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Tommy picked seven different flowers on the day of midsummer.
The sun stayed high up on the sky and Tommy knew it would be that way for many more days to come. He would not be able to get any sleep tonight.
Between cheers and hearty meals paired with even more drinking, and drunken games of Kubb, Tommy knew the sun would not falter. If he were to roll over, and look through the age-old window in his assigned guest room, he'd still find the sun to be blinding him through the paper-thin curtain.
Still, Tommy picked seven different flowers hoping that he would, if only for enough time to dream, any dream, feign sleep, so long it contained literally anyone. He'd even be thankful for Erling Haaland.
The sun was scorching him on the picnic cloth, drawn out on the middle of a football field long since abandoned for the much more important maypole. With a single hand protecting his eyesight—not for much, with the only view painful to his eyes anywho—he knew that, lest he retreat to the tree-crowns merciful shade, he'd be blooming red by dinner.
The maypole was lone in its stance; midsummer had already moved onto the individuals, herring and drinking songs and all that. No one would bring it down, and it would decay and all its color disperse, but at least it got to see the summer.
Not just here, but a part of it brought everywhere—flower crowns, drying upside down or pressed between book pages, little flower petals for a lover or two. At least the maypole got to see the summer from all around.
Maybe its journey away from here had already begun; Tommy and his group were the few in the crowd with summer houses residing in the area, and such they were the only ones left to watch the partly-whole pole dwindle silently among the trees. With the crowd, they had brought midsummer with them elsewhere.
"Score!" could be heard from the group, and Tommy knew Lydia and Chelsea could only be the root. Mostly because they'd run over and lay flat down on the grass beside him, panting. Games were not for him, so he knew he could not participate fully in them. In a merciful act, he had spared the group his lackluster performance, and also spared himself the boredom. Hence, he had been called a bore numerous times. Still, he stayed unprovoked in his stance of nothingness. Maybe he was a bore.
The group had long since dispersed, dwindled. Maybe back at the house, or by the beach. Still in Bostad, still within Skåne's borders. Wherever they where, Tommy was not there. He was somewhere else, and he could not reach them. Something was tugging at his heartstrings.
And so he left.
Not that there was much to take with. Not much presence to miss.
There was a great deal of him that regularly regretted his regularly made mistake; that he could never be one with the crowd. Not that he stood out, nor that he wanted to be the a sheep in the herd to be shepherd around; a community to understand, and likewise be understood.
To laugh and to cry, holding hands and singing, even if for just a day a year. Still, with the opportunity presented, he had run away. Again. For fear of being an imposter, a sore thumb.
The smell of sea and birch was an indicative of his failure—he walked this lonely road, lonesome and fearful, and slightly emasculated. Some part of him itched for community, and he had in solitude, away from the group, at least done something, a single sign that messaged his part, although greatly parted from the rest. He was there, and even if just slightly, he was apart of the midsummer celebration. Maybe he could leave his imprint on the maypole through raising it, maybe he could live on through the waves he bathed in, maybe he wouldn't need to be alone.
But fear gnawed at him. Fear of being perceived, to be discussed and to live on in someones mind as critic. He had never dared taking the chance, letting the longing tear away at him, instead of facing the possibility of destruction, even if quiet. The nullifying quiet.
But unhealed longing turns to panic.
Partaking alone still meant partaking; some part of him was apart of the crowd, just quietly. If summer passed, and brought on the winter, and all of Sweden froze over, still, his heart would've been in midsummer, in the seven different flowers he plucked in solitude, away from the crowd, some kind of defience.
It was the longest day of the year.
***
Tommy put seven different kinds of flowers underneath his pillow.
The guest room only fitted two twin beds, divided by a shared drawer. They weren't staying long; clothing remained within their packing bags. The sun felt the furthest from setting, and its light practically barred Tommy and Hyde from ever creeping into bed.
Dinner passed; nothing note-worthy. A couple gags, digs made at him and digs made by him. Evening had come, and between drinking, a series of card games had been initiated. So far, Luke was the reigning master. Tommy's decision of not attending stemmed simply from the only card game he knew being go fish, and not fear.
Hyde joined him by the pier down the stream, further down the path behind the summerhouse. If he really focused, he could spot fishies swimming along the current.
"What are you doing?" Hyde asks, sneaking up behind him. Plopping down, the soles of his feet dunk the water.
Tommy answers after a theatrical pause: "pier."
