An old story I wrote for an Intro to Fiction workshop back in early 2022. My prose has changed a lot since then, but I still enjoy its themes, even though they’re quite heavy.
As I stare at the headstone engraved with my mother’s name, I feel my body start to tense; A tendril of dread wraps itself around my throat as the tears begin to flow. “Riley Gracidea…” it reads, “Loving mother to Finn… may the fire in her eyes burn forevermore.” Through my clouded eyes, I can barely read those wretched words, yet I know them all too well for my tears to blind me. I reach into my backpack, pulling out a delicate bouquet of blue “forget-me-nots”, and set them down next to the base of the stone. Collecting my thoughts and emotions, I mouth a silent “I love you” to her spirit and slowly walk back to the graveyard’s entrance. I don’t know why I keep coming back here. Each and every time I do, I feel as if the air around her grave grows heavier and heavier until I begin to choke on the words I so desperately want to shout at her, wherever she may be. Maybe it’s because she died so suddenly that I can’t move on, or maybe it’s because she’s all I had left in the first place. All I know for sure is that I can’t stop visiting her grave each and every day.
As I approach my car, I resist the urge to look back for fear that I might not leave this time. Hands trembling, I open the driver’s side door, quickly insert my keys into the ignition, and begin to pull out of my parking spot.
“Don’t look back. Don’t look back.” I repeat those words in my mind over and over, tightly grasping the steering wheel as I slowly begin to drive away. My tears begin to cloud my eyes again as I try to focus on the road ahead of me. My throat tightens as I flip my turn signal, preparing to round the corner that will leave my mother out of view. As I wait at the stoplight, I feel my heart racing faster and faster, desperately waiting for the moment when I can round that corner and finally relax. I peer over to the pedestrian signal and watch the numbers slowly tick downwards.
“10…9…8…”
My neck begins to twitch. I have to resist the urge. I have to.
“7…6…5…”
I tighten my gaze on the signal, hoping to God these next few seconds go by as fast as possible. I can’t let myself break, not again. I’m strong enough to let go, to move on, and to live out my future instead of staying stuck in the past.
“4…3…2…”
My thoughts can’t distract me from the inevitable. No matter what I do, I can’t help it. This routine has never changed since she died. Why should I expect today to be any different? “1…”
The walk signal flashes. My foot steadily moves forward onto the accelerator, my now sweaty palms guiding the steering wheel leftwards as I begin to make my turn. I am halfway through the turn when my eyes instinctively gaze back in the direction of my mother’s grave. There she is, draped in a dress of scarlet and holding my bouquet, a crown of roses decorating her long red hair; Our eyes lock as she begins to wave at me. As I take one hand off the steering wheel to wave back, I hear the honking of a horn coming from a few hundred feet in front of me. With a soft smile forming across her face, my mother points in the direction that I’m driving as if to call my attention to something. When my gaze fixes itself back onto the road, it is only then that I realize that I was too enamored by her sight to realize that I had turned into the wrong lane; Suddenly, I am met with the sight of a frantic driver, wildly honking their horn, stopped dead ahead as I speed towards them. My heart stops as I realize the reality of my situation. Regaining my focus, I quickly swerve out of the way and barely hit the driver’s side mirror of the other car. Pressing the sole of my foot forcefully against the brake pedal, I quickly came to a complete stop on the side of the road.
As I stared at my now trembling hands, hundreds of questions began to run circles around my now terrified brain. What just happened to me? Why couldn’t I look away? Was that really my mother whom I saw standing there? However, I didn’t have much time to process any of these thoughts, as three powerful knocks on my window broke me out of my trance. Mustering up the courage to look out of my window, I see a middle-aged woman staring right at me, eyes dilated with rage. She seems to be screaming something at me, but I can’t quite make out what she’s saying. I think the shock of nearly causing an accident deterred my hearing from working; I can see the curse words forming and dissipating on her lips like clockwork, yet despite the intensity at which her words seem to be expelling themselves from the depths of her lungs, they remain inaudible. Accepting the fact that I’m now in deep trouble, I finally pull down my window. Slowly but surely, the woman’s words become clearer.
“…Oh, so NOW you quit your little staring act!” she yells at me. “Young man, what is your name?”
“M-my name’s Finn ma’am.” I quietly muttered.
“What the HELL is your deal?” she screams, her voice cracking from anger, “You nearly crashed into me head on! You could’ve KILLED me!”
Those were the last words I needed to hear. Newly formed tears began to cloud my vision once again. The woman’s gaze began to pierce the veil of my soul. I didn’t know what to think or how to respond, but I knew I had to say something.
“I…I’m very sorry ma’am. I’m not feeling so great right now and I was in a rush to get home-“
“If you were in such a rush then why didn’t you keep your eyes on the damn road??” She cuts me off hastily, “You were looking to your left until the last god damn second! Was whatever you were looking at sooooo important to warrant you turning into the WRONG lane and nearly wrecking us both??”
