Loves me.
Loves me not.
Loves me.
Loves me not.
...
It was what made a four-leaf clover unlucky to her.
...
Buttercups were much better.
...
Loves me.
Loves me not.
Loves me.
Loves me not.
Loves me.
...
She was young, small; her heart was fragile, always fragile, and couldn't bear when it was an even number. She loved only the flowers that told her he loved her.
The others left her a shivering, weeping wreck, and it was only in his arms would she find any comfort.
One such time, he'd taken her hand and shown her:
"Rinny, don't cry-" He'd touched each finger and her thumb in turn, and she'd watched in utter rapture, "-loves me, loves me not, loves me, loves me not, loves me. Whenever you are going to cry, just count your own fingers."
She remembers the way his lips felt on her hand, how readily her tears had stilled as she mimed it over and over with a smile.
She'd forgotten about flowers that day.
...
Everyone had hands.
Over the years, she found new things to love about them each day.
She read about them in anatomy books: learned the names of each and every bone.
There were twenty-seven in total. Twenty-seven.
Twenty-seven.
Twenty-seven.
Twenty-seven.
She smiled to herself as she watched her own hand move, imagined every bone moving at once.
Fingers were called phalanges, and they were connected to proximal or distal-interphalangeal joints; pips and dips, such cute, cute names.
Cute, cute, cute, cute, precious.
Four fingers and a thumb.
...
She was in the nurse's office today again.
Each and every day, she sees dozens and dozens of hands. People have started noticing how quiet she is, and it's only emphasized by the screaming, inconsolable fits she was having lately.
She silently watches each and every hand all throughout the school day, counting the fingers again and again and again and again and again.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
It's enough to make her positively ecstatic. He loves her, loves her, loves her, loves her, loves her-
-until she counts too fast and suddenly a number has been skipped and her whole world is flipped upside-down and she shrieks aloud into the crowded hallway, hysterical, and where is Len where is Len where is Len where is Len where is Len-
He's all she has and she has to know that he loves her loves her loves her loves her loves her-
And so she wakes in the nurse's office to the careful concern in his voice, opening raw, puffy eyes and feeling his hand on hers-
-the one so like hers, because they are twins.
He kisses her fingers and tells her this has to stop.
Of course.
Loves me.
Of course not.
Loves me not.
Of course, loves me.
...
She would have his hand.
...
Love and blood alike are red, and she will make a garden for him.
...
He screams when she cuts the last flower.
He is red, camellia-red, inside, and now out.
...
He doesn't like the bouquet.
He doesn't like the bouquet.
He doesn't like the bouquet.
He doesn't like the bouquet.
He doesn't like the bouquet.
...
He's not even looking when she holds it out to him, and she counts it again.
She'd found nine beautiful flowers, tipped with all different colors, a rainbow to be held in her-
-hands.
The edge of her lips quiver furiously, and she knows why.
It's missing something.
She pulls the blade from amongst them: it is still warm and red with her love.
...
Not her love.
Not her love.
Not her love.
Not her love.
Not her love.
...
It lacked the most lovely flower of all, the flower that was so like his.
Because they were twins.
...
Look.
Look.
Look.
Look.
Look.
...
She adds one more.
Her very, very own.
...
The pain blooms fast and the knife falls from her grasp, the flower that remains. She feels herself fading and she knows why he won't look at her anymore and she knows what she's done and the labored heaving of her breath is making the world dark and faded at the edges-
"Rinny, don't cry-"
She's forgotten how to count-
"-whenever you are going to cry, just count your own fingers."
She can't touch her own fingers anymore-
His flower, she closes her hand around, it is weighty and dying and she has to count before it withers.
...
Loves me.
Loves me not.
Loves me.
Loves me not.
Loves me-
...
There's something wrong again.
...
Loves me not?
...
She hopes it is only her blurring vision, a trick of her mind in her final, hazy moments, but she can feel it, she can touch it-
...
-there are six fingers.