When Love Waits

When I opened my door that morning I was confused with what I found. He brought me a white rose with wide beautiful petals, one of them dyed blue. The thorns still intact, and dew droplets clinging onto it.

~

“Marina give me my hat!!” Tyson yelled. I ran away from him, the tall grass skimming my knees. I giggled all the way across the field as he chased me. I was sixteen and he was seventeen. 

I popped the hat onto my head right as he grabbed me from behind. I laughed even harder as we fell to the ground. He grabbed his hat, the rim was beginning to fray. I smiled up at him and he smiled back at me. His whole face lit up when he smiled, even his eyes seemed like they glowed.

“Can I kiss you?” He asked. I was silent, frozen in spot. I didn’t know if I wanted him to kiss me. He’d been my friend for so long. I swallowed the lump in my throat before I spoke.

“You can kiss me when you find a white rose, with one blue petal.” I say, leaning in closely and kissing his nose. I pluck the hat off his head again and run off back through the trees giggling all the while.

I was barely seven years old, and he was eight and a half when I met him.  The hat barely fit him, but the team logo was brand new then. I said hi to him and he responded by throwing dirt in my hair. Kids are kids so they say. I responded with a fist to his eye, and that's how we became friends.

"Tyson, where'd you get that hat anyway?" I asked him one day in middle school.
"Oh, this old thing?" He asked. We were eating lunch by the old tree. He pulled  the crusts off his sandwich and gave them to me.
"I got it from my big brother." He said taking it off to show me. By now the team logo was dirty, no longer the bright white it used to be.
"He gave it to me before he went to Afghanistan." Tyson looked at the hat like it was an old friend.
“I miss him sometimes you know?” He said. I touched his shoulder, trying to comfort him the best I could.

~

When I looked up, he was standing there. He was wearing that stupid old hat, and a smile was spread across his face. I hadn't seen him since he joined the army, almost 4 years ago.

“Do I get that kiss yet?”