“I-I… think I was just seeing things ma’am. I don’t know why I looked back-“
“SEEING THINGS?” she cuts me off, again, “If you’re seeing things while driving then you need to go get that checked out. Pop some pills to keep you focused or something… I don’t care!”
I stare blankly at her, unable to say anything more than what I already have. The redness once present in her face slowly begins to dissipate. Maybe her rage had begun to stop blinding her, because for a brief moment… there was a look of pity in her eyes.
“… Anyways, you’re lucky things didn’t turn out any worse.” She says in a much calmer tone than before. She points back towards her slightly dented mirror. “You could’ve damaged way more than that, and since you didn’t… I’ll let you off the hook. Please be more careful on the road; you could really hurt someone if you let things distract you.”
And with that she slowly walked back towards her car, hopped inside, and drove off. For a while I just sat there motionless, unable to fully process what had just happened. I kept thinking about what the woman had said to me over and over. I had never considered talking to a doctor about my emotions since I figured that I’d be strong enough to handle them by myself, but after endangering someone else’s life like that… I knew I had to consider it.
I took one last look at the graveyard before I left. All my eyes met were the dull, grey complexions of hundreds of headstones, scattered across a field of lush green grass, and of course, my mother was nowhere to be found.
To say that my mother meant a lot to me would be an understatement. When I was around three years old, my father abruptly left our family, leaving my mother all alone to raise me. She never did tell me why he left. She always avoided answering the question when I would ask it, always saying things like “You wouldn’t want to hear about it anyway” or “That good-for-nothin’ isn’t worth the breath.” From the look of pain on her face when she said those things, I could tell that whatever the reason was… it hurt her immensely. It was a secret she took to her grave. Nonetheless, despite the challenge of being a single mother, she had always done her very best to take care of me and spend time with me when I was growing up. Not even having to work three part-time jobs at flower shops around town could keep her from taking me to the playground after school every single day, lying us both down on the grass as the sun set, and gazing up at the stars. One night at the playground when I was around six years old, she told me that if I made a wish on a star, it would someday come true. I think I told her I wished she could live forever… or something like that. She laughed at me, a tiny spark lighting up her eyes like a flame. They always seemed to do that when she was happy.
“Finn!” she said teasingly, “You’re not supposed to say the wish out loud! Now it won’t come true!”
“But why?” I think I said to her. My memories of my own words are hazy.
“Because a wish upon a star is something that only YOU hold on to!” she said, “If you let the world know what you wish for, the star’ll hear ya! Then you won’t get what you wished for!”
I feel like I must have looked at her solemnly, because although I know I could not see my own face, she could; I remember the words she then said to me loud and clear.
“Nobody lives forever Finn. When my time comes, it comes. For all I know, I’ve still got a whole lot of time left! But just so you know here and now, when I die I want you to keep on livin’, alright? Don’t spend time wallowing about the things you wish you’d said or the things you wish you’d done with me, because all the love you’ve already given me is all that I’ll ever need! Remember to live for yourself, Finn, never forget that! I’ll always love you!”
I don’t remember how I responded after that. I think the memory is just too painful for me to look back on.
As I grew older and a little more independent, my mom always had my back through thick and thin. She’d support my budding interest in gardening even when I’d get teased at school for being a “flower boy”. “Screw that!” she’d always say when I told her about the bullies, “You stay true to yourself! If you like to garden, then garden! It’s that simple!” After hearing that, I thought “Y’know what? Screw it. I DO want to be a gardener!” and began looking for ways that I could cultivate my passion, which led to me getting a job at one of the local flower shops just as my mother did. My mother would also dress me up for my school dances in shoddy tuxedos she’d buy with her fleeting spare cash, despite the fact that I didn’t have anybody to go with at all. “Who knows what’ll happen?” she always said with a wink, encouraging me to step out of my comfort zone. Even though I never did find a date, just hearing her have even a tiny bit of confidence in me made it feel like going was worth it. She’d always bake cookies for my friend Hank when he came over, who I’d met in the 9th grade in gym class after I sat myself out since I knew I wasn’t athletic enough to play basketball. I remember he came up to me and asked if I was okay, and upon telling him that I felt embarrassed that I couldn’t shoot the basketball quite right he offered to teach me.
After a few more gym classes and a quick phone number swap, we warmed up to each other a lot and became pretty good friends throughout high school. We’d talk about our dreams, what we wanted to do after high school was over, as well as talk about our feelings in general. It felt so nice to be close to someone else for the first time, and I think my mother shared that same sentiment. I remember when I first brought him over to my house to do homework, my mom was ecstatic because I had finally made a friend!
