She was always on the bus in the morning.

I had begun to notice her without

knowing I was; her strawberry blond hair, her bright blue eyes, her unblemished, light skin
and her hands. Her hands! Her long piano fingers moved like an art of their own, grasping
the daily paper and turning the pages. Her fingernails were perfect, clean and never painted,
not too long but not too short.

I liked the way her hair would ripple during the old bus’s turbulence and shine in the
light coming in through the window. I liked the way her eyes would, at random intervals,
look up anxiously from her newspaper, and see past me through the window, as if she was
scared she had missed her stop. I liked everything about her.

I did not know it at the time, but my heart would jump when I saw her enter the bus,
walk down the aisle, and sit in her usual, always vacant bus seat: near the rear, on the right
side, the back to the window and the front to my usual bus seat. I sometimes had the nerve to
half-smile at her, but another thing I liked about her was that she seemed to be oblivious to
the world around her. She would not walk: she would glide, and never notice me, or anyone
else.

Just one day: that was all it took for me to miss her, though I did not admit to that
feeling. The word I used was lack. She was always on the bus, part of my daily life; so that
when she was gone I noticed how much she mattered. I waited for her, and I knew she
would not come when the bus started to move, leaving all hope behind. The empty seat was
there in front of me, like a cruel reminder of her absence, a reminder of loss of hope, and,
most of all, longing. How I longed for her, her shining hair, big blue eyes, and perfect
fingers. I wanted to smile at her anxiety and wonder at her oblivion. I wanted to watch her
glide and feel my heart jump. How I wanted her…!

She came into the bus the next morning, but she was not alone. Following her was a
tall, grimacing brunette girl whose facial expression clearly stated, I could do way better than
this bus.
 My heart did not jump as it usually did. The girl I had longed for yesterday did not
glide, she stumbled to make way for her friend. The girl I had wanted so much had painted
her fingernails a bright purple, and her perfect hair was tied up into a ponytail. The girl I had
missed was smiling a forced smile as her friend sat down, causing me to shake in anger. The
brunette had chosen the vacant spot across from me… her Spot. I looked away, because the
friend had been giving me strange looks, and then I shuddered as her crisp, cold voice
pierced the musty air of the old bus.

“Camellia,” She started.

Camellia… That was her name. I looked at her once more and could not think of a
better one. Camellia, like the flower of perfected loveliness, Camellia, like absolute beauty.
Camellia, like the girl who I saw every day on the bus, sunlight playing on her hair and her
hands making art with every separate movement…

I saw Camellia flinch slightly when the girl said her name, but she smiled again and
replied. I noticed she was not set in her usual perfected relaxation, but in almost robotic
erection, her neck straight and her shoulders back as if someone was pushing them back as
far as they could go. My hatred for the other girl deepened. Yes, it was hatred! She was the
one making Camellia do all of this, making her act pressed & forcing her to smile, making
her pull her hair back & paint her nails, and making her usual glide into an uncertain stumble.

“Lily?” She said, as if it was a question. Her voice… I had never heard it before, but
I knew at once that it was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. I wish she would say
my name like that, in that voice that was so perfect I couldn’t describe it. It was like the
prettiest bird songs in the morning, stepping into the cold sea on a hot day, several artists’
pencils sketching, a church choir, Italian opera, and the greatest singer alive, except better. I
savored it for the split-seconds it lasted, but then the other voice stabbed the essence, making
me return to reality.
 “Do you take this bus every morning?” She asked, with the air of a queen in a dung
pile. Because she was a queen, in this situation. She was like an imperial lily, looking down
on all her subjects; in this case, Camellia, the perfect flower. It was funny how I could
compare them to flowers, when really they were people, sitting in a musty bus in the seats
across from me, so close but so, so horribly far.

Camellia hesitated. I knew the answer, but this girl, this Lily, was making Camellia
say things that weren’t true. She didn’t want to take to long to answer, I knew, so she did
quick thinking. “Not every morning,” She replied, though only I knew she was lying
horribly. Every, every morning she was here. Except for yesterday. So she wasn’t lying, I
said to myself. Clever. She spoke again in that beautiful voice, “Only when it’s too cold.”
Lily seemed satisfied with this answer, but she didn’t expect her interrogation to be
challenged by another.

“Do you take your car every morning?” Camellia asked, with only a slight emphasis
on the word car, and I knew that she was challenging Lily’s superiority to those who took
different modes of transport.

“Yes.” Lily sniffed, looking down at Camellia, and there the matter was settled.
Camellia went down into silence, beautiful, perfected silence I loved so much. And then &
there something extraordinary happened. She looked at me.

