Wilting Jasmine

WARNING: This is a horribly sappy story with questionable grammar since it was written three years ago.

I am thirty-two and happily married to a great wife with three great children of my own.

My whole life has always been full of smiles, and I don’t think I’ve ever been overly depressed over anything. I love my wife, I think my kids are the greatest kids alive, and I very much love my job, which has a lot to do with numbers and counting money.

But there is one thing I will always get miserable about whenever it passes me, whether I was washing the dishes at the time, reading story books to my youngest son, or even kissing my wife.

You know those wise sayings about how our first love would never be forgotten? Linda wasn’t my first love even though I love her as much and as good as one. No, she wasn’t. I met Linda when I was in college, struggling through to get my degree with espressos to keep me up all night, and bickering with the lecturers.

My first love was when I was in high school, with a girl that I had known since elementary, but never got around befriending. I was too shy to talk to her. I was even too shy to greet her in the morning or offering to bring her books to class.

My first love was with a girl with hair as brown as chestnut, and eyes as warm as chocolate milk. I remember gazing into those eyes and had hoped that they would gaze back at me with adoration shining in them. But that never happened, not like it would ever anyway.

I was in the first grade of elementary school when I first met her. I wore stupid square glasses that made my eyes look big, and my clothes were one size bigger than me. My father bought my jumpers, and he was really bad at remembering my correct size.

I remember that she sat next to my desk, chatting amiably with her friend. Her hair was pulled up into a cute ponytail, and her sweater was green with rose pattern on it. It was love at first sight. I fell right then and there when I heard her laugh and saw the lines her nose made when she smiled, and how her eyes would disappear into two little lines. She had a dimple on the left side of her cheek whenever she twitched her face. She was beautiful to me, she always was.

She wasn’t popular. She only had a few friends with her. She had this best friend that was the loser of the class, a girl that was very skinny, with hair very straight and dark, morose looking in overall. My first love always stood up for her best friend and it awed me that she could be so loyal. It’s not a quality that many people have.

Her name was the most important thing at one point in my life where it stood first whenever I woke up, and lingered last before going to sleep. Her name was the name of a flower that my mother loves very much, flower so white and so pure, just like her heart, with scent as sweet as her kindness.

Her name was Jasmine. Everybody called her Jazz for short, but I’ve never liked that nickname. It sullied the charm of her name.

She could have been popular back then, but she never really cared much. She befriended everybody, she was well-liked, but her best friend made her stood wavering on a line between popularity and being merely acknowledged. At least everybody knew her as the nice girl, the one who helped everyone, and always had a good laugh in everything.

I want to laugh remembering how I urged my dad to get me to school early. I wanted to sit on that desk next to her again, just to be able to overhear her conversations or watch her pretty little fingers write down notes.

But apparently, she sat in a different desk at the back instead with her emo-looking friend when she finally arrived an hour after I did. I was quite devastated because I couldn’t steal glances behind without getting noticed. Why would anybody keep looking at the back of the class? The others would put two and two together, conclude four, and then spread a rumour about me having a crush. And it was only the second day at school.

So the next day, I urged my dad again to come early. I sat at the back of the class, but she wasn’t there yet. When she arrived, she didn’t put her bag down. She went back out again and came back inside after some while with her emo friend in tow. Then she let the emo girl choose the seat. I really hated my luck.

When Miss Bree came in, she noticed the seats have changed yet again. My teacher decided that the seats we had at the moment should be our permanent ones for the whole year. Jasmine sat at the right, in front of me. I got to see her ponytail swaying whenever she talked.

It continued to be like that for years. I only snooped around my friends asking for her hobby, her favourite colour, the name of her pet, but never really had a decent conversation with the person herself. I tried writing love letters, but I always threw them away after reading how sappy they sounded. I wish I had given those letters to her. It would have probably changed everything.

