A Single Daffodil

Swish. Swish.

The lightest tingle irritated the skin at the tip of my nose, waking me up immediately. I scrunched up my face, and shook out my curls. It was probably a hair that fell onto my face while I was sleeping. I rubbed my nose vigorously before turning my head and drifting back into another deep slumber.

A couple of seconds later, I felt it again.

Swish. Swish. Swish.

I angrily wiped at my nose before peaking out from one eye. Lebron James’s gigantic hand was waving a tiny white feather above my face. I pushed him away immediately. He giggled.

“Dude!” I complained through a wide yawn as I readjusted the mini duvet that covered my pajama-clad body. I tucked my feet closer into me after feeling a cold drift beneath the seats.

“Breakfast is about to be served.” Lebron tickled my nose with the damn feather again (how did even get the feather to begin with?). “We’re gonna be landing soon.”

Keeping my eyes closed, I drew my eyebrows together as I moaned again. While tightly holding onto my duvet, I slowly sat up. I hunched over and yawned again. “Alright, alright. I’m up.”

With squinty eyes and hair standing up on all ends, I surveyed my surroundings. The low hum of the airplane’s engine served as a tranquil soundtrack while the rest of the USA basketball team slept soundly in their seats.

After the news about my dad coaching the men’s Olympic basketball team, American Airlines teamed up with the NBA to design a new Boeing 747 airplane just for the Olympic team. It was enormous, and nothing like any other airplane I’ve been on before. The interior was strictly designed to be luxurious and spacious in every way possible. The walkways were wide and instead of having just rows of seats facing the cockpit, they were designed in groups of four with a silver sleek table in between. If you pressed a button on the side of your white leather seat, a fancy schmancy flat screen would even pop up from your part of the table. You bet your ass I spent the first two hours of this flight watching American Horror Story on the thing.

“Why are you awake so early?” I turned to Lebron. “It’s about 1:30 in the morning back in Miami right now.”

“Your friend here has been snoring the whole damn flight.” Lebron jerked his chin in Jayden’s direction. Lebron and I were were facing the back of the plane while Jayden and Sophia sat in the seats across from us. I grinned when I looked over at them. Sophia’s head was tucked into the crook of Jayden’s neck, while Jayden’s head was pushed completely against the window, drool now smeared across the glass. Lebron was right. He was snoring. “Besides, I’m not tired. I’m too hyped about the Olympics.”

While Lebron waved over a flight attendant and ordered two coffees for us, I sat back into my seat and let my shoulders slump. It hasn’t exactly hit me that we were going to London for the next two months. Not yet.

Let me get straight to the point: it’s been a year since I’ve last spoken to Harry Styles. One year, exactly.

And, oh boy, has a lot changed in the year.

I never got the chance to tell Harry I was in love with him. After ‘OPERATION:TELL HARRY’ failed miserably, I spent days brainstorming on how I could reach him.

Maybe my dad’s PR team could contact Harry’s PR team? I remember that being an idea. Maybe I can contact E! News and get some video time of me confessing how much I loved him? That’ll spread like wildfire on the internet!

But I didn’t even get to do those things either because something weird happened.

Reports of Harry dating British models started infiltrating all tabloids and media websites. Reports were coming in left and right. He was photographed with a different Broad every other week.

And it started five days after he left Miami.

I was so past heartbroken at that point, it wasn’t even funny. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was even in denial about it all at first. The media has it all wrong! I thought as I scrolled through several pictures of his apparent promiscuous adventures on PerezHilton.com. He’s not like that. He’s probably catching up with old friends.

And then the blurry pictures of him kissing girls at clubs started leaking onto the internet.

You know, I couldn’t technically hold it against him. Technically, we broke up. Technically, we weren’t together anymore. Technically. Technically.

At one point, I remember thinking nothing felt worse then saying goodbye to Harry for good. Well, I was wrong. Nothing felt worse then seeing pictures of Harry kissing other girls--gorgeous girls--only weeks after he left Miami.