“I told you so!” she said, “Look at you makin’ friends out there! I’m so proud of you!”
Throughout all the money struggles and sleepless nights, she always made time to make me feel loved and worth something. Year in and year out, whether I was feeling good or bad, she was always there, and life was special. When I turned 18, I felt the best I had ever felt in my entire life. I had a loving mother, a friend whom I could lean on, a job that I loved, and my final year of high school approaching its gratifying conclusion.
So when my mother told me that doctors had found a golf ball-sized tumor lodged inside of her brain, my whole world came crashing down.
I woke up the morning after my near accident with tears in my eyes yet again. I think I dreamt about the past again last night… unfortunately. Ever since my mom passed away, I’ve felt as if I’m perpetually stuck reliving the week after she died over and over again.
The week after she died, I completely shut myself out from the world. I stopped talking to my friends. I dropped out of high school because I didn’t see the point in continuing if she wasn’t there to see me graduate. I started working more at the flower shop because I knew it was the only place where I still felt connected to her in some way, until I saved up enough money to buy and have her headstone engraved. I moved into a small apartment in the middle of town by myself because I couldn’t afford the moderately sized one my mother and I had lived in. I was fortunate to take a good number of things from that old apartment, but I ended up storing them in a small chest I had set next to my bed. It was just too painful for them to be left out in the open. Every day, I would constantly zone out at work, unable to process anything more complex than simple cash register math and the names of plant species for customers. Everything changed so quickly in that one week, and for the past year, things haven’t changed one bit.
But today… I think things will change. I think I finally know a solution to all of the strife manifesting within me. It’s up to me to see this through.
“Finn Gracidea, correct?” the psychiatrist said, peering down at the few legal documents I’d scavenged from my mother’s old file folders. I figured they’d have some sort of use here.
“Y-yes sir.” I spoke.
“Date of birth?” he continued.
“February 12th, 2003.” I responded.
“And what’s your reason for visiting, might I ask?” he said, peering up from my papers.
“I’ve been… anxious. Too anxious.” I answered. “I suffered a really hard loss last year, and ever since then I’ve been too on edge. I think I need something to help remedy the pain…anything, really. I just want this to stop.”
The psychiatrist takes another moment to look at my documents. I have no clue what they say, but it looks as if he’s reading something intently. I begin to bite my lip. What if he denies me? What if what he’s reading doesn’t prove that I’m feeling the way I’m feeling? What will I do if—
The doctor clears his throat and begins to speak. “So it looks like you have a previous prescription on record from when you were around thirteen years old. The doctor’s report says your mother brought you in after she noticed your “struggles” emotionally at school, and they prescribed you Lexapro to help remedy your anxiety. Would you like me to fill a bottle for you?”
My eyes widened with shock. I don’t remember ever taking any pills in the past, but I’ve blocked out a lot of old memories in the past year to cope with my own emotions. Maybe I’d forgotten this as well?
“Y-yes, please!” I said hastily. “When can I pick them up?”
“At your local pharmacy in the next day or two.” He responded. “Start off by taking half a pill for a week or two to build tolerance, then increase your dosage around the third or fourth week. Be careful not to take more than one, though. The side effects can be pretty adverse.”
‘T-thank you sir!” I said gleefully, “I very much appreciate your help!”
“You’re welcome young man” he said, “I hope this will help ease your pain.”
Waiting in line at the pharmacy felt like an eternity, but I knew that it would all be worth it in the end. I was so excited to potentially rid myself of the pain that I could hardly wait to get my hands on that pill bottle. Soon I’d finally be able to live my life without the pain of her memory eating away at the back of my mind. When I approached the front desk, gave the receptionist my name, and was handed back a bottle of bright blue pills… I had never felt more hopeful.
As I walked out to my car, I felt a sense of pride well within my chest. I had finally done something for myself; a small stepping stone towards a painless existence. Everything felt right in that moment, like the clouds that had enveloped my brain had slowly begun to part, finally letting the sunlight through.
That was, until I made eye contact with a familiar face just before stepping into my car. My heart stopped. I stared at him, and he stared at me. After a good ten seconds of us staring at each other, he ran towards me, his face plastered with a look of excitement.
“Finn! Finn it’s me, Hank! What the hell man where’ve you been?” He shouted, running up to me and giving me the tightest hug you can imagine. I was frozen with shock. We hadn’t talked in over a year. I thought he would’ve just forgotten about me and moved on, but he didn’t. Regret begins to fester inside my core as my eyes begin to water. I can’t do this right now. Not when my life is about to change for the better. I want to let go of my past so badly and yet here stands a relic of it, refusing to release its grasp. Tears begin to stream down my face as Hank finally lets me go, patting me on the shoulder as he prepares to speak once again.