Jasmine went into the same junior high as me. We were placed in the same class again and I was very happy, thinking that perhaps this time everything would be different and I would finally have the courage to talk to her. Her emo best friend didn’t go to the same junior high as us, so nobody latched onto her arm like some parasite anymore. There were only four of us that entered the same school. Jasmine, me, my friend Adam, and another boy named Houston.

Houston took the chance to sit next to Jasmine and they became friends instantly. Again, I hated my luck and my indecision to start talking to her. Jasmine had gotten taller, and she was even an inch or two taller than me at the time. The height difference probably became an obstacle for me too.

I used to mope whenever Houston would give her friendly hugs, or jokes, or teasing, or praises, or probably everything he did with Jasmine made me want to mope. Adam knew I liked her, but he’d never commented. He said I was just a stupid fool— sad and undeserving of her in the least because I didn’t even try anything to get her. That should have shaken me from my stupor-like attitude towards Jasmine, but it didn’t. So I only watched her getting even friendlier with Houston from afar.

Jasmine started dating Houston not long after that, and it made me regret my lack of action. They kissed occasionally, but nothing serious. Still, it made me ran around in circles whenever they kissed, confused and unsure about what I should do to reverse this predicament.

I was ecstatic when they broke up three months after being in a relationship. Houston flirted with other girls and Jasmine hated it. I should have befriended her back then.

I still didn’t.

I would only say my hellos in the morning to her, or ask for her help in several subjects, and eavesdropped on others about her.

Not really eavesdropping, actually, I just happened to be near them and they just happened to be talking about her.

I knew almost everything about Jasmine from all the information gathering I did. I knew that she liked the colour red. Almost every single hair ties she had were red. Jasmine had a cat named Kimberly, and a small Brazilian turtle named Odon. She had a little brother named Dean who was always on top of the class. Jasmine’s grades were good, but she wasn’t at the top. She was always in the middle. She didn’t care about grades from what I heard. She never studied, never listened to the teachers, but she always managed to pass through with decent grades for someone who didn’t study.

Jasmine mostly spent her time drawing in her book or writing poems.

Her drawings were indecipherable. I mean, they were beautiful looking, but they had too many lines in them. She used lots of scratches and lines to make the shapes and shading. The way she drew flowers perplexed me at first. Most people made a circle in the middle with other half circles around it to create a flower. Jasmine did these scratches, and the flowers she made looked like thorns instead, but you knew they were flowers when you looked at them.

I once took her discarded drawing and brought it home, treasured it inside my drawer. I didn’t know why she crumpled away that one drawing, I thought it was beautiful. It was a sketch (scratches) of herself, wearing black clothes and black lipstick. I knew it was her even though the face looked similar to any other of her drawing. I knew, because the hair was tied up into her usual ponytail, and the end of it curled, exactly like her hair. Maybe that emo girl she befriended back in elementary influenced her much more than I thought.

I wondered if she were still friends with her. Perhaps not, that emo girl moved to another town in our first year of junior high.

Jasmine started to withdraw from other people when we hit high school. Again, we went to the same school, but I wasn’t placed in the same class as her this time. I had to find new ways to keep track of her doing, so I befriended several people from her class, just so that I would have a reason to drop by in someone else’s class without looking like a weird outsider. I was best buddy with this one boy named Rick; he reminded me a lot of Adam. Adam moved to another state.

Jasmine’s hair got darker during the summer, much darker from what I remembered. She didn’t put them up into a ponytail anymore. She let it loose, pooling around her shoulders and going past her waist. I recently noticed that her hair was a bit wavy, the ends curling like coils. Her eyes were still as warm as chocolate milk though, thank God for that.

Rick told me that he had a crush on Jasmine and I could say nothing about it. So I didn’t say anything about it at all, I even supported him to talk to Jasmine. But he only frowned when I told him so.

“No way man, she’s like, untouchable.”

“What do you mean?” I was puzzled when he said that. I couldn’t fathom why anybody would say that Jasmine was untouchable. I mean, okay, literally, she wouldn’t like it when people grope at her, even I wouldn’t like it. I mean, in the other meaning of it. Metaphorically.