He really left behind a complete disaster when he flew away on that airplane that one Friday afternoon. I don’t remember ever falling asleep without crying for weeks after I found out. I started to believe that everything Harry said to me was a lie. I felt like I never was a priority to Harry, but more so an option. And while letting go of what we had was hard, it was harder to try and hold onto something that was no longer real.

Every time I heard his name, saw his name online, heard his voice on the radio or stumbled across an interview on tv, it was like a punch to the stomach. Saying his name was a stab to the heart. While I thought about him every other second on every other day, I bet he hardly thought about me at all. Thinking that hurt the most.

Alas, I didn’t get to dwell on Harry for that long. Once school started, I kept myself distracted with my usual activities. I carried on with the life I built before Harry came in and ruined it. I balanced out school and homework while still working at Jane’s Flower Shop and going to Miami Heat games when the preseason started in October. I went to parties (although, I tactfully avoided Jessica Franklin’s parties), I supported Jayden’s motocross competitions, I went shopping with Sophia. Life was getting back to the way it used to be. Everything kept me busy well into the Fall and Winter (although would we even consider it Winter season in Miami, Florida? More like breezy weather, and that was it.) and I started believing that maybe life would get better and I would meet someone new.

But then Spring time came. And my whole life turned upside down once again.

Grandpa Gene got sick. Really sick.

It happened so fast. One day, he was his usual self, painting in the sunroom and listening to his favorite Etta James record. But then the next day, I found him hunched over the kitchen table, clutching his chest and struggling for air. An ambulance took him to the emergency room immediately. After hundreds of stressful blood tests and x-rays, we found out he had Peripheral Vascular Disease which was basically a disease that was located in the blood vessels inside his heart.

“I’m going to be fine, Vita.” I remember Grandpa Gene tried to assure me as I sat next to his hospital bed one late evening. My eyes were red and my cheeks were stained from crying all night. It broke my heart seeing Grandpa Gene hooked up to all these complicated machines. Grandpa Gene placed a cold hand on top of my head as I continued to sob. “I’m just getting old. This is so common amongst us old farts.”

He spent two weeks at the hospital after he fell ill which meant I took a two week leave from work and emailed all my professors at college about my situation. I was thankful that everyone understood why I had to drop everything until Grandpa Gene got better.

Everyone, that is, except my father.

He only visited Grandpa Gene once in the hospital. Once.

I remember it so well. It was a late Sunday afternoon. The sunlight was seeping in through the sheer curtains that covered the tiny window in the hospital room. Grandpa Gene was taking his usual afternoon nap because the meds they gave him at 1pm always made him tired. I was sitting in the chair next to his bed, attempting to catch up on my reading for my marketing class when I saw movement in the corner of my eye. When I looked up, I saw my dad standing in the doorway, looking paler than usual.

I couldn’t help the tears from pooling at the edge of my eyes when I saw my dad. I was pretty emotional the whole time Grandpa Gene stayed at the hospital, but seeing my dad there really did it for me. It had been months since he’s seen Grandpa Gene. It had been even longer since the three of us were even in the same room.

I closed my textbook shut and practically ran into my dad’s arms.

“I’m so happy you’re here, dad.” I choked through the tears. “I’ve been so scared.”

“Me too.” He rocked me side to side ever so slightly as he hugged me back. It was comforting. “Me too.”

I remember watching my dad approach Grandpa Gene’s sleeping figure like he was entering a lions den. Terror darkened my dad’s eyes as he hesitated to reach for Grandpa Gene’s hand. I didn’t blame him for being so afraid. Grandpa Gene looked so delicate and frail. He lost a lot of weight after he was submitted into the hospital and his blood count was low which made him look white under the harsh florescent lighting. I hated everything about it. I just wanted my Grandpa Gene back.

