Sweet Clematis

by R. Cooper

  “I have been in love with you since I first saw you.” It emerged without a tremor. Clematis was clear as a bell with his stomach cramped and his wrist aching and a horrifying fire inside of him.

  Flor slowly went pale as the words sank in. He pulled back, confusion all over his face, then put out a hand. “No, no, no,” he denied in a whisper. “I’d remember.”

  Clematis didn’t want to be mean, but he couldn’t make his voice gentle. “I knew immediately, just like they say. And you don’t even remember meeting me.” He paused when Flor flinched. “It’s not your fault. Flor, please, don’t look like that. You can’t help what you feel. And you know, don’t you? That deep down, there is nothing about me that makes me worth keeping. Not by someone like you. Maybe not by anyone. That’s why you didn’t see it when you first looked at me, and in the years after.”

  “I—” Sparkles gathered in Flor’s lashes. “I never wanted to break another heart. And yours? I’m….” Flor blinked several times. “I’m your happiness? And you’ve known that all this time, and you let me—” Flor made a small, anguished sound. “Why would you do that?”

  A good person probably wouldn’t think Flor looked pretty with tears gathering in his eyes. Clematis was not good. “I didn’t expect you to ever feel the same.”

  “But I could have treated you like a friend!” Flor shouted, outraged. “I could have been kinder to you.” He was furious now. “You should expect love. You should expect kindness.”

  “But I don’t.” Every single emotion vibrating from Flor made Clematis nervous. “Please don’t be angry with me.”

  “I’m not angry with you!” Flor insisted. “I’m in love with you, and I want you to feel that it’s true, and I can’t think of what to say to make it real for you. That I love you. You are loved, you jerk! I want to grab your face and kiss it a lot and watch you make your weird, complicated grocery lists—and I don’t want you to have feelings for Sasha or anyone else. Just me. Even if you desire him, that’s okay, as long as you love me. And….” Flor briefly floundered. “Or, I don’t know him yet, but maybe I could love him too someday, if you do? Not as much as you, I think. You’re who I want to think about. I feel like my heart grows around you. Which sounds wrong, but I’ve never been about words like David, and the last time I felt this way I was practically a kid, but it’s so much more intense now.”

  Clematis could barely draw in air, his chest was so full of everything else. “You make me feel things.” He didn’t want Flor to think he was alone in this. “You make me feel too much, and it keeps coming out. I want you for as long as I can have you. But I can’t do this forever, and if you see it all, you’ll know what I really am. What you thought I was in the first place.”

  “Oh, sweetheart.” Flor sighed heavily. “You can’t keep doing that. Forget me and whatever I do to you. You can’t keep pretending you don’t feel anything.”

  “I need to.” Clematis curled up and wrapped his arms around his legs to hide behind his knees. “I’ve always been this way. What would I be if I wasn’t?”

  “Wait, wait.” Flor seemed to struggle to soften his tone, to be calm. “Do you really think you felt nothing before? That we all couldn’t see that you cared? Okay, maybe I didn’t at first, but that was because I didn’t want to. But the others could see it. They’re your friends because they saw something in you they liked. Just because you don’t trust the entire world with your heart doesn’t mean anything is wrong, or that you have to change. You already had those feelings.”

  “Everything is rising up more and more.” Clematis nearly bent himself in half to keep it all in. “Feelings that have never helped me. Wanting and needing. Anger.” He was hushed. “If I let myself want this and then you find your real happiness—” He dug his fingers into his thighs but more words spilled out. “I don’t want you to find your happiness. I want you with me. You make me feel good, and I make you smile. I claim your attention. I calm you down when even David can’t. That’s mine. For once, it’s mine, and when your happiness comes for you, it will be because I want you like this. Because I’m not like David. I’m ugly and scared and selfish.”

  “Clematis,” Flor tried to interrupt. “It’s okay to want those things. I can be yours. I would… I would like to be yours.”