“She keeps to herself all the time,” Rick shrugged, picking at some cotton on his shirt.

“She does?”

“Yea man, she’s so quite I don’t know what I should talk about without making me look as if I’m annoying her.” Rick shrugged again as he scratched at his hair, “She’s so intimidating sometimes.”

“Really? That’s new,” I muttered thoughtfully. “She was really friendly back then in elementary and junior high.”

“Well, that’s a different thing. I mean, people change,” he said nonchalantly. “Nobody messes with her, it’s just like that. I mean, she doesn’t yell at you or anything, but she’s just… I don’t know, cold I guess.”

“That’s ridiculous. She’s the friendliest person I know,” I defended.

“You don’t get it, you can’t talk to her. You just can’t. She answers with one word of yes or no and she’s never redundant in talking. She’s very terse,” Rick grouched unhappily.

I never knew that Jasmine changed that much. She was always warm and welcoming to everybody, what made her change like that? It was the complete opposite to her usual self. Or maybe it was just me that was delusional, maybe she’s been like this ever since ever, but I just never noticed because I was too enamored with her. Perhaps she’s always been a somber soul underneath.

My new high school was very individual; everybody mostly kept to themselves and donned up mutuality friendships between each other. I’m friends with you because I need you, not I need you because I’m friends with you. It’s a school for geniuses, or so they say. I passed the exam and got accepted immediately.

Jasmine was accepted as well even though later she said that she didn’t answer the tests correctly. She didn’t even study, she just answered by shooting randomly. At least, that’s what I heard from people. Or maybe she just got lucky. But no, Jasmine was smart, I knew it. She’s fundamentally smart; she was just lazy and didn’t have it in her heart to want to become number one.

Jasmine stayed being in the middle, not number last in class but not number first either. Just middle. With most B’s, a bit of A’s and one C for Maths. Jasmine hated Maths. Not because she was stupid, but because she was too lazy to work on any of the equations. At least again, that was what I heard from my friends.

Rick finally got around talking to Jasmine. That’s how I found out that she hated Maths.

“So, how did it go?” I asked him as I bit into my chocolate bar.

Rick opened his soda can and took a hearty swig. “Well, I tried making up something to say, and so I asked if she could help me in Maths.”

“And?” I took another bite, chewing slowly.

“She said she doesn’t like Maths, simple. Just like that.”

“Reason?”

Rick sighed and he swirled his can around and around and around. I followed the movement with my eyes while thinking about hypothetical situations where I really talked to Jasmine and made her like herself again.

“Too lazy, she said.” Rick then threw his half-finished soda away into the bin.

Eleventh grade in high school came and I was faced with the choice to try talking to Jasmine or not. I really wanted to befriend her, but I didn’t want to make myself look stupid, especially since everybody said that she was very cold now.

I came early to school and was ecstatic to find that she was in the same class as me in second grade. This was really my chance to get to know her, finally! I decided that I would say hello to her first thing in the morning.

I chose to sit in the middle row. From what Rick told me, she liked to sit at the left row, where she could lean on the wall and stare out the window.

I remember feeling giddy, waiting for her to enter the classroom with her long brown hair swaying like silken honey, and her eyes looking warm like chocolate milk, her red hair tie circling around her wrist.

I almost didn’t recognize Jasmine when she came in.

Her hair looked like it had been hacked off with a gardening scissor, short and sticking out in odd places, not anymore silky and honey-coloured as it used to be. It was black.

“Jasmine?” I called out bewilderedly, watching as she glided into the class, her two-strap bag dangling on one shoulder. She looked up and I saw her eyes, her beautiful, beautiful milk chocolate eyes, not anymore warm like it used to be. The shape of it didn’t change, the colour didn’t fade away into anything; it was still brown. But it looked colder somehow, more distant.

“Oh, hey,” she smiled at me.

I nodded to her stiffly, staring as she put her bag on the desk to my left. Just like Rick had said, she immediately dropped herself on the seat and leaned against the wall, taking out a sketchbook.

