The Sun and the Sunflower
***
The birthmark tattoo had been there as long as Zack could remember.
A yellow sun, painted directly over his sternum.
Everybody had one, but nobody had the same one in the same place. His mother had a beautiful vine of green ivy encircling her upper arm; his father had a black outline of a bull’s head drawn on the left side of his lower back.
Each parent had the birthmark of the other as well, on their arm and back respectively. That was how it worked- when you fell in love with someone else, no matter if they were your soulmate or not, their birthmark would appear in the same place on your body as it appeared on theirs. Even if they didn’t love you back, or if you fell out of love with them, their birthmark never went away.
Zack fell in love easily throughout his life. Embarrassingly easily, really. The first time he remembered it happening was in 7th grade. Lily was a little firecracker of a girl, small and strong from gymnastics classes. She had the lightest green eyes Zack had ever seen, brighter even than his own, and brown hair that hung straight and shiny down to her elbows. She sat next to him in math and helped him try to make sense of pre-algebra, and her smile was kind as she encouraged him. One day she slipped her hand into his during class, and when Zack got home he saw them: 3 small raindrops on his hip bone, swirls of pale blue and murky green. He’d never seen Lily’s birthmark, but he knew it was hers.
The next day he met Lily at her locker before school and showed her, his hands shaking as he carefully pulled aside the waistband of his jeans. She smiled and hugged him but told him she wasn’t going to go out with any boys until high school, and that was that.
Now Zack was 27, and his collection of birthmarks had grown to a full sleeve on his left arm, with a few scattered here and there. Among them a hammerhead shark circled his left wrist, thunder clouds covered his left shoulder, a raven stretched over his right bicep. A songbird sat directly over his heart from Sarah, the first girl who ever loved him back. A small skull and crossbones sat on the inside of his right forearm from Alex, the first boy he ever loved.
He wore each one proudly, each a story of how a new person had affected his life. Zack fell in love embarrassingly easily, but he never tried to hold back. He never understood why anyone would want to hold back from falling in love, and that didn’t change when he met Jack.
__
Zack lived in Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. He saw Jack for the first time one day after work, in a small grocery store a few blocks away from his house. Zack was scrutinizing the various options of bread and was oblivious to Jack, who was trying to casually take something from the shelf that Zack was standing in front of. Jack would’ve managed it without Zack noticing if a lady hadn’t run into him, knocking Jack into Zack’s shoulder and causing Zack to drop the loaves he was holding. Zack was ready to be annoyed with the clumsy stranger, but one look at Jack’s big brown eyes and black-red hair and he was smitten.
Jack hadn’t intended to do anything else other than apologize, but somehow he ended up letting Zack charm him and take him to his favorite café down the street. He only meant to have one cup of coffee, but then Zack kept flashing his sunny smile at him, and somehow Jack stayed for three cups and left with Zack’s number in his phone.
Jack was not a man who let himself get swept away like that, and the fact that Zack could do it so easily after only knowing him for a matter of hours scared the hell out of him. Jack also couldn’t help but notice the large number of birthmarks that littered Zack’s skin. His entire left arm was covered, for god’s sake. He was better off staying away from someone who would draw him in and inevitably break his heart, if his ink collection was anything to judge by. Jack was proud of the three birthmarks he had, including his own, and he wasn’t eager to let a stranger add to his collection.
Meanwhile, Zack had gone home and taken off his shoes to find a new birthmark: a small sunflower on the top of his left foot.
__
Zack could only wait two days before texting him.
They met up for coffee again, and Jack felt himself reluctantly opening up. Zack had a way of getting under his skin and getting him to open up, nothing like the second date small talk Jack was used to.
He found himself asking about Zack’s birthmarks, and Zack’s eyes grew fond as he recounted the many tales of love and heartbreak. Jack could tell that Zack had truly cared about each person he fell in love with, that they weren’t just notches on his bedframe.
“I only have 2,” Jack confessed when Zack finished.
“Really?” Zack’s eyes widened. He set down his coffee cup and leaned forward curiously. “Why?”
The question threw Jack off. After a moment of thought, he said:
“I guess I just don’t let myself get attached to people. I’ve always thought that letting yourself open up…that falling in love is…hard. ”
Zack shook his head and leaned back in his chair. “It’s the easiest thing in the world,” he said matter-of-factly. “You’ll see.”
__
The next week, Jack came home from work exhausted. All he wanted to do was get home and get in bed, but when he got to his door he saw something blocking his path.
Sunflowers were covering his little house’s front stoop, 5 bunches of them. Jack quickly unlocked his door and swept them up and into his house, scanning the street to make sure none of his neighbors were snooping.
