“Tate, earth to Tate, are you there?”

Tatum jolts back into reality, blinking her eyes rapidly to clear them and moisten her contacts which have steadily dried out. Carefully, she slides her eyes back to Ainsley, fingers twisting the a stray string of her hoodie, while Ainsley has half of a smile on her face, amusement twinkling in her dancing blue eyes.

“There she is. Where did you go, Tate?” She asks quietly, cocking her head to the side so that her honey-blonde curls tumble over her sun-kissed skin and her pink lips curled into a fond smile that scrunches her nose playfully. “You really went quiet there. Lost in your books again?”

“Oh, um,” Tatum stammers, cheeks dusting pink at being caught daydreaming for only the thousandth time, and clears her her throat as she averts her eyes from Ainsley. “I was thinking about this new series I was reading. Sorry. I wasn’t… I wasn’t trying to ignore you.”

Ainsley chuckles, adjusting her robin-egg blue blouse over her shapely frame and fluffs her hair in the rear view mirror. “It must be really good.” She glances over at Tatum. “What’s it about?”

“Oh, um, this… this boy who lost his family in a fire but found solace in his best friend who is actually a part of a whole another world.” Tatum pauses, gnawing on her bottom lip as she surveys Ainsley’s movements from the corner of her eye. “You look pretty already. Why the extra fluff?”

“Because I think Tristian is going to be there tonight,” Ainsley explains, and Tatums stomach knots painfully, leaden as if a rock as sunk into her gullet. She tightens the string around her index finger, ignoring the answering sting of pain. “You’re still coming tonight, aren’t you? I know you don’t really like get-together.”

“I’m coming.” She hesitates, then glares out the window at the manicured lawns and two-story houses glinting in the evening sunset. “Besides, we are already here. I would feel bad if you drove me all the way back.”

Soft fingertips touch Tatum’s hand, startling her as she whirls around to see Ainsley’s smiling features hovering just in front of her. Tatum inhales sharply, holding her breath as she stares into the familiar blue eyes so close that she can count the thick lashes and freckles half-hidden under light foundation. Her fingers easily loosen the string from around her finger, then offer her hand a quick squeeze.

“Tate, I will never mind taking you back if you don’t feel comfortable,” she says quietly, her warmth breath fanning over Tatum’s features. It smells faintly of her favorite fruity gum and her protein shake, but it’s as familiar as her cherry blossom scent from her perfume. “You’re my best friend, and I love you, so it isn’t a problem. Okay?”

Tatum’s heart skips a beat, thundering within her rib cage like a beast desperately trying to escape, and she nods hastily. She carefully leans backwards, if only to avoid her best friend’s sweet smell, and glares down at her hands, now string free. Her throat is tight, stomach fluttering like a hummingbirds wings, and firmly reminds herself that she can’t have her like that.

“Okay,” she whispers instead.

“Okay.” Ainsley’s soft fingers instantly leave Tatum’s hand, and she almost instinctively chases after it, but bawls her hands together and keeps them firmly in her lap. She refuses to peek through her mud-colored fringe. “Oh. It looks like Kristen and Jake are already here. You ready to head inside?”

No. Definitely not.

Tatum bobs her head once, humming. “Yeah.”

Ainsley grins brightly, eyes sparkling as she clambers out of the car.

Tatum groans, throwing back her head so that it hits the headrest. She presses her hand firmly over her chest, directly over her racing heart as she watches Ainsley wave and greet the other girls as they get out of their car. She hisses through her teeth at churning of her stomach, and the tightness of her lungs.

“Get your shit together,” she mutters to herself, wincing as she coughs slightly under her breath. “You can do this. Ainsley is your best friend. She can’t be yours.” The pain in her chest grows, lungs almost painfully tight, but she plasters a smile on her face before climbing out of the care.

-2 months later-

“Miss Bloom?”

Tatum almost laughs aloud. It’s feels as if it should be a joke, or some kind of prank, but the thinly veiled concern and horror on the doctor’s face is enough to know that it isn’t a joke, nor is a prank.

“I… I heard you, doctor.” Loud and clear, actually. The hidden meaning behind honeyed words and whispered apologies. The underlying meaning to his words is more than enough. “You don’t have… you don’t have to look at me like that, doctor. I know what Hanahaki is. It’s the rare disease that effects a person’s lungs when their love is unrequited. They start coughing petals until soon they can’ breath or their organs give out.”

The doctor’s withered features wince, his fingers tightening around his tablet with enough force that his knuckles plaster white and the gold of his wedding band stands out over the pasty flesh. He clears his throat, adjusting his glasses perched on his thin nose and shuffles his weight. “Miss Bloom, we do have a couple of options for you. Medication to help control the- the growth of the flowers in your lungs, and-“

“-And that isn’t a cure,” Tatum replies tersely, bitingly, and she instantly recoils in on herself when his dark eyes snap to her in bewilderment. She averts her gaze back to worn converse, the white blotched out with colors and little hand-drawn sunflowers. “I’m… I’m sorry, that… that was rude, I… I don’t normally… speak out like that.”

“I understand, Miss Bloom,” the doctor replies kindly, but his smile is a little too small and doesn’t reach his eyes. He hesitates, then gently lays his hand on her shoulder. “You’re right. It’s not a cure, only helps manage the pain more than anything. There is only two cures.”

A frown tugs at the ends of Tatum’s lips, her eyes never leaving the little sunflowers on her shoes. She can feel the warmth of his hand seep through her hoodie and blister at her chilled skin. She shudders. “I won’t confess to her, doctor,” she admits quietly, her voice barely audible within the cramped, white room. “I can’t. She’s my best friend, and she already has a boyfriend. She cares for him, and if I tell her this? I already feel like a burden, but if I told her I went and did something stupid like fall in love with her?” She shakes her head adamantly. “I can’t ruin that for her, because she is the kind of person who would try to love me if it means saving me. I won’t.”