Tommy has this specific cadence to his voice that, to the untrained ear, you would be absolutely certain that could not be the end of his sentence, but it always is. His words always end up hanging in the air, over Hyde's head, and he cannot halt himself from criticizing.
"What?" Hyde questions. "that's not—that's not a verb. You can't just say ‘pier’ and expect me to understand."
"I'm pier-ing." Tommy attempts instead, like a smart-ass, although the reply was far from it.
Another fish swims past.
"Still not a verb, you can't just—that's not how it works."
Tommy doesn't really care how it works.
One thing Tommy noticed about Hyde early on was that, he more often than not, spoke in a kind of sense as if referencing a third party. He addressed things, such as Tommy's grammatical error in this instance, as if he was a beacon of relatability that shone through the heavy foliage of the jungle. Like a kind of messiah that saw things as clear as could be, thinking as logically as could be.
This was a direct opposite of Tommy's ill-worded, dim-witted sentences.
"I am pier-ing. I'm on a pier and that's that."
"That's all?"
"Jeppsipepsi."
"Okay, then say that. Say that you're sitting on a pier and ‘that's that’"
Tommy groans. Hyde was lacking some essential whimsy. Tommy was too; dim-wittedness did not count.
"Oh my Goodd..." Tommy counters. "are you ever whimsical?"
Hyde takes great offense to that. Was Tommy calling him boring? Because he was not. He hoped.
"Excuse you? I can be whimsy—you didn't even dance around the pole!"
Tommy had raised the maypole, but by God was he not gonna be seen dancing around it. Not holding another guys hand, and definitely not curtsying. So, no, he really can't mock Hyde for his lackluster whimsy without being a hypocrite. But Tommy enjoys being a hypocrite.
"mimimimimi..." Tommy mimics him, mocking him because he really has no other line of defense.
Hyde has to shove him for that. "I WAS gonna tell you that there's dessert or whatever, but I GUESS you don't want any..." Hyde says, standing up and scenically looking off as though the offer had actually been withdrawn. Tommy knew that his chances weren't retracted, but hearing those words still incited a fear response within him. Because, you see, he's a fat fucking chud.
"No, wait - seriously?!" Tommy follows suit and extends, ready to race him back to the house if need be.
"Yeas, very serious." Hyde replies deadpan. "I'll tell them you're not interested..."
"What? No, you're not! - "
Tommy finds community with Hyde, and so he picks seven different flowers with intent outside of fear, bigger than fear.
***
Tommy doesn't tell Hyde about the flowers, he let's him believe he completely missed out on every and all traditions and activities.
There was something so humiliating about letting Hyde know that, yes, he was attempting an age-old tradition to foresee who he was meant to be with. He had no particular hopes, he told himself, no one who caught his eyes. Whomever he dreamed of, it would not be out of lust or actual attraction; completely random.
Hence, it should be no problem to deliver these news—but logic seemed of no help. He did not want Hyde to even think that Tommy was in the slightest romantically interested, this need to have him know he was completely uninterested in girls in some kind of way.
When he had denounced his non-participation, he had not expected to find himself 45 minutes later pinned down on the grassy football field by Hyde with some vague goal of football, or something of the like.
Tommy would've never acclaimed ‘football’ to be any kind of worthwhile celebration. He was sweaty and tired and all the less appreciative of summer. Hyde flops onto his back beside him, panting, breathing heavily.
"When you said," Tommy tries between heavy breathes. "that we were gonna ‘celebrate extra’, I did not imagine playing football in the middle of... midnight?"
Catching his breath, Tommy could definitely sense Hyde's smirk, smirking as though the ‘celebration’ had not been as strenuous on him as on Tommy. Smirking as though this was his ideal form of celebration.
"What would you rather be doing?"
Fair enough. The rest of the group had sternly decided on resting—that's not to say sleeping. Some were; before him he could imagine Chelsea bundled up in Lydias arms and probably taking up a good half of the sofa watching some 2000s movie recommended by Ryan; Luke and Pete playing a final game of Go Fish before Grace dims the lights to the point they can't see the numbers (or letters, if they're lucky); Ashley Brooke and Paige Morrissey accumulating enough mosquito bites to drive them back inside.
The sun was finally setting on the horizon and the sky above them black and splattered generously with stars. There was a quiet Tommy didn't feel obligated to fill.
"Why'd you come out here for me?" Tommy asks.
