long time. Had a few surgeries. A lot of therapy. All that stuff. I just felt like it didn’t matter because all I could think of was Toby and how he should be home with his brave, florist brother and his military family. See one of the reasons Toby and I grew so close in the first place was because we were from the same place. So, I knew you guys were here. And he’d told me all about your shop. And I just got this idea that I would come find you and tell you who I was, tell you this whole story about how great and badass your brother was. I spent a couple weeks walking up and down the street after work trying to get the courage to come in and talk to you.”

  He smiled to himself as he remembered that time. He’d finish work and he’d have psyched himself up to go into the shop but then by the time he’d get there, he’d talk himself out of it. Over and over again for days.

  “What changed?” Finn asked.

  Charlie’s smile faltered.

  “The dreams.” He paused. “I get a lot of bad dreams. I relive things. Sometimes it’s not too bad and I can deal with it fine. And then other times, I relive that day and it’s like I’m on my back and screaming all over again. The dreams come and go but the first time I got that bad one was the night before I first came into the shop. I woke up and I just knew it had to be that day.”

  “And yet you still didn’t say anything.” Finn stepped back to lean against the
wall and he slid down it until he was sitting on the floor with the picture resting on his knees. He stared at it. Charlie nodded.

  “You remember the first time I came in?”

  “Yeah, you walked around, you looked at the flowers, you bought some, you left. I figured I’d probably never see you again.”

  “Yeah. Well, the second I walked through the door and saw you, everything changed. You look so much like him and yet so incredibly different. I don’t even know how to describe it but when I walked in, that was the first time I’d properly seen you and it completely blindsided me, because there was a part of me that was still in the dream and when I looked at you, at first, I thought it was him. Then of course I noticed that you’re a little taller, your hair’s a little darker, his nose had been broken a few times and yours was perfectly straight. I could go on but it doesn’t matter because that initial shock of thinking you were him, completely fucked me over. And I couldn’t say anything. I just couldn’t.”

  He finished and held Finn’s gaze for a long while before dropping his head back into his hands with a heavy sigh. There was silence between them again for a long while. When Charlie next looked up, Finn was looking back at the picture and tracing it with his finger tip. His face gave away nothing. The silence was almost unbearable and the perpetual ringing in Charlie’s ears was growing more and more noticeable and painful.

  “Finn, what are you thinking?”

  Finn didn’t look up. He furrowed his brow and pursed his lips as he tried to find the words.

  “I’m thinking,” he said, “that I don’t fully believe you.”

  Charlie bristled. “What?”

  “I don’t believe you.” Finn looked him dead in the eye now, challenging him. “I don’t believe that just looking at me fucked you up that much. Because what about the fact that you came back every week? What about all those opportunities you had to say something? It’s been months now. That’s so many different times you could have told me. What about those?”

  “I wanted to say something. Every time, that was the whole reason I kept coming back at first, I just – I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t.”

  “But why? There must be a reason. Weeks and weeks of you coming into that shop and you’re telling me there’s no other reason? No, I don’t buy that. So, don’t give me this ‘I just couldn’t’ crap. Tell me the truth.”

  “It was – I just – it – “

  “It what, Charlie? It what?”

  “It was my fault!”

  The room rang with Charlie’s outburst and Finn’s expression returned to confusion.

  “What do you mean?”

  Charlie stared at the floor. Tears began openly pouring down his face and he shook his head, over and over.

  “It was my fault,” he said, “I told him to take the lead. It was my order. It should have been me. There was no reason for him to be the one out front but I told him to and he – he – “

  Finn sat in shocked silence.

  “What?” He murmured.

  “You know, I had a whole speech planned of what I was gonna say to you. Every time I came into the shop. But every time I saw you, you reminded me of what I’d done and that it was all my fault and that guilt drowned me, every single time. Recently, it hasn’t been as bad. I’ve gotten to know you and you remind me less of him. You’re Finn now, not just Toby’s brother. But by then it just felt like it had been too long. I tried to pretend you were just a person I bought flowers from. But that didn’t work because then you became the person I thought about every day. You were the person I wanted to get closer to. The person I wanted to kiss. Everything just got so complicated and then all the guilt came rushing back like a damn monsoon. I didn’t know how to tell you. I know I should have. And I’m sorry. The second-most sorry I’ve ever been for anything in my entire life.”

  “Second-most?” Finn’s face was still blank with shock.

  “First is reserved for Toby. Always will be.”

