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Since I was a child, I've known how the disease would start and how it would end: with a petal, soft and pink and cordate. Like a poem, it would bloom from your heart and spill from your lips in as honest of a love confession as one could achieve. It wouldn't be painful. It wouldn't hurt.
Not everyone gets the disease, despite how often you see it on the screen—it is uncommon. Rare. You're lucky to have it, to truly be lovesick.
I recall that disease as I fumble with my key, jabbing at the front door until I finally manage to sink it into the lock. I stumble into my home, panting and sweating. My body feels numb and yet my mind races with what happened.
There had been no petals from my friend's lips. There were just the words, not even in a haiku—a plain Jane confession. Yet there was that hope, that love, that desire undeniable after they spoke their confession, their fingers creeping toward mine.
I had flinched away, shrinking my hands back toward myself, under the table. They stared at me in return. I could feel the eyes of our other gathered friends burning against my skin. It was only in the center of it all did I realize how the others had distanced themselves from us two.
The nausea I felt then at that moment still continues to toil at my stomach now. The door of the bathroom wobbles as I slam it open, lurching inward. My hands clench the rim of the sink, brushing against toothpaste remnants. I inhale as I shake.
I look up at the mirror. The vision of my distraught self briefly shakes me from my thoughts—briefly.
The first symptom is supposed to be butterflies in the belly, a fluttery tickle that fills you with warmth. After my friend's confession, my stomach had churned with caterpillars, crawling all over the lining of my stomach.
"I'm just surprised," I had said honestly, loosening all my wound up joints despite the instinctual urge to sink inward into myself. "I just need time to think about it," I partly lied.
I could see the sadness in their eyes, in how their fingers pressed onto the waxed restaurant table. I could feel the frown and judgment of my other friends.
"Sure," they had said, so weak and fragile.
The caterpillars revolt. The first hack is dry, forcing me over the sink as my knees bend. I suck in air desperately as I stare at the stained drain. The second heave shortly thereafter is wet: phlegm builds up my throat and I gurgle.
Since I was a child, I've known how the disease would start: a petal. But the petal I cough out isn't soft or pink or cordate—it is rough and mucous and jagged and it sticks to the side of the sink. More petals crawl up my esophagus, slimy yet slicing, and I gag.
I can't forget. I can't forget how the others didn't say anything to me when we all decided to leave quickly afterwards—they remained huddled together away from me. I can't forget how I said goodbye to my friend, and they then raised their head, and their eyes met mine, and I knew. I knew I could never give them what they want. I could never return those feelings.
My throat and chest strain. Tears run down my flushed cheeks. A viscous glob of petals falls out from my mouth and slaps onto the ceramic.
That appeared to be the dam holding the rest back. My knuckles brighten as I grip tighter onto the sink and vomit. Petals and stems and leaves rise from my stomach and spew out from in between my chapped lips. It's painful. It hurts.
Eventually, my stomach is emptied, and all that remains is a lone petal stuck to my bottom lip. I cough and gulp in air. A bitter taste burns the back of my throat.
I just breathe for a while, staring down at the mess I've made. I can't tell what flowers the plant viscera might've made. Maybe they would've made one that represented love.
I flick the last petal off my lip and onto the pile. With a deep breath, I reach forward and turn the faucet on. The foliage swirls downward.
My feet are unsteady as I exit the bathroom and plop onto the couch. I remember again the face of my friend before I left them in the parking lot. I cough, and another petal pops out.