The Flower Garden

Chapter One

I didn’t tell anyone about it at first. Telling would make it real, and that wasn’t something I was ready to face.  

But a person can only go for so long when their world is black and white. 

It was a Saturday morning when it happened. I woke up just after dawn–my favorite time. Then I spent an illogical fifteen minutes lying in bed, watching the sunrise through my window. I’d always kept the blinds open, back before.

Eventually, I forced myself out of bed and threw the window open. It was a day for bright, living things. A cool breeze whispered past my face, and I grinned, dancing across my room to my dresser. Such a beautiful day. A day where nothing could go wrong. 

Foolish, foolish girl. 

I selected my favorite blouse-and-skirt combo, then grabbed a jean jacket to top it off. I braided my hair and let it drape over my shoulder. A quick time-check…seven forty. I was meeting Meghan and Eliza for coffee in a little less than an hour. I had just the right amount of time left to grab a bagel and sketch out a quick design to carve later. 

I grabbed my bedroom door handle–and that’s when it happened. 

It’s funny, isn’t it, how one moment can change a life forever?

People who haven’t experienced it find the concept dramatic. People who have experienced it can sympathize all too well. That moment after you cross the line and say exactly the wrong words. The look on the doctor’s face as he enters the room and you instinctively know. The split second you see the car coming towards you out of the corner of your eye.

In those moments, it really does seem like your life goes black and white. 

But seldom…almost never…does a life actually go black and white. 

At least, not a life like mine. 

If I’d been older…seventy, no, even sixty…this wouldn’t have been such a shock. It would be expected then. A natural part of life. 

But I was twenty-one. I was supposed to have time left. 

At first, I blinked. Then I blinked again to drive away the trick of the light. 

Nothing changed. 

A wave of cold washed through me. I clenched the doorhandle, breathing out hard. That’s not it. Everything’s fine. Just focus. It’s…fine…

Slowly, carefully, I released my tension on the handle. I lifted my hand, holding my trembling fingers before my face. 

My skin was gray. 

I turned to face my bedroom and felt my heart drop. 

Everything was black and white. It was just like the camera filters I’d used at school as a child, when my teacher had explained to her wide-eyed, disbelieving audience exactly why a life loses its color. I knew what my room should look like. I could see it perfectly in my mind. But the bright, cheerful colors had collapsed to grays and blacks. Splotches of white were the most vivid thing I could see. 

My green bedspread? A light gray. My dresser? Almost black. Even the lights in my ceiling fan seemed tinted. 

My knees buckled, and I leaned against my door for support. 

Black and white. 

All of it. 

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not now. Not yet.

Somewhere in the distance, I could hear my brother’s footsteps on the stairs. It sounded so far away that it might have come from another world. 

A world where there was color. 

I don’t know how long I stood there, or exactly when my legs gave out and I curled myself up against my bedroom door. All I could do was stare straight ahead as my mind refused to process what I was seeing. 

Not yet. 

Not yet. 

He couldn’t be gone. It couldn’t be possible that I’d have to go through life and never meet him. This wasn’t fair. It didn’t happen to anyone–how could it happen to me? 

But my room remained colorless. The curtains, swaying slightly in the breeze from my open window, were still ashen. The sunlight drifting softly inside left splotches of grayish-white on a darker gray carpet. 

It wasn’t changing. It wasn’t turning back. I needed it to turn back. 

I couldn’t live like this. I couldn’t. 

My phone chimed, and I jumped, smacking my head on the doorknob. Tears sprang to my eyes, and I shoved myself to my feet, then gave the door a solid kick. Ripping my phone out of my pocket, I saw Meghan’s name on the screen. Late. I was late? How long had I been sitting here? I yanked open my bedroom door, but the hallway, painted anew in stark grays and whites, sent me stumbling backwards. Everything had been changed. I couldn’t escape it. And it would never leave. 

I dropped onto my bed. My phone chimed again–probably Meghan once more, asking if I was okay. Well, I wasn’t okay. My world was broken. Destroyed. Nothing was ever going to be the same again. I picked up my phone…to do what? Call her? Tell her what had happened, when I didn’t even understand?

She’d have too many questions. Everyone would have too many questions. 

The phone slipped from my hands, and I turned, burying my face into my pillow. But I couldn’t seem to cry. I wanted to–needed to–but the tears wouldn’t come. So there was nothing left to do but sit with my thoughts and pray that when I sat up again, everything would somehow be back to normal. 

But I knew it wouldn’t be. 

Everyone learned, from a very young age, what it meant when someone’s life went black and white. It was ingrained in us, practically since birth. I’d heard stories of it happening to others…classic ‘I heard it from my uncle, who heard it from his best friend’s sister-in-law’ types of tales. One time it happened to a celebrity…some movie star my brother was obsessed with. But I’d never actually seen a person whose life had lost all of its color. I hadn’t ever thought it would happen to me. 

Every person on Earth was born with a soulmate. An individual who was perfect for you in every possible way. You never argued, because you had nothing to argue about. You loved the same things, held identical viewpoints, and were flawlessly compatible in terms of personality and behavior. A perfect match for a perfect life. 

Of course, finding your soulmate was difficult. It required physical contact. When soulmates touched for the first time, their initial point of contact–called a Prism–exploded in color. My parents had identical Prisms on their palms from where they had randomly high-fived each other while they were in college. Meghan got her Prism a few months ago from someone she bumped in a crowd. She hadn’t found him yet, but she’d been posting around on various “Prism Match” websites to see if her soulmate pops up.

As long as your soulmate was alive, you saw the world in all its glory–thousands of brilliant colors at every turn. 

But when your soulmate died, the color was drained away. Radiant pinks and greens turned to drab, dull grays. Brown became black, and yellow became white. There was nothing you could do if you lost a soulmate except go into mourning and continue with your life. Eventually, everyone lost their soulmate…it was expected as the two of you grew older and older. 

But now, at twenty-one, my world was black and white. I’d lost my soulmate before I’d even gotten my Prism.