  Charlie’s tears had come to a stop while he spoke. He felt a strange lightness in his chest for having finally told the truth, but the guilt remained stronger than ever as he watched Finn wordlessly get to his feet. He put the picture back on the bookshelf, walked over to the breakfast bar and gathered up the clothes that had been discarded before. He got dressed. Charlie could say nothing, do nothing, except watch. Finally, as Finn gathered the rest of his things and headed to the door, Charlie got to his feet.

  “Wait. Please.”

  Finn paused and turned, his hand still on the handle.

  “I – I need to have a shower,” he said, “and I need to try and process all of this. This wasn’t what I expected to happen after everything and I’m just a bit – I’m a bit lost. So, I’m gonna go and you’re gonna give me some space to figure all this out. I hope you can respect that.”

  Charlie took a few steps forward, a lump forming in his throat.

  “Finn…”

  Finn held up his free hand.

  “Please, just don’t. Not right now.”

  With that, Finn opened the door.

  “I’m sorry.” Charlie said quietly, but his apology was lost as the door swung closed again with an empty thud.

  Charlie stumbled back to the sofa and he sat. He wasn’t even certain of what had just happened but whatever it was, it hurt something deep in his chest. That something throbbed terribly whenever the image of Finn’s face swam in Charlie’s mind. He sat there for hours, thinking and hurting, unaware of any passing of time until bright sunlight was shining through the windows all around him.

  Chapter 8

  The following days past in a complete blur. Charlie could barely keep track of which day was which, or of what was day and what was night. He managed to go to work. And he managed to eat. And he managed to get himself to bed in time to pass out. But other than that he was barely conscious.

  The dreams were terrible. He woke up screaming once, twice, three times a night. Only now it was just him he could see in the dream. He saw Toby, every night, ripped to shreds and he heard Finn’s voice screaming.

  Every morning he got up dazed, exhausted, and barely human. The only thing he was aware of was keeping his distance from Finn. He took the long way to work so as not to pass the flower store. He ordered food from places that were miles away that he had to drive to. He didn’t get coffee from Krista. He didn’t walk to the park. And he avoided looking at the flowers on his windowsill.

  As Saturday drew closer, Charlie barely left the house. Work was the only thing he went to. Otherwise, he stayed in his room and fought off the sleep that threatened to claim him. He hated the dreams. He hated Toby. He hated himself. He hated those damned flowers on the windowsill. Their leaves were probably starting to brown. He needed new ones. But he wouldn’t get them. He couldn’t. Those daises and those roses and bush honeysuckle would wilt away and die and nothing would replace them. Because he couldn’t go back to Finn’s store. And he certainly couldn’t go anywhere else. It wouldn’t be the same.

  Those were the thoughts that swam through his head as the hours ticked by and evening gave way to night and midnight came and went. And somewhere in all that time and thinking, Charlie fell asleep, too exhausted to keep fighting. He didn’t dream. Everything was just darkness and deep, deep silence. And he drifted through it, completely unaware, like he was floating through space.

  Then, a loud buzzing cut through the black and he jerked awake to his apartment buzzer cutting through to his room. He looked over to the clock on his bedside table groggily. Midday. It was Saturday. And he hadn’t gone to the flower store.

  He flopped down into his pillows with a sigh and threw an arm over his eyes but then the buzzer sounded again and he groaned before heavily getting to his feet. He stumbled to the door and hit the button to open the door, not bothering to check who it was.

  Less than a minute later, there was a quiet knock on the door and Charlie, slightly more awake now, opened it. And what he saw left him complete
ly speechless.

  Finn.

  Finn with a bouquet of purple roses and nothing else.

  Finn with no cocky smile, no glittering eyes, nothing but that open and kind face.

  “Hi,” He said.

  Charlie could only stare.

  “I would have called,” Finn continued, “but I never actually got your number.”

  “It – It’s okay,” Charlie mumbled.

  “Can I come in?”

  Charlie nodded slowly and stepped back, not once taking his eyes off Finn. Surely, he was dreaming. Surely, he had just fallen back asleep again and this was some cruel trick of his tired mind. Finn was gone. Finn was keeping his distance. Finn didn’t want to see Charlie. And yet, Finn was there. With flowers which he then placed in the vase on the windowsill, after removing the old ones.

  “What, um, what are you doing here?” Charlie asked. “I thought you – you needed –“

  Finn sighed and turned back to Charlie.

  “I haven’t stopped thinking about you all week,” He said bluntly. “I’ve thought about everything. More than I probably should have. More than what’s healthy. But I have. And I… well, I only have one thing to say to be honest.”

  At that point, Finn made his way back across the room towards Charlie. And he came close. Closer than Charlie was expecting and he took a hesitant step back. And Finn smiled gently.