helium balloons

ss: Dandelion Wishes

It started on a warm spring day in first grade. The sun was blazing and the sky was cloudless. We were full of energy, racing around the playground, making the most of our fifteen minutes of recess.

The dandelions were out that day, donning their fluffy, white spring gowns, swaying in the slight breeze. An occasional seed gusted away with the wind. The field was covered in the dandelions, probably spread through generation after generation of hyper kids, blowing and kicking them in every direction.

Fifteen minutes go by awfully fast, and soon the whistle blows. We were supposed to line up to go inside, but I wanted to pick a dandelion first.

Funny how, in a field of a million other dandelions, you reached for the same one I did.

You snatched it up first, "Wanna share?" I could have easily picked another dandelion, but I didn't: we shared.

"We gotta make a wish before we blow all the fluffies off. It has to be something we both want if we're gonna share it."

"I know! How 'bout we both be best friends? Forever?" We blew the feathery white out together on the count of three.

You weren't my best friend at the beginning of the day, but by the end of recess, the seeds of friendship were planted, ready to grow and blossom at any second.

The next time, it was the summer of third grade. Our parents had arranged a day for us to get to see each other. One can only go so long without their best friend. We were having a relaxing walk along a trail. The thick, green, leaves overhead managed to block out most of the sun and head. Nevertheless, it was hot and sticky. But it was also advenuturous, and we were having fun chasing each other back and forth up the path, while our parents trailed behind us, probably wondering where we got our energy from.

"Do you think that's poison ivy?" you asked me, as if I knew.

"I dunno, but my mom told us not to touch anything, remember?" I purposely stuck to the middle of the path, because I had heard enough of the horrors of getting poison ivy.

You didn't listen. You bent down to pick something up.

"What are you doing?" I nearly shrieked.

"It's okay. I know what this one is." The plant made a quiet snap, as the stem gets broken away from the ground. "See, it's just a dandelion! What should we wish for?"

"Let's wish for adventures to last forever. Like this one." We blew, and the seeds scattered around the path.

Those summer adventures: of bike rides, sidewalk chalk, and firefly catching went by awfully past. We blew countless amounts of dandelions, and it seemed that every wish came true. We wished for ice cream, and we were given some. We wished that the Fourth of July would come so we could run around with sparklers and over our ears at the loud bangs, and it came. It came and it went, just like the summer and our shared dandelion wishes.

It had to be sometime around sixth grade that I wanted to be more than best friends. Our first dandelion wish had remained true, we were still best friends, but I started to have blissful fantasies of being together.

I never said anything about it, but I went out of my way to wish on a dandelion. Begging, that please, maybe someday, you would ask me out. I believed that one day, one of the seeds would be sent your way, and you would understand what I meant. And I felt stupid, because here I was, twelve years old, still huffing and puffing on the "fluffies" as you had called them all those years ago.

The fluff of the dandelions seemed free and happy, softly dusting the ground where the seeds fell. I wanted to experience that moment of suspended free fall, like the dandelion seeds, and I believed that the only way to feel that was to be together, with you. I wanted to fall, and I wanted you to fall- in love with me.

All of my other wishes had come true: why shouldn't this one?

I had grown more patient. It was remarkable how fast the years flew by, all a blur of dandelion white and wistful longing. But I was convinced that I would be with you someday. After all, you had stuck along with me all these years.

You were just a couple months older than me. It was August and you had turned sixteen. You had gotten your car. It was nothing fancy, just a simple black car. It was used, but as with all boys, you adored your car.

"You know you're giving me a ride home from school, so I don't have to take that dreaded bus, right?" I told you. Plus, it gave me an excuse to be with you, just ten minutes longer. Ten minutes is a short amount of time, but if I got to spend it with you, it would be ten minutes well spent.

"Of course," you told me.

My parents were skeptical, of course. They were never ones to trust teenage drivers, but they had known you for a long time. They trusted you, and so you drove me home.

It was a rainy September Thursday. The rain was coming down in buckets and lightning cracked through the sky. Thunder was booming all around us, but I wasn't scared. I had you with me, in the safe insides of the car. I could look at you gaze at the road in all your concentration, and just wish that I could be yours.

You reached my house all too fast, and too soon I was climbing out of the passenger seat. Immediately, I was drenched with rainwater.

"Bye!" I called.

"See ya tomorrow!" You said, with a smile and began to back out of the driveway.

I was too focused on getting out of the rain, that I bypassed a lone dandelion in my yard. I should have made a wish.

For the first time in my fifteen, almost sixteen, years of existence: you broke a promise with me. Two, actually. Because I didn't see you "tomorrow," and forever was a lot shorter than I had expected.

The water took you: hydroplaning. A single, dirty word, that I will hate forever. 

I had nobody to blame. Nobody was at fault. There was no carelessness, just bad weather, and you were just gone. I couldn't help but feel betrayed: why hadn't my wishes come true like they had before?

So here I am, standing in front of your grave, dressed in black, like the color of your car and the color of the day you died. Today feels black, too, even though the sun's brightly shining, just like the day we met.

My cheeks are wet with tears and my throat hurts from screaming. It feels like someone ripped a chunk out of me; everything hurts so much.

Dandelions mockingly swayed in front of me and I wanted to cry and laugh at the irony all at the same time, but I ended up just crying more; the bittersweet moment just turned more sour.

I grabbed an angry handful of dandelions, hearing the snap of the stem. I blew furiously, wishing that you were here with me, but it seemed that the dandelions had lost their magic. And I had lost you.

The fluff landed all over your grave. I wanted to blow and blow and blow, and make countless wishes using up all the air in my lungs, just to have you here right now. But no amount of dandelions and no amount of wishing could undo the damage. My dandelion wishes turn into dandelion despair.

Funny how those dandelion years passed by so awfully fast.

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Dedicated to Sherry, because otherwise I probably would never have found Wattpad. And it's about time I thanked her for that.