The doctor’s mournful expression doesn’t falter, and Tatum is grateful for the lack of distant professionalism. She supposes it’s fair. Hanahaki is so rare, practically a myth if it isn’t for the new that every few years broadcasts a death or a successful surgery, or even in the movies that portray it as something beautiful and romantic.

It doesn’t feel very beautiful sitting on the cold metal table with a doctor looking at her as if she is already six feet under.

“Well,” he says quietly, “there is also the surgery. We go in and remain the infected part of your lung where the flowers have taken root and remove it.”

“And forget my best friend.”

It isn’t a question, and the doctor’s expression tightens, constricting as if he is the one whose lungs are clogged with flower petals.

A rueful smile twitches as her lips as Tatum shakes her head. “No, thank you, doc. I’ll be fine.”

“Miss Bloom, please, think about this,” the doctor presses more urgently, his hand tightening over her gaunt shoulder, “you’re terminal if you don’t get the surgery within the next week. I beseech you to reconsider.”

“I can’t forget my best friend, doctor,” Tatum explains quietly. “And I can’t imagine not loving her.”

Pushing herself off the table, she shudders as her legs hit the floor jarringly, wincing as her bones rattle and she attempts to inhale deeply, but her lungs painfully clench. A rattling cough tears at her throat, and she instantly bends over as she fights for air, and only manages to come up when three little petals rest in her palm. They are pale pink and coated in a thin coat of salvia and blood.

Three little cherry blossom petals.

Carefully, she tosses them in the trash can and raises her head to meet the doctor’s expression is twisted with wordless grief and dawning realization.

“Don’t be upset, doc. From my rotting body, flowers are going to grow, and within them, I will live. That’s more than I could ask for.”

Waving a little over her shoulder, Tatum stuffs her hands in her front pocket of her hoodie and shoulders out of the small office. The sunlight greets her as she steps outside, already fighting to catch her breath as she tilts her head to the sky and allows it to warm her cold body with a small sigh.

Her phone buzzes within her pocket.

“Hello?”

“Hey, girl,” Ainsley greets, a smile dancing in her voice. Tatum’s fingers tighten over the phone, an answering pang in her lungs at the sound of her voice. “I was about to head out to grab some lunch, and Tristian is working, so did you want to go to our place and snag some grub?”

“No one says grub anymore,” Tatum mutters, ignoring the way her lips quirk in the corners. “Yeah, I’m free. I’m not far from the diner, so I’ll be there in five.”

“See you there!”

The diner is a small little hole in the wall off one of the main streets of their small town. The outside of it is a crumbling little brick building hidden off the side of the road, but the inside is adorned in Halloween orange, purple, and greens. The walls are decorated in art from students in high school and university, and the greasy scent of hash browns and bacon stain the entire interior.

By the time Tatum gets there, her chest is aching and her pockets stuffed with cherry blossoms petals. She shivers within her hood despite the warm temperature as she inches her way through the bustling diner and slides into the booth across from Ainsley, whose honey blond curls are in a small, messy bun atop her head and her clothing loose and casual.

And she is still beautiful.

Ainsley beams when she catches sight of Tatum, blue eyes twinkling and freckles exposed form her lack of makeup today. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Tatum winces at the roughness of her own voice, raw from her fits of coughing and spewing petals. “You look nice today.”

“I’m literally wearing sweats and my heavy eating shirt,” Ainsley retorts, amusement dripping in her voice as she arches a thin brow at Tatum. “I literally want to die of heartburn potato’s, and you, Tate, are here to ensure my death is perfectly greasy.”

Tatum snorts, grabbing a menu to hide her features and the small smile that is threatening to bloom over her lips. “I shall do my best.”

“Of course you will.” Ainsley pauses. “You look really thin, Tate. Have you been eating okay?”

If a few bites a day counts as eating okay, then yes, Tatum mutters within her mind. Her fingers tighten over the menu, the messy script blurring as she chews on her bottom lip. “Yeah. Yeah, I eat.”

“Still, you should get an extra plate of potatoes,” Ainsley says, and Tatum knows her blue eyes are searching her skeletal features and the ashen pallor to already pasty white skin. “You look pale. Tate, are you sure you’re okay? Are you sick?”

“Yeah, well,” the lie tastes like chalk on her tongue, “I just came back from the doctor, and it’s just bronchitis, but I’ll be fine in week. Don’t stress, Ainsley.”

“Okay,” Ainsley says, shoulders sagging in relief and her smile slowly blooming back onto her face. “Let me tell you about this week!”

And she does. Her voice is as sweet and warm as the sun in the spring time, the flowers in Tatum’s lungs blooming at the sound of her voice, and she doesn’t have the heart to stop her, so she listens. Even when she tells her about Tristian, her wonderful boyfriend, and their dates, and everything that she wishes she could have for herself, but forces a smile on her face even when the petals threaten to choke her.

Tatum can feel them. The thorns and branches growing inside of her rib cage, wrapping around her lungs as if attempting to ease her heartbroken heart, and she can’t breath, and it isn’t because Ainsley won’t love her, but because Tatum can’t love Ainsley.

It’s fitting, Tatum supposes as she breaths in the scent of Ainsley cherry blossom perfume, that the flowers growing in her lungs mean the beautiful fragility of life. Cherry blossoms bloom brilliantly, and it’s powerful, beautiful, and intoxicating as it is fleeting. So tragically short-lived.