She started doing her sketch (scratching) on the paper with a pen. I was still looking at her when the others came inside. There was a group of girls coming in while laughing and joking, poking fun at each other. They weren’t in the same class as me before, but I knew them. Rick said that sometimes Jasmine would talk to them.

“Did you see Colby’s new hair? It was stupid!” One of them laughed, a hand covering her mouth to cover her giggle. Her obnoxious giggle. I knew her name, her name was Opal. She was degrading to almost everyone.

I didn’t like girls that gossip badly about each other back then, and I still don’t even now. Good thing that Linda is too busy to gossip with anyone, what with her being a doctor and all.

“I know right, she coloured it blonde, it doesn’t match with her skin.” The leader, a girl with creamy knee-length skirt and blue tight sweater said. Her hair was blonde and she had a pink bandanna to push up her fringe, showing her rather large forehead. Angie, if I remembered correctly. “She should have stuck to red; even though it’s very unappealing, at least it didn’t look like as if she was trying too much to look good,” she commented further while picking at her nails.

I heard Jasmine made some kind of an inaudible snort and I looked back to her. She was still drawing, face flat and hair odd.

“Still though, I think she wouldn’t look good either way. Perhaps she should have coloured it black instead. Maybe it’ll compliment her complexion more,” Opal piped up. Two other of the girls— a set of twin, Bianca and Blanca— nodded simultaneously. “Agree,” they chorused and collapsed into fits of giggles.

Angie looked over and waved a hello at me, “Hey, James!”

She knew me because I used to come to her class to meet Rick back in tenth grade. I gave a dimpled smile, “Hey, Angie.”

She smiled sweetly. Opal giggled when she saw Angie eyeing me with a pretty smile, nudging the twins with her elbow. I’ve heard rumours that Angie liked me. Not that I’m leading her on or anything. I was only being polite and nice.

Bianca and Blanca both put their hands on Angie’s shoulders. “Hey Ann, is that Jazz?” I heard them whisper. Well, feigning whisper.

Angie looked to my left. “Oh my, is that you Jasmine?” She feigned a gasp, widening her eyes and covering her gaping mouth with a dainty hand. Opal widened her eyes as well, looking truly shocked when she saw Jasmine. “You’ve changed so much!” Angie continued, walking over towards our desks.

The twins tottered behind her, still having their hands on Angie’s shoulders. Opal followed uncertainly.

“What happened to your lovely hair?” Angie frowned, looking mildly concerned. She reached out and touched the tips of Jasmine’s bizarre hair primly.

“Isn’t it still lovely?” Jasmine teased back, smiling up at them.

“Looks kind of morose to me,” Opal mumbled.

One of the twins smacked her arm. “That’s not very nice, O,” one of them said, but I couldn’t be sure which though. I think it was Bianca, while Blanca nodded to emphasize her twin’s words.

Angie gave a tight-lipped smile, eyes crinkling. “Why did you chop it off this way? It looks like a boy’s hair,” she crossed her arms, leaning her hips on Jasmine’s table.

“Haha, well, I was just bored with having it long,” Jasmine laughed and waved a nonchalant hand. “It’ll grow back by the end of the year anyway,” she shrugged, smiling at Angie.

“Well if that’s the case, then I can’t wait for it to grow back again! I loved combing your hair,” Angie pouted. “It used to look like honey, why did you colour it black?”

“Oh, I was just in the mood. You know, trying new stuffs and all,” Jasmine replied, closing her sketchbook when she saw the twins eyeing it.

“I like your skirt today though,” Opal chimed in, “I think that red looks wonderful on you. The white pullover is cute.”

“Thanks Opal, I like them too.” Jasmine agreed, cocking her head cutely to the side.

I imagined if her hair were still long and pulled up into a ponytail. It would have bounced cutely, her ponytail, when she cocked her hair like that. I remember the end of her hair used to curl prettily.

I didn’t talk to her the way I planned to.