  Clematis pushed his forehead against his knees. Flor was going to be stubborn about this and Clematis was barely hanging on. “You can’t say that.”

  “I would like to be yours,” Flor repeated, breathless but sure. “Do you know how you sound when you talk like that?”

  “Needy.” Clematis shuddered. “Sad.”

  “Proud,” Flor corrected. “Possessive.” He lowered his voice. “Hot. I didn’t know you felt that way. But I like knowing. I don’t care if you want to keep that a secret from anyone else or if you tell them all, but I know. And I like it. Clematis, do you really, truly think you can tell me something like that and I will hate you for it? What else? What else is there that you don’t want me to see?”

  “Flor!” Clematis’s voice was high and strained. “I can’t. Please.”

  “Okay.” Flor made a frustrated noise but stopped pressing. “Okay. I’m sorry. I just… I need you to be happy and you aren’t and I don’t know what to do.”

  Everything in Clematis was shaking apart. He took a shallow breath. “You said you would go if I ever asked you to.” Flor went quiet, so quiet that Clematis could hear his own harsh breathing, the thick, tight note in his own voice. “Flor, please.”

  “Okay,” Flor said gently, and Clematis imagined him on his knees, one hand out to soothe him. He swallowed hard. Flor moved softly on the carpet. “Okay, sweetheart. I don’t want to upset you more, so I’ll go. Because I promised, and I mean what I say.” The air stirred, and then Flor’s voice came from above him, as if Flor had gotten to his feet. “And I also mean it when I say I love you and want to be with you. I wanted that before I knew how you felt, and I was going to work so hard to get you to love me.” Flor was so warm despite how Clematis was hurting him. “But you already love me. You love me! Please don’t be afraid of that.”

  Clematis raised his head.

  Flor was practically shaking with excitement or frustration or a heart so big it left no room for hidden emotions. But the look in his eyes was pure determination. “This is real,” he announced with so much strength he could have made Clematis say it too. But he didn’t. He stayed back, with his hands out and open. “You aren’t a substitute for David or anyone else. You’re Clematis, and I love you. If you didn’t love me, that would hurt, but I would live with that. But you make me happy, and I want to make you happy, and I think we should try.” Flor stared at him and smiled, soft and sad. “So I’ll go, but I want you to do something for me. You are loved. So I want you to ask. Ask Lis. Ask your Sasha. Ask Frangi and Stephanie and Mrs. Galarza. Ask those two puppies outside. Talk to people and let them tell you.”

  “None of those people really know me,” Clematis objected in a whisper.

  Flor lowered his head like a belligerent bull. “Don’t they? At heart they all know you. Nobody can pretend for years, Clem, especially not fairies.”

  “I did. With you,” Clematis insisted, but Flor was already shaking his head.

  “You hid a lot but I still noticed you. You never acted how—how I felt you should, how I thought you wanted to. And it pissed me off, and I didn’t handle it well, but I noticed.” Flor smiled again, sharp and tender at the same time. “You’d cuddle up with Stephanie and watch over her at parties if she passed out, but then you’d turn around and try to act sneery about humans. You got that little cheap mood ring at Christmas and you reacted like it was the first present you’ve ever gotten. You fucking lit up and that ring is still on your nightstand. I noticed,” Flor finished, his manner oddly satisfied, like he’d just proved something to himself. “It just took me a while because I’m stubborn and not used to thinking about what I’m feeling.”

  “You’re so beautiful,” C
lematis told him miserably and looked down. “If I do this… nobody has ever wanted me. I’m not brave like you.”

  “That’s not true.” Flor could have made Clematis say that too. But he stood there, catching his breath, then pulled his hands back. “You’ll talk to them? And then, if you still want to, come to me? I can wait. I’m not good at it, but I can.”

  “You’re leaving?” Clematis straightened up in a panic, getting to his knees.

  Flor came back to him, just like that, and put a hand to the side of his face. “You don’t want me to go, but you need me to go?” Flor studied him carefully and then brushed his thumb over Clematis’s cheek. “You love me so much it scares you,” he added, settling into the words.