Hyde shrugs, looking up at the sky as if it withheld the answer. Dumb question, Tommy concluded.
Synonymous with Tommy's thoughts, Hyde says: "because we're friends, I guess." It wasn't the most gratifying of responses.
"I mean," Hyde continues. "because I like you—like spending time with you."
Tommy looks over at him. There's a hint of a grin that tugs at his lips, that he knows Hyde would not appreciate of in the moment, were it that Hyde wasn't looking the other way. As if Tommy's incoming skyfall of mocking could be sensed just from being within Tommy's proximity, Hyde counters before there's even anything verbal to counter: "and also because I'm more whimsy than you, or whatever."
Tommy sits up, shoves him with a grin. "That's so not true."
"Who's idea was it to come out here?" Hyde challenges.
"Mine." Tommy arrogantly replies.
It had been Hyde's idea. On the front porch, they had discussed the midsummer festival with a rather grim perspective. Apparently, Tommy's was far more grimly than Hyde's, and he simply could not let the day go by so horribly unreconciled.
Hyde had then simply dragged him off to the football field. Not an actual match; assists and what not. Top-hat tricks; it was really easy to score those, considering the lack of a goalie. That's not to say it was boring; and therefore Hyde was all the more offended to hear his great, fantastic, absolutely fucking phanomonal idea. It solicited shoving him back, in Hyde's mind.
"Dude," he says, not actually frustrated. "no it was not. If you're gonna be thankful, say it properly."
Tommy sighs, dramatically. "Ugh, fine... Hyde Healy, the football match was fully your idea and it was a great addition to the celebration, the best part."
"Thank you." Hyde says, content and therefore laying back down on the field, smiling.
Tommy follows suit, subconsciously closing the space between them so that they're shoulder-to-shoulder. There introduces a new kind of silence, that feels all the more tense. Not a lot, but enough to notice, and feel awkward.
Tommy meant what he said, but still, he felt he hadn't gotten the message. He doesn't get to deliver it, though; Hyde beats him to it, turning slightly to look at him in the eyes for the first time in what feels like an eternity.
"Can I tell you something?"
And suddenly the air felt tenser, and Tommy had to suppress an audible gulp. "...yeah." He finally contributes, uselessly.
He leans over, tucking Tommy's hair behind his ear and whispering, as though they were still in middle school.
"You're my favorite part."
Tommy laughs, because he physically cannot make himself do anything other than laugh. If he were to feign for any other choice, he's sure he would've self-combusted in the worst way. Words like threats to their entire co-joined existence although seemingly innocent, and he cannot formulate a sensible sentence with Hyde's warm breath against his skin.
He leans back, hand leaving Tommy's hair to instead prop himself up as he watches Tommy giggle, as if to note any destruction made by his words. Tommy makes an example out of pretending to not care, not notice that there was something more to be said, that simply could not be.
They return to the cabin under silence and the guise of ever being able to move on.
***
ABILITY. If life cannot be lived without the worlds fruit at your feet, then your life will be fruitless. If you cannot live without all that you want, and not need, then simply do not.
VOILITION. What is need? What is want? There exists no stone-written rules for distinguishing the two. A wants B, because without B, A is in such nullifying despair they cannot eat, sleep or pray. That's not life, at least not the ‘bare-minimum’ you seem to be shooting for.
ABILITY. If life without B is such an annihilation of peace, then life with B was never peaceful to begin with. In a state, whereas the matter of B could be plucked and dispersed away from life, life was already under the constant threat of panic. There is no such thing as being unable to do without, not with the kinds of matter we refer to. Get up, and move on. I'm certain a crack addict—
VOILITION. That is where I have to interpose! Firstly, if you want to make the argument that B is unhealthy, simply because its constant chance of dispersing, of disappearing, then where would one say that argument halts? Because I have to assume you don't mean to imply that a book is harmful, because its pages might fall out, or that a companionship is to be discarded and simply ‘do without’ because they are not promised to stay forever. Life with all promises, would be life of simply breathing -
ABILITY. That is not what I am arguing for! You speak of the joys of life, reading and befriending and I'm sure you'd bring up eating were I to let you continue your ramble, as though they were as lowly as B. A book can be hurt, and so we buy it with intention of carefulness: we don't keep it close to the fireplace. But approaching B with the mindset of A, is to have no mindset at all! Fact is: outcome will hurt regardless, regardless of how it ends! If happiness is restored, then A is to know it was done through harmful and, I must say, sinful ways. I am well aware of the dangers of life, but I only declare that ways with only means to an end is painful and unnecessary! I only wish for her a healthy life -
VOILITION. Who are you to declare healthy from unhealthy? Right from wrong? In this discussion, like I was getting to, the health detriments of, like you said, ‘crack’, has effects on the emotional, but mostly the physical. Where are you to draw the line where mentally healthy becomes mentally unhealthy? Why would you know where to draw the line of need and want? Are they not synonymous with each other?
