It started with the roses. Ever since I was a little girl I loved them. I loved the scent of them, and the colors they came in. I loved them so much that my mother had planted a few rose bushes outside our house so when it bloomed I could sit and stare at those beautiful roses. They bloomed in shades of white, and pink, but my favorite rose was red like satin. It reminded me of my mother and the way she always drew roses on her letters. Fast forward to the time I was 14 years old. I was never a popular girl, by far, but I wasn’t unknown either. I didn’t have long blonde hair or blue eyes, but I had talent, a slim body, and an obsession for roses. All my friends knew how much I loved them. They’d buy me perfume in a rose-shaped bottle, or a dress with red roses on them for my birthday. I made the best out of what I could in high school being a short, brown haired, green-eyed girl. It was the day before homecoming when the boy I’d secretly been in love with asked me to the dance with a white rose. I swooned and he took me to the dance the next night. (I, of course, in a rose dress and him in matching colors.) He had brought me a white rose corsage to match my dress. We danced all night, and we continued to date until high school ended. After our senior year we went our separate ways and stopped talking. But this didn’t bother me, I hadn’t time to waste when I was busy with my roses. In college I had been taking Art classes in my third semester when I got a call one evening informing me that my mother had pasted away in the hospital. The following Tuesday we attended her funeral. My father had picked out the colors. We buried my loving mother in pink roses, because she was a former cancer survivor, and we were blessed to have her as long as we did. For the months following my mother’s death I became deeply depressed. The only thing that eased the pain from losing my mother, were the roses. When they bloomed in the spring my sprits suddenly lifted. The roses were my life, and I don’t know what I’d do without them. 2 years go by and I ended up meeting a nice guy who joined my ecology class. His name was Dylan and we immediately hit it off. He gave me everything a girl could’ve ever wanted and treated me like a princess. I loved him more than anything in the world. We talked about moving in together and buying a house after college. We talked about getting married and having a daughter named Rose for my love of roses. His handsome blonde hair and chiseled feature would make a beautiful baby. We went through college and eventually graduated together and got married. We lived in a small townhouse in Vermont for a long time after that. After trying many times to have the baby I so desperately wanted, the doctor came to tell that I was infertile. Dylan tried to tell me we could always adopt, always have a child if I wanted, but I didn’t. It wasn’t fair! If I couldn’t have a child that was my own flesh blood, how would she share the love of roses like my mother did with me? Again for a long time I became mute. I could not eat or sleep. Dylan became very distant and we hardly spoke. Everything we had was gone. Nothing made me happy anymore. Nothing would until I had a baby rose. I would look out at our garden and wait for them to bloom, but even then the roses did not make me happy. It was the next winter before I found out. I knew something had gone wrong because all of the roses had turned over black instead of falling off and dying. Dylan had come home late that night and seemed very stressed. I decided that night while he slept I’d go through his phone. He had 3 missed calls and a text from a girl named “Lisa”. The text read: “You HAVE to stay home tonight! She won’t stop crying unless you’re here! –Lisa” Who wouldn’t stop crying? Did someone care that much about my dear Dylan to cry when he’s not there? I remember him saying he worked at the office with a girl named Lisa, so I decided to send her a text replying, “Get her to stop crying, I can’t be that important.” After that I waited for a reply for several minutes before I got a reply back. “Of course you’re important to her love! You’re her daddy! And she needs you here! Just take off work this one night!” WORK? SHE though HE was at WORK? He was supposed to be at work all day! And WHO’S daddy was she talking about? I carefully went through his address book in his phone and found her home address. I silently walked downstairs, and out the door, grabbing a hoe from the garden before leaving in the car. I knew the black roses meant something was wrong. I returned a few hours later with his “baby” in our car. I left her there while I waited behind the house. About an hour later I see Dylan walk out the front door to leave, when he suddenly stops when he sees the child in the car with the windows up. He screams “ALLISON!” Is THAT the things name? So it IS his! At this point I was furious! As he went to unlock the door to retrieve the child, I pulled him backwards so he fell into the garden. I picked up the hoe and shouted “ALL I WANTED WERE THE RED ROSES!” The hoe dug into his head once, and I felt all the love I’d ever had for him release, into the small, tiny bits of pieces that were once my loving husband. When I was all through I tossed his body into the cellar along with his companion’s. At least now the black roses are blood red once again. A beautiful thing, the roses are. Little rose lives with me now and she has just enrolled in preschool. She loves the roses as much as I do, but her favorite ones are the dead petals. “So pretty!” she said, “Even after they’re dead!” I always agree with her on that. Sometimes she asks where daddy is and I must tell her, “Simple, Prim Rose, ask the petals!”