  “Yes.” Clematis shut his eyes, but Flor was still there, covering him in glitter.

  “I’m scared too,” Flor admitted. “You just don’t see it because of all the pink.” He probably thought that was funny. Maybe it was. Clematis choked for a moment on what might have been a laugh, and then he could breathe again. Flor continued to pet him. “Will you ask them?”

  A promise given to a fairy was usually in exchange for something. But Clematis didn’t want Flor to leave, not forever.

  He kept his stinging eyes closed. “What if they don’t want me? What if I don’t know how to ask?”

  “Buttercup.” Flor’s breath was warm on his forehead. He sniffled, as though he wanted to cry, but his voice was steady. “You gave me violets.”

  “If I was your happiness, you’d make me a crown.” Clematis shivered, wanting more than the barely there buss of Flor’s lips.

  “Do you really think I haven’t already thought about it?” Flor smoothed Clematis’s hair down and kissed him again. “With every passing second, I am falling more and more in love with the idea of being yours. But I think… you were so scared. I think this is what David and Tulip meant, in a way. And it’s hard, so this is probably the right thing to do. You have to tell me what you want, when you’re ready to. When you believe it’s possible. But, oh man, waiting is going to suck.”

  Flor had too much faith in him. He was also terrible at being patient, but too loyal for his own good.

  “I’ll try,” Clematis promised him in a rush, committing himself to a painful, foolish waste of time. But Flor believed in it, in him.

  Flor kissed him a third time and sighed longingly, already sad. “Are you going to keep your eyes closed until I’m gone?”

  “I don’t want to see you go,” Clematis answered, then bit his lip at the pained sound Flor made. “I’m sorry. If I was your happiness—”

  “Shut up,” Flor told him firmly. “You’re worth waiting for. I am going to fuck up whoever convinced you that you weren’t.”

  “Mishi won’t like that,” Clematis sighed, imagining her plucking Flor from danger yet again. “I don’t really like it either.”

  “Because you love me.” Flor was so pleased to say that. He kissed Clematis one final time and then swallowed. His voice was still thick with emotion. “When you’re ready, come find me. Come to me or call me to you, and say yes, or no, or wait some more. Okay?”

  This time, he didn’t wait for an answer. Flor’s hand slipped away, and then the rain of his glitter, and then his warmth. The door opened and closed, and Clematis was safe and hidden and alone.

  Chapter 17

  HE WAS late to work by ten minutes on Monday morning, and Collette greeted him with an uncharacteristically somber expression and told him he was wanted in Mr. Harbaugh’s office.

  Clematis was not wanted in Mr. Harbaugh’s office. Mr. Harbaugh did not want him anywhere. But Clematis stopped struggling with his shirt to nod at Collette and then turn to head into the warren.

  His desk had been moved and cleaned off. He didn’t see his plant anywhere and wondered what Flor would say about that. Although he wasn’t supposed to think about Flor. He was supposed to get through the day and not press at the achy hollow place in his chest. Flor had left. He was gone and would stay gone unless Clematis did something impossible and got others to love him.

  He shook at the thought, the way he had trembled all Saturday night and felt cold all of Sunday. He had decided Flor had done this to him as a way to leave without hurting his feelings. He had also decided Flor would never do that to him, and if Flor wanted to go, he wouldn’t have said anything about love before walking out. He’d imagined Flor crying to David that Clematis had rejected him, and Flor alone and shocked in his apartment the way Clematis had been. Clematis had done everything but what Flor had asked him to do.

  Flor could have made him do it. That was what kept Clematis restlessly pacing his apartment for the remainder of the weekend. Flor could have held his wrist and told him to and Clematis would have done it to make him happy.

  Instead, Flor had asked, and hadn’t even demanded an answer.

  Clematis passed a busily typing Sasha without a word and all the ladies at their desks who would not look up at him. He knocked before opening the door to Mr. Harbaugh’s office, because humans liked that, and paused for a moment to see Mr. Harbaugh seated at his desk, waiting for him.

