She would read tales of the trysts of young lovers in old attics and church bell towers, reveling in the joys of her own secret meetings. He would dream of making it big- he would someday, just you watch. He would tell her of his plans and wild dreams of leaving the little farming town they called home, while she would teach him how to make paper flowers out of crumpled grocery sacks. He would dream of going to college and becoming a business mogul. She would savor his fantasies of their marriage and how he would give her a life of extravagance she could only dream of. She would take the memories of that night after graduation- the ones made of sweet words and promises whispered in the field, of being surrounded by half-made paper flowers left abandoned in favor of entangled bodies, of the feeling of his lips kissing her freckles- and store them in a little locked box in her heart. He would tie a blade of grass around her finger and then take a train into the city, the promise of their future bound in chlorophyll.
She would wait, attending a community college and taking his phone calls on an old landline. He would send her letters, detailing his class and experiences in a university ink pen. He would starve himself on one meal a day to save, use every scholarship he could get, work every ounce of energy from his bones and then some- all for her. He took summer classes and internships; she took night shifts at truck stops and diners. They worked, studied, and clung to a hope of the future they had always dreamed of. She waited and made paper flowers. He waited and built for himself a name.
He returned on a train with a large bunch of brown paper flowers and train tickets with their names on them. He would sweep her off her feet and carry her away while promising her that, one day, they would live the life of grandeur that they had fantasized as young lovers. Life brought forth the frozen reality of long hours, high rent, and even higher bills. Every night, he would hold her and promise her that their day would come soon. Every night, she believed him. On the last Friday of every month, he would come home with a small bouquet of paper flowers and a small paper sack from the tiny bakery just up the road. They would go to a little spot outside of the city and sit on a hill on the edge of the forest. They ate and rolled around in the grass, giggling and loving like teenagers. They would sit together under the stars, and he would whisper more promises of the future- promises of bouquets of real flowers and a nicer apartment or a brickstone house in a quieter part of the city. She would cherish these memories as they saved and scrounged every penny they could for a crib and clothes, shoes, and toys. He would work late hours while she graded first-grade math sheets.
He would come home five months into the waiting with a bouquet of midnight petunias and white roses and takeout containers from a restaurant they could only dream of affording. He would hug her and kiss her and share the news of a promotion- a large one he had been dreaming of and working for during the year they had been married. They would go to their spot and celebrate with good food and the making of paper flowers- things were changing, their dreams were coming true.
There would be a rustling off in the trees that would grab their attention. The acrid stench of blood and something rotting would assault their senses and drive fear into her heart. He would reassure her and courageously vow to investigate and defeat whatever woodland beast dared interrupt them (or scare it off at the very least). She would stand at the edge of the trees and watch him go off through the foliage. She would wait until his pained screams echoed through the night and scream his name into oblivion. She would run through the growth, crying his name into the dark, following the sound and smell of pain. She would see blood, the dying shreds of her husband, hear the growling of something ferocious, see the glint of moonlight of fangs, hear the shouts of men, the trampling of boots, the sound of her screaming and crying and pain from the distance as sight and smell and sound blurred together into a haze until-
She would wake up the next morning in her apartment and panic at the blood and pain of an impending miscarriage. All of the pictures of them were gone, replaced with replicas of only her. His memory was gone from her. Over the days to come, family, friends, coworkers, and employers lost recollections of him, pictures went missing or altered, files were destroyed, and any trace of him was erased. She would be left with two empty feelings in her heart- one of a child who never got to be, and one of memories she didn’t remember having in the first place. She would grieve her lost child and go on with her life. She would meet someone new and fall in love again, though there always remained a pain unplaceable.
And left on that hill lay bunches of paper flowers, stained in blood and broken dreams.