ABILITY. Causing unnecessary chances of pain is self-detrimental, it's an indicative of a sick soul—a want for food is a need for food; your body experiences a descend in energy, and so forth you feel a want for food. A want for water, a want for medicine, a want for shelter... these are all very primal things, and true it is that many wants are not to be shoot down, although they may not be healthy in and of itself; a want for snacking, a want for commotion and a want for solitude. Unhealthy, but they deliver a kind sustenance that primal urges cannot truly bring about: a sense of peace, happiness, call it whatever, and I won't argue this is to be removed as though a tumor. But we are not discussing a kind of fasting that detriments the health, and if it lasts as a wound in the soul, it is to be only an indicative of the dependence A had on B. Sooner or later, it would come crashing down. You have no proof that the chance is worth taking, that it won't destory her happiness further than ignorance would.
VOILITION. If we deny this complex pleasure, then what else do we deny? Pain is necessary; its the first brick laid to ground the soul! Pain cannot come as a shock: if the outside world, full of chances and dead ends that may lead to pain with knowledge, knocks her back when a chance is taken, life is stripped away from her! Chancing, defying and challenging is directly acquitted with pain—she retreats back into a kind of solitude that kills her, only just slowly this time.
ABILITY. Are you promoting recklessness? That just because you may learn, you should put yourself in the middle of the frontier?
VOILITION. Pain within control.
ABILITY. But it isn't! Risking loneliness, shunnings, for the knowledge that: »okay, maybe don't do that«, and never have the chance to do so ever again! What kind of a life is that?
VOILITION. What kind of a life is one without knowledge! You assume that every chance taken is a fruitless one; yet you have no proof as to show life would go so cruelly unreconciled!
ABILITY. And you have no proof to prove otherwise!
VOILITION. Hence, we are stuck in this vicious cycle of dread. You make such a point to lead the life without all that insignificant insight that is gifted by the turmoil you present as only dangerous, to live a life where everything is ‘okay’, but a peaceful life is far from it! You cannot live a hospitable life without knowledge, it only leads to the fear you nourish yourself on! You are not as clear-sighted as you propose yourself, and your abilities are only restricted to the fear you inhabit!
ABILITY. I'd rather choke on fear, than live as recklessly as you do! All those wounds of disapproval will infect, infect your life until you are but an empty name-shell of your former self.
The argument reaches it's final point of weakness: from both sides, fear is to be driven away. They cannot live without fear, and so they will choke on it.
***
The sun blinds him as an alarm to notify that what had to be, now was.
Released from the heavy restraints of comfort, born anew was a new kind of fear Tommy had come to terms with. He is scared, but only slightly; the flowers in his hands no long present themselves as such a threat to his entire existence.
Was it clarity they had given him? Had he given clarity to himself?
They laid heavy in his hands: crushed, but with no imprint on the bed. All their colors drained as though whatever magic they kept had been used up on that midsummer night—and Tommy does not feel as frightened by the possibility. Chance was to do what was rightful, and Tommy knew they had only worked as a confirmation. No fear of too little, too much.
He did want. And behind every flower plucked was intention—he had come to understand, but far from fully accept. He was scared, but only slightly. He laid each brick with fearful intention.
Hyde rolled over—t'was morning, but of the earlier sort. Between yawns, he could spot the less colorful array of flowers in his hands; from the flatness alone, he could deduce Tommy's participation. Still, it was something to humor: "dude," Hyde contributed insightful. "you slept on those?"
"I guess."
Hyde looked at him as though he was the most interesting thing in the world.
"No way," he says, believingly. "Who'd you dream of?"
No, not a prophets foretelling into the future; a confirmation, from only himself. Who had he hoped for, when picking, when sleeping? Community was what he itched for: painful, but rather it be a shock than choking.
He wouldn't let it pass so grimly untold.
"I dreamed of you."