Her bright blue eyes, for a split-second, stared into mine, which were, up to this point,
staring at her. She didn’t do anything; in fact, her expression stayed the same as she took her
eyes off me and turned to her friend. But I was so shocked – no, shocked was not the word.
Enthralled, astounded, stunned, amazed… amazed that she had actually looked into my eyes,
amazed that this slight variation in her usual behavior had been so… amazing. It was beyond
words.

I had no idea how she felt about me, if she knew I even existed, but that didn’t really
matter. I told myself that we would meet someday, someday I would stand up and talk to
her, or she would talk to me… The single thought of that was strange. Camellia talking to
me. I pictured sitting in front of a fireplace, drinking hot chocolate, or even watching a
movie together. Talking about normal things; but, I realized, I could never talk about normal
things with her. I’d be too captivated by her beauty that I could never put it into words. The
visions faded, bringing new ones that I shook out of my mind… Us kissing in front of the
fireplace, Us sitting on a park bench, me holding her hand while tears of joy swim in her
eyes, me sliding a ring onto her finger, her approaching me in a long, white dress…

My eyes widened in fear. I imagined Camellia walking down the aisle with a tall,
featureless stranger in a black suit. I couldn’t let that happen. It wouldn’t happen. We were
meant for each other. I was completely, absolutely in Love…

She was on the bus every morning and I could not remember ever not noticing her.
Noticing her blond hair with just a hint of red, her bright, sapphire-blue eyes, her absolutely
unblemished, light skin and her perfect hands began being the only important part of my day
and soon, my life. Her hair would shine in the sunlight, her eyes would flicker back and
forth from the newspaper to the street outside, and I would just watch. That was all I could
do.

But Lily…Lily changed her more and more, made her paint her fingernails, made her
put her hair up and away, made her stumble after her, and finally, made her leave. I thought I
would die from longing. It was nothing like the day she wasn’t there, that I simply let the
lack of her go; it was this constant pain like something was tearing me apart from the inside.
It was an ache in every part of me. I could concentrate on nothing, because after a quarter of
a minute of thinking about what I was supposed to be thinking about, my thoughts flew
straight to her. To her voice, to her face…I started falling behind, my passion for these
thoughts growing the longer they were kept.

At night I couldn’t sleep and in the day I would simply wander, barely hearing
anything around me. Longing turned to hate: Hate for Lily, the royalty that made Camellia
the flower die from my life. But, I told myself, Camellia would never die. That ache for her
would always, always be there, that hope that she would be on the bus every morning
remained and would never fade. I cut off everyone from my life, stopped answering my
phone and stayed at home thinking.

Thinking about her. She was the only thing I could think about, and everything that I
thought about was her. My longing to see her was sometimes cut off by my hate for her
friend, and the hate was so strong it made me think things that I didn’t want to think.
Horrible fates for that Lily, fates that she deserved for making Camellia leave my life,
perhaps forever. She was the reason for this. Lily had ruined my life, after Camellia had
made it worth living…

I lost track of time, lost track of the sunrises and sunsets, didn’t get up to check my
calendar or the clock, or to pick up the letters coming through the mail slot. A pile began to
grow under my door, a pile of white and brown envelopes. I couldn’t care less about what
they contained. There was only one thing in the world that I cared about, and that was
Camellia.

Something snapped me out of my sleep one day, and that was a short rap on my door.
I closed my eyes again. The knocking got louder, and more consistent. What did I have to
lose? I asked myself, and slowly got up and stretched. I opened the door, and there she was.
Camellia.

She stood there, in all her beauty, her hair down, her fingernails clean, her eyes
staring into mine. I stood there, almost crying from… what was it? Relief? Joy? It was the
greatest thing I had ever felt. She regarded me with a look in her eye that made me wonder if
she remembered me; if she even knew that I had been here for so long, thinking about her. If
she knew what I had given up for her. I forgot all of my logical sense.

“Camellia,” I said. My voice cracked from lack of use, and it was like a dusty croak.
“Camellia,” I said again, and then I smiled when she looked surprised.
 I wanted to tell her everything, absolutely everything, but something stopped me. She
didn’t know me – maybe even didn’t want to know me. She stood, flabbergasted at my
knowledge of just her name, so what would she do if I told her more? She would probably
faint, and I was too weak to catch her. I wanted to ask her how she could be here, how she
could possibly have shown up when I needed her most, and why.

Instead, I said, “Can I help you?” It pained me to talk to her as if I didn’t know her.
But, I remembered, did I know her? Did she know me? No…

“Can I…” She started, and I was already answering yes to whatever she was going to
ask, because that amazing voice hypnotized me, it was the thing I had been longing for, for
so long. “Can I come in?” She glanced at the pile of envelopes behind me, unsure whether
she should have asked that question or not. I opened the door wider; I wanted to beg her to
come, anything to be with her longer. She understood this as Yes, and stepped into my
home.