  He had put a piece of paper and a pen on the side of the desk next to an empty chair. There was also an envelope.

  “This is your third time being late this month alone,” Mr. Harbaugh said, instead of any other greeting. “And your work in the archives has not moved along as quickly as I would have liked. Taking that into consideration, as well as the fact that the institute is finishing up this project, I’m afraid we have to let you go.”

  He wasn’t afraid. But humans lied. Humans in positions of authority lied the most. They said it was to spare feelings, but they meant their feelings.

  Clematis didn’t sit down. He stood there, frozen, when other fairies would have cried or shouted or smiled as they picked up that envelope that probably held his final check complete with payment for all the sick days he’d never used.

  “We cleared out your desk for you, but didn’t see anything personal to be saved.” Mr. Harbaugh watched him carefully. His tone was almost confused. Maybe he had really been expecting tears. “Before you go, if could just sign this.” He leaned over to tap the paper with two fingers. “I understand you were of a great help to my predecessor, but the institute needs more versatile employees. We could hardly ask you to spend time with the students, could we? I’m sure you’ll find something more suited to your interests.”

  He’d never said so much to Clematis at one time before.

  Clematis thought of his plant, probably in a garbage bin somewhere with the drawings students had given him through the years, and blinked.

  He moved slowly to sit down, then stared blankly at the paper. “I can be better.”

  “I’m afraid you’re a distraction, at this point,” Mr. Harbaugh replied. Clematis had been a distraction in high school too. They’d nearly sent him to the secondary school to keep him away from the good human students until Anise had found out and reminded the principal of his grades and said they’d had no legitimate reason to deny him access to the regular classrooms.

  Anise was very direct in the moments she was focused.

  Clematis looked at the paper until the words made sense. “Does everyone sign one of these when they’re fired, or just the fairies?” Of course, he was the only fairy, as Flor would have pointed out. The institute had no other beings on staff.

  “There is no reason to make this political.” Mr. Harbaugh tried to wipe the frown from his face. “Just sign it and you can go.”

  “I can’t go until I sign it?” Clematis studied the words again.

  “I didn’t say that.” Mr. Harbaugh’s voice got higher. “This is to make things easier. You don’t want to cause a scene, do you?”

  “Like a dumb fairy?” Clematis asked quietly. The words on the paper said he agreed with the reasons for his termination and that he would not sue. That was something Collette would think about—suing, lawyers. Clematis read the paper again whil
e Mr. Harbaugh fidgeted. Then he pulled his phone from his bag, to Mr. Harbaugh’s alarm.

  “What are you doing? You don’t need to make a big deal out of this,” he insisted. “I can explain it to you.”

  “So can Walter,” Clematis answered and exhaled nervously when Walter answered.

  “Clematis?” Walter asked. Old-fashioned music was playing in the background.

  “Can my employer make me sign something when they fire me?” Clematis bit his lip when Walter went quiet. The music died down. He could hear Hyacinth in the distance.

  Walter said, “They can ask you to.” Then, “It might affect your rehirability if you don’t, but from what you told me, they weren’t going to rehire you anyway. What does it say?”

  “It says I won’t sue,” Clematis dully informed him, then read the specific words aloud while Mr. Harbaugh sputtered.

  “Who are you talking to?” he demanded.

  “My attorney.” Clematis glanced at him, then nodded as Walter said, clear enough to be heard across the desk, “Tell him you won’t sign anything without a lawyer present, then leave.”

  “I won’t sign anything without a lawyer present,” Clematis repeated and stared at Mr. Harbaugh’s stunned face for a moment before he got up. He took his check, because he had bills to pay, then slipped out the door.

  Walter’s voice was still in his ear. “Are you all right? Do you want me to send Hyacinth to come get you?”

  Hyacinth yelled somewhere in the background. “Where am I going? What’s going on? Walter, are you listening to me?”