Authors: Fleet Suki
Wildflowers
By Suki Fleet
Xavi doesn’t believe in love anymore. Love has never changed the outcome of anything. It has only hurt him.
Sam is sick, and he wants one last thing. He wants Xavi to be with him, to stay with him until the end. Xavi drops everything and promises Sam he will be there.
As they travel across the countryside in a stolen sea-green Cadillac, they search for something neither has the courage to admit he’s looking for. But as the days slip away, Xavi isn’t sure he can keep his promise; he isn’t sure about anything. He can’t help Sam do this. He can’t stand by and watch Sam suffer, can’t be content to let Sam give up.
Saving Sam becomes the only thing that makes any sense, the only thing Xavi wants. Loving Sam becomes the most important promise he will ever make. Now he just has to convince Sam that life—and love—are worth fighting for.
Table of Contents
For everyone who’s ever loved.
Lay me down where the wildflowers grow
and my heart will find its home.
SOMETIMES STORIES
are all we have left.
We carry so many of them hidden in the cage of our bodies, written like secrets on the map of our skin. Most of us more scarred than tattooed: the walking wounded, afraid of how our story ends.
Some of us find comfort in the make-believe, as if the truth there is somehow easier to believe than our own.
This, right now, isn’t make-believe, and I can’t handle the truth any longer. I can’t. This story isn’t the one I want to be living. I want a different one, some other reality—some other life—to be mine.
Of course, I don’t tell Sam that.
When have I ever told him the truth?
When have I ever known the difference?
Tonight, as we sit in some dark lay-by, listening to the ticking metal of our cooling car, I tell Sam about the field of wildflowers we’ll find near the sea at the end of our journey.
I like to pretend there’s some truth in what I’m saying.
I tell him we’ll lie on our backs among the tall spears of grass and the drunkenly swaying poppies, and the star-bright sun will be so blinding we’ll have to close our eyes to it. And as we lie there, we will be filled with so much fucking peace and happiness that we’ll sing stupid songs at the tops of our voices to the deep turquoise sky.
Sometimes I have to forget Sam doesn’t speak, that I’ve never heard him sing. I have to forget a lot of things—especially those things it hurts to remember.
I have to forget that even if that field of wildflowers exists, we’ll never find it. Time is not on our side.
Every day it grows painfully clear. Stories really are all we have left.
TONIGHT MY
words run dry and I tail off, not ready to begin another story. My heart isn’t in it—if it ever was. My exhaustion is utter and complete.
Unable to find a comfortable position, I slip down against the worn leather of the car seat, falling into a state that never quite goes deep enough to be called sleep. A state that never quite lets me escape.
“Xavi?”
I open my eyes a fraction. In the dim purple light, Sam has never looked so worn. A thin sheen of moisture covers his skin as if the very fabric of him is slowly dissolving. I know he’s not too warm—I know these days cold is all he feels.
“What time is it?” I ask, no longer able to hide my weariness. It’s a bone-deep, soul-sucking tired I have no mask for.
Just after four.
He’s using sign language again—his hand movements stilted and slow like a mime artist’s robotic dance.
“Did you imagine it? Did you see the wildflowers?” I ask sleepily. I know this question comforts him. This whole pointless quest for such a field seems to be the one thing he’s holding on to.
I’m holding on to.
He lies back in the seat and nods, the barest of motions.
I turn the car heater on and he closes his eyes. “It’s okay,” I whisper, my hand on his temple. “I’m with you.”
When I was very young, I believed that with enough commitment and self-confidence you could achieve anything. I had no ceiling, the possibilities were endless, and I was going to change the world.
Now, though, I know the truth. I fell at the first hurdle. You
can
achieve anything, anything your limitations allow. Anything except making someone else’s destiny your own.
You can’t make someone love you or save them from falling hopelessly, uselessly apart, and you can’t stop them from dying. Each and every one of us is accountable for ourselves alone.
Sam is dying.
We’re not going to try and find a hospital. And he doesn’t want to be alone, not for a minute.
We’ve been driving for weeks. Movement suits him best. I guess he feels he’s traveling toward a destination rather than waiting aimlessly for death to come for him, like a ton weight dropped out of the sky.
We have a brilliant sea-green Cadillac I stole from the car park of the library where I used to work. The chrome bumpers shine blindingly, like mirrors in the sun.
I start the engine, afraid the battery will run low with the heater running. “Do you want some music on?”
Sam doesn’t answer. His eyes are closed and his face slack. Panic surges through me. I put my hand on his chest and wait, holding my breath and hearing my own heartbeat thumping in my ears.
Finally his chest rises, he breathes deeply and shifts onto his side, but I don’t move my hand, not for minutes.
I click the dial of the radio.
“Heart of Glass.” Blondie. I try not to listen to the lyrics.
The dawn breaks fast behind us. I watch the sunrise, transfixed by the fiery colors lighting up the glass instruments on the dashboard, filling the car with warmth and light.
I know Sam doesn’t have long now—perhaps only days, not weeks. I don’t think about after. Maybe if I drive fast enough and far enough, the linear path of time will curve around us, swallow us down in an endless loop.
I release the handbrake, press the accelerator, lock my arms at the wheel, and start to drive.