“Dude, you alright?” he says with a concerned look on his face, “I’ve been wondering what happened to you after your mom passed. You just straight up… disappeared! How’ve you been?”
My mouth refuses to open.
“… Ooooookay?” Hank says confusedly, “You gonna say anything man?”
I lower myself into the seat of my car and insert my keys into the ignition.
“So I run into you after all this time and you’re just gonna leave?” There’s anger in Hank’s voice now. “The hell’s your issue man!? I texted you for WEEKS asking if you were okay after you practically ghosted me and now when I FINALLY get the chance to talk to you… you don’t wanna say shit?”
I close my car door and shift my car’s gear into reverse. Hank’s screaming at me now.
“So much for being a good fucking friend, dude! I was just trying to reach out to you and make sure you were okay! I guess I don’t mean jack shit to you, do I?”
Instinctively, I gaze back towards Hank as I begin to back out of my parking spot. As we lock eyes for the final time, he stops yelling as his face contorts into a look of pure horror. I don’t give it much thought.
When I arrive home, I lie down on my bed and fix my gaze onto the ceiling. The anxious feelings that now engulf my body are now too much for me to bear. I slowly reach down into my pocket and pull out my pill bottle. The soft blue color of the pills begins to entice me. I blink once. Now all I see inside is a beautiful bouquet of bright blue “forget-me-nots”. More than one wouldn’t hurt, right? These are supposed to make me feel better. I need to feel better. I open the bottle and let the bouquet fall daintily into my mouth. As I begin to swallow, I feel their petals gently caress my tongue. Peace washes over me as I drift off to sleep. Tomorrow I’ll feel better.
I jolt awake, suddenly finding myself sitting in the middle of a vast expanse of multicolored flowers. Where am I? Why am I not in my bed? What’s happening to me? I do not have time to ponder these questions, as suddenly the ground begins to violently shake and rupture beneath me. A grand staircase of silver emerges from the cracks and extends upwards into the bright blue sky above me. I cannot help but begin to ascend the stairs, and once I reach the apex, I am met with a stunning sight. There, sitting on a throne of bright blue flowers, is my mother. She is clad in a scarlet red dress, pupils lit with fire, and wearing a crown of roses. I sprint towards her, unable to contain my emotions as my thoughts and regrets begin to spill out of my mouth. I tell her everything. I tell her everything I’ve lost since she died, everything I’ve missed from when she was alive, and how I tried so hard to move on.
My mother remains silent. I continue on for what feels like an eternity; My tirade will not cease until every last bit of my emotion has been let out. Finally, when I am unable to speak anymore, my mother stands up and begins to walk towards me. She extends a hand outward, and I grab it. Pulling me into a tight hug, she whispers into my ear:
“Go live your life Finn, you know I will always love you.”
Once again, I jolt awake, except this time the sight I am met with is not as pleasant. I am lying down on a hospital bed with an IV stuck in my left hand. Medical equipment slowly comes into view as my eyes begin to fully awaken. There are two doctors on each side of my bed, and upon seeing me awake, one rushes out and motions towards someone in the hallway. Before I can process what’s happening, in runs Hank. He wraps his arms around me in a tight hug.
“Oh, thank god, Finn, you’re awake!” he exclaims. “I thought we’d lost you. I’m so sorry for what I said. I didn’t think it would lead to this. I’m so so sorry.”
“What… happened?” I mutter, still confused as to what’s going on.
“You overdosed on some pills!!” He yelled out. “When I saw you look at me from your car after I lashed out, you looked so… dead. I knew something had to be seriously wrong, so I couldn’t help but follow you home. When you wouldn’t respond to my knocks, I called 911, and they found you lying motionless on your bed. They said you weren’t breathing and that if the ambulance had come a few minutes later, we would’ve lost you. I didn’t think I’d cause this much pain Finn. Please forgive me, man. Fuck…”
Hank begins to sob. My mother’s words echo in my mind. I gently tap his hand and begin to speak.
“Hank… It wasn’t your fault. It’s my fault. I bottled up everything for so long. After mom died, I tried to let go of everything, including you. I tried letting go for so long. I couldn’t face you in that moment, and… I guess the guilt was too much for me to bear when I found myself alone. Please… Please don’t hate me. I was just trying to make the pain go away.”
Hank fixes his gaze onto mine.
“I didn’t know you felt that way, dude. If I had known you needed help earlier, I would’ve knocked down your door way earlier… You don’t need to go through this alone man.” He wiped the tears off his face and smiled.
“Remember when we used to talk about how we felt about life back in school? How we used to check in on each other when we were feeling down? We can still do that.”
“For… For real?” I say.
“I promise.” Hank responds.
As Hank embraces me once again, I look towards the now open window that is spilling daylight into my hospital room. Sitting on a countertop in front of it is a vase of bright blue “forget-me-nots”. I could swear I saw them smile.