In fact, I didn’t talk much to her, just like I did back in elementary and junior high. I occasionally asked for help in several subjects, never Maths though, and she would help me in understanding them, even though I actually already understood them. I only wanted to have reasons to talk to her.

Twelfth grade came and she became even worse than before. She came in, hair now in black bob with lips dark red and black turtleneck as her uniform for the day. She wore black leggings and black ankle boots. She still smiled to everyone, people in overall still liked her, but they mostly left her alone to her own devices. I still didn’t talk to her, only saying hello, goodbye, and asking for help with my subjects.

She still helped me, except for Maths, because I’ve had never asked too anyway.

It was almost Christmas when everything changed for us all.

Everybody was excited to welcome Christmas, the school’s hallways were decorated with stupid mistletoes and red and green and all those Christmas decorations. Couples kissed wherever there were mistletoes around, and it made me want to puke seeing them showing such blatant public affection like that. I wouldn’t mind kissing Jasmine though, even if it were very unlikely that it would ever happen in any way whatsoever. And anyway, Jasmine had been absent for two days, reporting to the teachers that she was feeling sick.

I’ve had ideas of visiting her house, bringing her strawberry chocolate fondue, her favourite snack (that I knew from stalking), but I never did so. I should have done so. I’ve even had ideas of buying her Led Zeppelin. I knew she liked Stairway to Heaven. Again, I should have done so.

I walked through the hallway to my locker. Rick was already on his, rummaging through his trash of a locker to find his books (that he wouldn’t likely to find anyway since he probably left it in class). I opened mine, quickly skimming through the neat stacks of my neat locker.

“James, man,” Rick called out to me.

“Hm.”

“Did you see my geography notes? Cause I have no idea where I last put it.”

“No, you probably left it again in class,” I shrugged unconcernedly. “So you didn’t make the essay Lou Ann gave then?”

“She gave an essay?” He looked over to me.

“Made mine last night, she’s going to be soooo pissed at you later, believe me,” I sang to him. Rick was always a pile of trouble, I had no intention of helping him that day seeing as this was almost Christmas. No reason for me to shit myself by helping him, no sir.

He gave a somewhat grunt and started trashing his locker even more. I plucked out my books and trailed my eyes over Jasmine’s locker. Hers had no stickers, unlike most of us who at least had a sticker of our favourite band or something equally as unimportant as that. No, her locker was clean, and I bet the inside was neater than the arranged peas on my steak. I hated peas.

“I wonder what her sickness is,” I mumbled to Rick who was still messing with his locker.

“Who?”

“Jasmine.”

“Oh, well, Angie said that she visited her yesterday and she was actually quite fine.” Rick pursed his lips in deep thought, “Opal said she was only lazy to go because it’s nearing Christmas anyway.”

“Oh.”

The rest of the day that followed was just painfully mundane. I was really bored because I didn’t get to see Jasmine’s mop of black hair from my seat. I wondered if I should visit her after school.

We were in chemistry when someone knocked on the door, which rattled the teacher’s nerves off. Miss Becca was in the middle of explaining something that she apparently tended to forget as well.

“What?” I heard her spat to the person on the other side of the door. She was known to be rude, Miss Becca.

They said something, but I couldn’t hear a single thing because Miss Becca started gasping, and saying “you must be kidding me,” and “no way,” and “oh my God,” and she started sniffling a bit, just stood there and not moving.

“You think her so called fiancé called and asked for a break up?” Rick whispered from across his desk.

“Could be,” I shrugged, and socked his face with my palm. “Get back to your own bubble and work on that so I can copy you. You’ve copied mine yesterday,” I reminded.

Rick snickered but he nodded anyway, getting his face back to his own desk and started scribbling circles and numbers and I didn’t know what was on his mind but were those J+R’s that he wrote? How would that help with chemistry?

Miss Becca closed the door, heaved a deep breath and walked back to the whiteboard. She took the eraser and wiped away the whole thing she’d written. Huh, perhaps Rick was right, it must be her fiancé calling.

