Lolita

The soles of her feet are black from walking barefoot around her garden. Her parents garden. She feels like a little girl again. The little girl who left badly sewn clothes for fairies. She left behind her girlhood a long time ago it seems. Slowly she stoops at the rose stump at the end of the garden. It is covered with roses. Scarlet in colour, the colour of desire. Her father planted the roses for her when she was sixteen, around this time.

Where has time gone? she wonders. They sent her to boarding school up north and she hasn't been home much. Traveling as much as possible during the holidays. I am light, I am free, she thinks as her chiffon dress flaps around her legs in the sudden breeze.

She realizes with surprise that she is smiling. She hasn't been this happy for no reason in a while. Her fingers pluck a petal from one of the roses. He loves me.

The words come automatically. She hadn't even meant to say that.

The smile widens, her head ducks down as she tries to hide her smile.

He loves me not. She hasn't played this game in so very long. Wouldn't let herself play this pathetic game. There was only one person she played this game for. Him. She hadn't seen him in a year. She found him in a cafe near her school. She was so surprised to see him and he even more so to see her.

He loves me. He had looked so jaded. She had wanted to touch his hand. To smile, to be a goddess for him. The way he was a god for her. She wanted to make him smile. To make him happy the way he did when he said she looked nice. All the time she had thought he was even more beautiful.

He loves me not. They had walked for a while together before she had to go back to school. He said it had been nice seeing her and she had given him a hug and inhaled the smell of cigarettes and remembered the crackle of his leather jacket. She was glad for once that she wasn't tall and had missed out on her mothers height. She wasn't taller then him.

He loves me. She had always borrowed his books and in some ways she knows that he shaped the way she thought. He made her open up her mind. Telling her that her favourite author was overrated and she should read his favourite authors, they were good. He made her more critical.

He loves me not. When he let her read the things he had written she felt so touched. He was talented and she dismissed his self depreciating comments. He made her feel special and that was it.

He loves me. He said once, come around more. She believed, had to, that he liked her being around him. She wanted so badly to be his muse. For him to mention her in his blog. Wanted him to mention her in his life. That she was someone significant.

He loves me not. She still didn't know a lot about him. She looked for clues everywhere. In his blog, from his friends, from their conversations. Yet, there was still a vast amount of things she didn't know.

He loves me. She had wished for him on every birthday cake. Asking the goddess Artemis to grant her this wish. Every Halloween at midnight she wished for him. She believed in her wishes. She looked at the last petal held gently in between her thumb and index finger. These roses were magic. She let the petal flutter to the ground.

I love you.

She said it out loud. Her love spell.