He lined them up on his kitchen table and finally noticed a folded note tied to one of the flowers with a piece of twine. The message inside was handwritten in a loose, half-cursive script:
It’s easier than you think.
There was no name, but Jack didn’t need one to know who it was from.
He also pretended not to notice Zack’s choice of flower.
This is too much, he thought to himself. But that didn’t stop him from smiling the rest of the night when he caught himself glancing at the bright yellow blooms.
__
The next Wednesday night, Zack texted Jack around 8:45.
Are you busy tonight?
Of course not, Jack replied.
I’m on my way
Zack rolled up to his house in his beat-up blue truck, which Jack was secretly growing to love despite himself. It made him feel like such a teenage country girl, chasing a boy because he liked his truck.
Jack climbed in, raising his eyebrows in question, but Zack just smiled and turned up the radio.
He drove him to a beach near his house, swinging the truck around and backing it into the parking spot so the bed faced the beach.
“Wait here,” Zack said. He cut the engine and went around the back of the truck, grabbing something from the backseat first. When he finally came back and let Jack get out, he had transformed the metal bed of the truck into a real bed, complete with blankets and a small pile of pillows.
“This is amazing,” Jack said as he hoisted himself up. Zack climbed in next to him, pulling Jack into his arms.
“I wanted to watch the sunset with you,” Zack said.
They stayed for the sunset, then for a few hours after, naming all the constellations they knew and trading quick kisses. It was 1 in the morning when Zack finally took him home and kissed him one more time, longer than before. He reached into his pocket and pressed something into Jack’s hand before he kissed his cheek one last time and drove off.
Jack was left standing on his front stoop, watching Zack’s taillights disappear and feeling a little too weak in the knees. And holding a small sunflower in his hand.
Uh oh.
__
It had been five weeks since they met and at this point they saw each other almost every day. Zack had slipped into Jack’s life effortlessly, and Jack felt himself growing more attached to him. His calm demeanor had a way of relaxing Jack even after his toughest days, and time seemed to slow down when they were together. Every minute felt important, even when they were just sitting together shooting the breeze after work.
The Tuesday of that fifth week, Jack was on his way over to Zack’s after work. Zack had been unusually cryptic about their plans for the night, only telling Jack that he should probably wear his bathing suit.
When Jack got to his house, Zack was already in the driveway waiting for him in his truck. Jack stepped up into the cab and badgered Zack with questions about where they were going, but Zack wouldn’t let any details slip. He told Jack to relax and turned on the radio before pulling out of the driveway, the wind and the music taking up the space for conversation.
Half an hour later Zack pulled off the road into a little clearing. There was barely room to park the car before the forest grew thick.
“You’re not taking me here to murder me, are you?” Jack joked.
“That would be exciting, wouldn’t it?” Zack laughed, pulling a small cooler out of the truck bed and hoisting it onto his shoulder. He took Jack’s hand and led him down a narrow path through the woods. Jack was beginning to badger Zack with questions again when the path finally opened up.
In front of them was a beautiful waterfall, at least 15 feet tall. Surrounding the waterfall was a clear pond that tapered off into a river, and the whole thing was surrounded by the thick forest. It was secluded and wonderful.
Zack set the cooler on the ground and immediately grabbed Jack’s hand again, pulling him into the falls and laughing when he hit the cold water and yelped. Jack latched on to Zack for warmth.
“Too cold for you?” Zack joked, taking the opportunity to dunk Jack further into the water.
From there it was on, and Jack forgot that he was a 26 year old man for a while as he pulled Zack into the falls. They played and swam until it began to get dark, then they grabbed beers from the cooler and sat in the space behind the waterfall.
The noise made it difficult to talk, but Jack was content to lean on Zack’s muscular chest and watch the water crash. Zack was gently finger-combing his wet hair, and Jack was close to falling asleep. He was tucking his head closer to Zack’s chest when he happened to look down at Zack’s bare feet. When he happened to notice the delicate sunflower on top of his left foot.
Jack just pressed a kiss to Zack’s chest and closed his eyes.
__
A week later, Zack’s phone vibrated around midnight. It was a text from Jack.
Are you up?
Zack wiped the sleep from his eyes as he replied:
Yeah, is everything ok?
10 minutes later Zack heard a soft knock at his door. He padded down the hallway and looked through the peephole to see Jack standing on his front porch.
Zack flipped on the porch light and opened the door. “Jack, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”
“I’m not going to hold back any longer,” Jack said abruptly.
“What do you mean?”
“You were right,” Jack said, and he pulled the collar of his shirt down to reveal a yellow sun, shining in the center of his sternum. “It was easy.”