I’M NOT
in love with him. I made no promises. Maybe that’s why this is so bittersweet.
I spot the walls of a distant town, on a hill, miles away. On a whim, I drive toward it. Sam shifts in his seat, all arms and legs.
It would be easier if I felt nothing, if he weren’t so beautiful, if his deep amber eyes didn’t look into my soul and see the emptiness residing there.
The engine stutters as we start to climb the hill, and I find myself holding my breath and gripping the steering wheel, praying to whatever force flows through this universe that our journey won’t end halfway up some incline in the arse end of nowhere.
This traveling is wreaking havoc with my need to be in control.
Despite the clear skies and bright sunrise earlier, the day has descended into grayness. I have become quite adept at judging the time by the sun’s position, but I have no idea what time it is as we drive through the town’s walled gate and onto empty cobbled streets. I only know that I’m hungry and I need to piss.
Sam stirs beside me. His long fingers brush mine as he turns in his seat. I pull my hand away from the gearshift for a few seconds—even Sam’s accidental touches send my senses haywire—and stop the car in an alleyway not far from a café we passed.
I can’t decide whether or not to wake him. He needs the sleep, however restless. Yet if he wakes while I’m gone, our fragile trust will be even more fractured than it already is.
I promised I wouldn’t leave him alone. At all.
I can’t imagine what it feels like to be that desperate. I don’t want to.
I climb out of the car through the lowered window so as not to disturb Sam with the sound of the car door, and stretch my legs. I walk to the end of the alley and peer down the street. No one. The little town is dead. There’s a light on in the café, though, so someone must be around.
I walk back to the car. Sam has curled on his side, with his black hair shrouding his face, completely still and deeply asleep.
Two minutes. That’s all I’ll be gone for.
I jog down the alley, around the corner, and down the street toward the café. I don’t look back.
“MEXICARNARMA. ENJOY
THE SWEET SPICY TASTE OF MEXICO” announces a faded green-and-red sign on the door. There’s a wilting aloe plant in the center of the large front window, but apart from that, inside the café looks pretty much like the hundred other cafés I’ve stopped at in these past three weeks, with its neat Formica tables, each with a fake plastic flower in a clear plastic vase.
A bell tinkles somewhere as I walk through the door, and a tall, sleepy-eyed boy appears at the counter. He stares at me sullenly. I feel sapped of life just looking at him.
“Hi,” I say, forcing a bit of brightness into my tone. “Do you do any hot food?”
He shakes his head.
“Okay. What do you have?”
He points down the counter at a couple of unappetizing sandwiches laid on a plate.
“What are they?”
He shrugs, looking at me as though I should know. I really don’t have the energy for this, but neither do I have the energy to search out another café.
“Cheese sandwiches,” he says eventually.
“That’s not very Mexican,” I say before I can stop myself. He’s pretty unhelpful as it is.
His shoulders droop as if he’s strangely put out by my comment.
“My mum’s away,” he says. “She usually makes all the food.”
I laugh. I can’t help it, it’s not even funny, but his face is so serious. He can’t be older than sixteen and I’ve offended his sandwich-making abilities.
“You can’t sell those,” I say. I’m smiling, I don’t want him to take it the wrong way, but I need some decent food. “Look, what ingredients do you have?”
THE BOY
shows me into the café kitchen, and I get to work.
Suffice to say I’m gone for longer than just two minutes and Sam isn’t asleep when I get back to the car.
I do have some decent sandwiches, though, and the possibility of a bed for the night. A bed is a bonus I hadn’t dared hope for. It’s amazing how something so simple can completely brighten your perspective. Well, that is until Sam chucks his sandwich out of the car window when I tell him. I thought he’d be pleased.
I’m not completely stupid, though. I can see why he isn’t. He wants to keep going—he needs to. I can see the regret on his face. Regret that he’s put his faith in me, his trust, and what have I done with it?
But do you admit these things to yourself?
Three weeks ago I’d told him I could handle this, but can I fuck.
THE BED
is in a dingy room above the café.
Walls stained with damp, I can ignore. Dirty curtains half falling down across the window, I can ignore. Because to me that bed looks like heaven.
Sam doesn’t want to stay—he won’t even get out of the car. I told him I was exhausted, that I couldn’t drive forever, despite what I’d said.
He hasn’t communicated with me since.
When I told him I’d be gone five minutes while I checked out the room, he didn’t even look at me, and now every second I stand here in the doorway feels like a betrayal.
I nod at Simon, my sixteen-year-old cheese sandwich maker.
“I’ll do it,” I say, agreeing on the bargain we made—my help in the café in exchange for a room for the night.
But first I need to get Sam out of the damn car.
“What’s wrong with him?” Simon asks as he walks with me down the road to the end of the alley.
What’s wrong with Sam is the million-dollar question.
I look round at the deserted street. “Is my car safe here?”
Simon shrugs and continues to look at me expectantly.
I sigh and push him back across the mouth of the alley, out of view of the car. “He’s just sick. He’s not contagious, and that’s all you need to know, okay?”
“My aunt’s a nurse. She lives in the next—”
“Leave it, okay!” I say more forcefully than I mean to.