She turned to look at me, and then started to talk very fast. “I don’t know your name,
or what you’re like at all, but I’ve seen you every day since as long as I can remember, I
can’t remember anything else but you… I’m really sorry, I know this is so weird, but I love
you, I love you…”

I opened my eyes, awaking from my vision by her small cough. She was looking at
me strangely, and I could tell that all the days that I had been thinking about her had led me
into some sort of state where I had to separate imagination from reality. It was sad for me to
think that she did not say those words. She then started to really talk, more clearly and more
beautifully than in my dream.

“I’m sorry,” She whispered as I heard a sound of metal against metal, and saw
something in her hand shine in the fluorescence. She was sliding a knife into my chest, and I
was too sleepy to stop her. “Good-bye.”
 I could not believe it. I tore my eyes away from her face to look down at my chest.
Her gloved hand was holding the handle of the knife, and the rest of the knife was deep
somewhere in between my ribs, where dark red blood was slowly rolling down the front of
my shirt. I was so numb with disbelief that I didn’t feel anything. I looked back at her
beautiful face, but she was frozen, staring down at my wound. I wanted to hold her, tell her
it was all okay, but I knew in that moment that is wasn’t. I panicked, and collapsed onto the
ground beside the door.

“Camellia,” I whispered. She knelt down beside me, looking in horror at me, lying in
a slowly filling pool of my own blood. I took her hand. “Don’t look at that. Look at me.” I
told her, and she did. She looked into my half-open eyes and I looked into hers, then words
came tumbling out of my mouth.

“You. You were on the bus every morning… I fell in love with your hair and your
hands and your walk and your everything… I forgot everything from my life except for you,
you have no idea how I wanted you… How I hoped you noticed me, how I wished you
would look at me, that’s all I thought about… I forgot everyone except for you…” She was
still looking at me, her face expressionless but so, so beautiful… She kept listening.

“So when you left, and came back with Lily, I didn’t know what to do… She
changed you, Camellia, she did. How I wished you could come back to how you once were,
silent and perfect… You were still perfect, but Lily made you think you weren’t and that’s
why I hated her, you see? I loved you so much and detested her from the moment I saw her,
I don’t know why…” For some reason her eyes widened at this moment but she didn’t say
anything. I talked faster. I was soaked in crimson blood.

“She made you go, she made you go… It was like knives inside of me, scraping out
my insides, but you were still in my heart, every… every single day… I couldn’t not think of
you. Everything I thought of was you. I cut off everyone and everything from my life, I lost
track of time as I was sitting here thinking of you… I was hurting of hunger and thirst but
most of all, I was dying… dying of longing… longing for you.
 “So you showed up… what are you doing here? Is this a dream? It feels like it, it
feels so nice…” I was losing my breath, I could barely talk anymore. That was when she
burst out in tears. Tears and blood, just swimming around me, and she sobbed and sobbed,
sobbing through trying to string words together.

“But…” She choked, “What about Lily?” What about her? I thought, confused. I
hate her! Camellia shook her magnificent head, her hair shining more than ever. “Lily.” She
told me forcefully. “Your wife.” I was just too confused, and the coldness slowly creeping
over me was surely Death…

My wife. My wife, Lily. I remembered her face, and it became clearer in my head…
Three years back from today, I got into my car at three am and drove as far as I could go,
leaving Lily in the house after… after our fight… Yes. My wife, Lily. I had forgotten
everything but when I saw Lily I knew I hated her for some reason, but now I knew; we were
once husband and wife. It was all coming back to me, but it pained me to think about it. All I
could think about was Camellia, there in front of me, sobbing words out with trouble.

“Oh my God,” She whispered, tears rolling out of her eyes and splashing on red… “Oh
my God, oh my God, oh my God…” She continued, crying silently. “Lily, she told me… oh
my God, how could I believe her but I had to, I had to…” She was so sad but I wanted her to
be happy. I squeezed her hand and smiled as far as my smile could go, and she stopped crying.
“How could I?” She said quietly. “How could I?”

And then, with purpose, she took her blood-stained hand out of mine, and carefully
tugged at the black handle sticking out of me. I couldn’t help it, I moaned in pain but she took
it out in the end, leaving me to stare speechlessly at the hole in my chest. She looked
determined, and holding up the bloody, long knife for a second to glint in the light, she plunged
it into herself. “How could I?” She repeated, then we both closed our eyes as the cold hands of
Death took us both, together.

We were meant to be.