A yellow sun, painted directly over his sternum.
Everybody had one, but nobody had the same one in the same place. His mother had a beautiful vine of green ivy encircling her upper arm; his father had a black outline of a bull’s head drawn on the left side of his lower back.
Each parent had the birthmark of the other as well, on their arm and back respectively. That was how it worked- when you fell in love with someone else, no matter if they were your soulmate or not, their birthmark would appear in the same place on your body as it appeared on theirs. Even if they didn’t love you back, or if you fell out of love with them, their birthmark never went away.
Zack fell in love easily throughout his life. Embarrassingly easily, really. The first time he remembered it happening was in 7th grade. Lily was a little firecracker of a girl, small and strong from gymnastics classes. She had the lightest green eyes Zack had ever seen, brighter even than his own, and brown hair that hung straight and shiny down to her elbows. She sat next to him in math and helped him try to make sense of pre-algebra, and her smile was kind as she encouraged him. One day she slipped her hand into his during class, and when Zack got home he saw them: 3 small raindrops on his hip bone, swirls of pale blue and murky green. He’d never seen Lily’s birthmark, but he knew it was hers.
The next day he met Lily at her locker before school and showed her, his hands shaking as he carefully pulled aside the waistband of his jeans. She smiled and hugged him but told him she wasn’t going to go out with any boys until high school, and that was that.
Now Zack was 27, and his collection of birthmarks had grown to a full sleeve on his left arm, with a few scattered here and there. Among them a hammerhead shark circled his left wrist, thunder clouds covered his left shoulder, a raven stretched over his right bicep. A songbird sat directly over his heart from Sarah, the first girl who ever loved him back. A small skull and crossbones sat on the inside of his right forearm from Alex, the first boy he ever loved.
He wore each one proudly, each a story of how a new person had affected his life. Zack fell in love embarrassingly easily, but he never tried to hold back. He never understood why anyone would want to hold back from falling in love, and that didn’t change when he met Jack.
__
Zack lived in Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. He saw Jack for the first time one day after work, in a small grocery store a few blocks away from his house. Zack was scrutinizing the various options of bread and was oblivious to Jack, who was trying to casually take something from the shelf that Zack was standing in front of. Jack would’ve managed it without Zack noticing if a lady hadn’t run into him, knocking Jack into Zack’s shoulder and causing Zack to drop the loaves he was holding. Zack was ready to be annoyed with the clumsy stranger, but one look at Jack’s big brown eyes and black-red hair and he was smitten.
Jack hadn’t intended to do anything else other than apologize, but somehow he ended up letting Zack charm him and take him to his favorite café down the street. He only meant to have one cup of coffee, but then Zack kept flashing his sunny smile at him, and somehow Jack stayed for three cups and left with Zack’s number in his phone.
Jack was not a man who let himself get swept away like that, and the fact that Zack could do it so easily after only knowing him for a matter of hours scared the hell out of him. Jack also couldn’t help but notice the large number of birthmarks that littered Zack’s skin. His entire left arm was covered, for god’s sake. He was better off staying away from someone who would draw him in and inevitably break his heart, if his ink collection was anything to judge by. Jack was proud of the three birthmarks he had, including his own, and he wasn’t eager to let a stranger add to his collection.
Meanwhile, Zack had gone home and taken off his shoes to find a new birthmark: a small sunflower on the top of his left foot.
__
Zack could only wait two days before texting him.
They met up for coffee again, and Jack felt himself reluctantly opening up. Zack had a way of getting under his skin and getting him to open up, nothing like the second date small talk Jack was used to.
He found himself asking about Zack’s birthmarks, and Zack’s eyes grew fond as he recounted the many tales of love and heartbreak. Jack could tell that Zack had truly cared about each person he fell in love with, that they weren’t just notches on his bedframe.
“I only have 2,” Jack confessed when Zack finished.
“Really?” Zack’s eyes widened. He set down his coffee cup and leaned forward curiously. “Why?”
The question threw Jack off. After a moment of thought, he said:
“I guess I just don’t let myself get attached to people. I’ve always thought that letting yourself open up…that falling in love is…hard. ”
Zack shook his head and leaned back in his chair. “It’s the easiest thing in the world,” he said matter-of-factly. “You’ll see.”
__
The next week, Jack came home from work exhausted. All he wanted to do was get home and get in bed, but when he got to his door he saw something blocking his path.
Sunflowers were covering his little house’s front stoop, 5 bunches of them. Jack quickly unlocked his door and swept them up and into his house, scanning the street to make sure none of his neighbors were snooping.