Her back was facing us, her frizzy blonde hair swaying when she turned around.

“Class,” She started. Then she stopped, looking unsure, and started to open her mouth again, and stopped again.

“I don’t know how to say this,” she whispered lamely. Rick was grinning like mad and he looked over to me and I looked over to him. Her fiancé all riiiighttt, he mouthed.

I gave a small twitch of amusement, looking back to Miss Becca again. This happened before, Miss Becca got dumped by her boyfriend and she just took her leave, telling that the class was over for the day and we should read page from here to there because tomorrow there would be a quiz. It was her own little misplaced aggression to give us mind-boggling quizzes. The whole class became full of whispers and giggles. Apparently, everybody thought the same thing as us— that her fiancé called, asking for a break up.

“Everybody,” she started again.

Rick and I waited for her announcement that the day was over and we could go home, and I could probably buy that strawberry chocolate fondue and Led Zeppelin for Jasmine.

“Our friend Jasmine Parker—“

What? Jasmine? I think I heard wrong. What does this have to do with her? What’s wrong? What’s—

 “— was found dead in her room this morning.”

“…”

It was the world crashing and burning and cars honking as they drove into trees where it would flame up with everybody inside screaming while they burned and kids falling off their bikes and scraped their knees bad with their mothers yelling at them. Someone started crying, and then two, and then three. And then the whole class broke into a yelling mass of students, some howling in disbelief, girls screaming no, no, no, and some just stayed shock and quiet.

I swear, I swear to all things up there and above and higher and even even more higher, my breath was stopping and my chest felt like it was being… being… I didn’t know what I really felt back then. My heart beats erratically, frantically, that I could literally feel it right under my skin. Rick was gaping next to me and he looked over and he gaped further, and I felt horror rising in the back of my mind but I couldn’t feel it yet, not yet. It was surreal, surreal, surreal that my brain suddenly slowed the world down and it sounded like so real. So real. S-O-R-E-A-L, it spelled to my numb mind but I still, I couldn’t, I—

I was going to buy her strawberry chocolate fondue.

We should have been listening to Led Zeppelin by now after school. I should have sent those love letters from back then in elementary.

I was going to try to talk to her.

Class was cancelled. The teachers went to Jasmine’s house to give their condolences to her family. I was too shocked that when I arrived at home I simply dropped myself to my bed and just… just stayed there.

I remembered her drawing that I treasured in my drawer.

I cried that night. For what had and could have been.

Nobody knew the cause of her death until tomorrow morning when the teachers gathered all of us in the auditorium.

Jasmine died of suicide; she drank bleach and had refused to eat for days.

Her mother found her diary. It was quite hard to decipher the meaning of her writings since her diary was more drawings than writings, but eventually it was concluded that Jasmine had been depressed for long.

I never knew. I didn’t know. I wish I had known. I wish I had befriended her then and maybe this all wouldn’t have happened. Perhaps she would still be alive. I could have told her how important and unique she was, I could have made her feel special, safe, needed. I could have been the person she confided in when feeling depressed.

My hesitation killed her in some ways.

Maybe she didn’t feel special enough. Maybe people didn’t give her attention enough. Maybe she was just essentially disturbed underneath all those pretty layers she’d woven around her personality.

It was all only could have been.

In reality, I didn’t do any of those things and Jasmine ended up dead. Wilting and dying. Like those jasmine flowers when winter advanced. It’s ironic that she died when winter was coming.

And now, being thirty-two of age, I’ve learned to never let hesitation stop me from getting what I want, from cherishing what I love. I met Linda, I had my kids, and I’ve had never, ever, in my last few years of life, hesitated in following what my heart told me.

END

SHORT STORY

Ratu Annisaa Suryasumirat

Start: 31 July 2013 | Finish: 31 December 2013

It's kind of generic, but I wrote it myself and I like it. It has been three years since I wrote this, and my writing style has changed a lot. Still, I like this one story no less than my new ones since I relate a lot to the characters in it somehow.