But Grandpa Gene never got to see my dad. Not really. My dad had to leave before he woke up from his nap because he had to catch a flight out to Toronto for a preseason game. I immediately picked an argument with him right then and there, asking him how the hell could he think about basketball at a time like this. At one point, I even begged him to stay. I told him that I needed him. Grandpa Gene needed him. But he didn’t listen. He left and caught his flight out to Toronto.

Three days later, Grandpa Gene died from a severe stroke.

Just like that.

Grandpa Gene was gone forever.

It actually killed me when he passed away. It felt so sudden, so unrehearsed. Grandpa Gene, the artist, the great wander, the optimistic and only positive thing in my life was taken away from me.

I remember feeling empty. A hollowness engulfed my entire being. It was a feeling I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. The idea of Grandpa Gene being gone was an idea I could never get used to. I would never reconcile or accept his passing, that much I knew. Grandpa Gene was my best friend, my family. He was completely irreplaceable.

A week later, we held the funeral in the same cemetery they buried my Grandmother Bridgette. According to the bureau at the graveyard, my Grandpa planned on being buried next to Bridgette for years and that just made me weep even more. His love for my Grandmother was eternal.

I didn’t cry during the service, mostly because I felt anger. I was angry because I could see how unfazed my dad was about the whole thing. He was watching Grandpa Gene’s casket lower into the ground like it didn’t affect him at all. But it was his father. I couldn’t understand it. I wanted to yell at him, I wanted to scream. I had never felt so much resentment towards my own father in my entire life.

And when the service was over, I was so riled up about how passive my dad was being that I had every intention of marching over to him and scream until I lost my voice. Luckily for him, Sophia pulled on my hand and stopped me.

“Look.” She whispered softly, turning me around. “Look who’s here.”

When I did turn around, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

There, standing in a soldiery line on the edge of the grassy area, was the Miami Heat basketball team. All fifteen players dressed in black, bowing their heads and paying respect to Grandpa Gene

I remember bursting into tears when I reached them because I was so overwhelmed with emotion. I didn’t even know they were coming. Them being there meant more to me than anything in this world.

“We’re family, remember?” Dwayne Wade said as he pulled me into a tight hug. “Through thick and thin, kiddo. We’re here for you.”

“Don’t you ever forget it.” Lebron added.

I could never put into words how much it meant for them to say that.

I spent days at Grandpa Gene’s house after his death. I didn’t know what to do with his artwork or his house since he never left a will so I made sure nothing changed. I dusted the walls, mopped the floors, and adopted Robin as my own cat. Sometimes, when I felt myself missing him more than usual, I would visit his sunroom and go through his old artwork. If I sat in there long enough, I could feel his spirit.

It was safe to say my year was full of pain and darkness. When I thought about never seeing Grandpa Gene’s smiling face ever again, it ached in places I didn’t even know existed.

And that was part of the reason why I was now sitting on this airplane, heading to Europe with the USA basketball team. I needed a break from hurting, and there was no way I was going to get that break while staying in Miami. I needed to get away, even if it meant for a little while.

So I packed my bags, dropped little Robin off at Mrs. Baker’s house and asked my two best friends to drop everything in their lives and come with me to the summer Olympics in London.

“Hey.” Lebron nudged me with his elbow. “You okay?”

I didn’t realize how deep in thought I was until Lebron brought me back to reality. He pushed over a hot cup of fresh coffee towards me.

“Yeah.” I offered him a weak smile, taking the coffee. “I’m okay.”

And it was the truth. I was okay. I wasn’t great. But I was okay. I was healing.

“Aaaaand good morning, All-Stars!” A voice over the intercom greeted the cabin loudly, causing everyone to stir from their slumber. “This is your captain speaking. In just about thirty minutes or so, we will begin our descent into Heathrow airport. Flight attendants will begin serving breakfast within the next couple of minutes. And one last thing: don’t forget to bring home that gold medal! U-S-A!”

The cabin erupted into lazy cheers.