He lined them up on his kitchen table and finally noticed a folded note tied to one of the flowers with a piece of twine. The message inside was handwritten in a loose, half-cursive script:
It’s easier than you think.
There was no name, but Jack didn’t need one to know who it was from.
He also pretended not to notice Zack’s choice of flower.
This is too much, he thought to himself. But that didn’t stop him from smiling the rest of the night when he caught himself glancing at the bright yellow blooms.
__
The next Wednesday night, Zack texted Jack around 8:45.
Are you busy tonight?
Of course not, Jack replied.
I’m on my way
Zack rolled up to his house in his beat-up blue truck, which Jack was secretly growing to love despite himself. It made him feel like such a teenage country girl, chasing a boy because he liked his truck.
Jack climbed in, raising his eyebrows in question, but Zack just smiled and turned up the radio.
He drove him to a beach near his house, swinging the truck around and backing it into the parking spot so the bed faced the beach.
“Wait here,” Zack said. He cut the engine and went around the back of the truck, grabbing something from the backseat first. When he finally came back and let Jack get out, he had transformed the metal bed of the truck into a real bed, complete with blankets and a small pile of pillows.
“This is amazing,” Jack said as he hoisted himself up. Zack climbed in next to him, pulling Jack into his arms.
“I wanted to watch the sunset with you,” Zack said.
They stayed for the sunset, then for a few hours after, naming all the constellations they knew and trading quick kisses. It was 1 in the morning when Zack finally took him home and kissed him one more time, longer than before. He reached into his pocket and pressed something into Jack’s hand before he kissed his cheek one last time and drove off.
Jack was left standing on his front stoop, watching Zack’s taillights disappear and feeling a little too weak in the knees. And holding a small sunflower in his hand.
Uh oh.
__
It had been five weeks since they met and at this point they saw each other almost every day. Zack had slipped into Jack’s life effortlessly, and Jack felt himself growing more attached to him. His calm demeanor had a way of relaxing Jack even after his toughest days, and time seemed to slow down when they were together. Every minute felt important, even when they were just sitting together shooting the breeze after work.
The Tuesday of that fifth week, Jack was on his way over to Zack’s after work. Zack had been unusually cryptic about their plans for the night, only telling Jack that he should probably wear his bathing suit.
When Jack got to his house, Zack was already in the driveway waiting for him in his truck. Jack stepped up into the cab and badgered Zack with questions about where they were going, but Zack wouldn’t let any details slip. He told Jack to relax and turned on the radio before pulling out of the driveway, the wind and the music taking up the space for conversation.
Half an hour later Zack pulled off the road into a little clearing. There was barely room to park the car before the forest grew thick.
“You’re not taking me here to murder me, are you?” Jack joked.
“That would be exciting, wouldn’t it?” Zack laughed, pulling a small cooler out of the truck bed and hoisting it onto his shoulder. He took Jack’s hand and led him down a narrow path through the woods. Jack was beginning to badger Zack with questions again when the path finally opened up.
In front of them was a beautiful waterfall, at least 15 feet tall. Surrounding the waterfall was a clear pond that tapered off into a river, and the whole thing was surrounded by the thick forest. It was secluded and wonderful.
Zack set the cooler on the ground and immediately grabbed Jack’s hand again, pulling him into the falls and laughing when he hit the cold water and yelped. Jack latched on to Zack for warmth.
“Too cold for you?” Zack joked, taking the opportunity to dunk Jack further into the water.
From there it was on, and Jack forgot that he was a 26 year old man for a while as he pulled Zack into the falls. They played and swam until it began to get dark, then they grabbed beers from the cooler and sat in the space behind the waterfall.
The noise made it difficult to talk, but Jack was content to lean on Zack’s muscular chest and watch the water crash. Zack was gently finger-combing his wet hair, and Jack was close to falling asleep. He was tucking his head closer to Zack’s chest when he happened to look down at Zack’s bare feet. When he happened to notice the delicate sunflower on top of his left foot.
Jack just pressed a kiss to Zack’s chest and closed his eyes.
__
A week later, Zack’s phone vibrated around midnight. It was a text from Jack.
Are you up?
Zack wiped the sleep from his eyes as he replied:
Yeah, is everything ok?
10 minutes later Zack heard a soft knock at his door. He padded down the hallway and looked through the peephole to see Jack standing on his front porch.
Zack flipped on the porch light and opened the door. “Jack, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”
“I’m not going to hold back any longer,” Jack said abruptly.
“What do you mean?”
“You were right,” Jack said, and he pulled the collar of his shirt down to reveal a yellow sun, shining in the center of his sternum. “It was easy.”