The Hanahaki Club: Episode 33

Episode 33: The Third Session, Part 2

So far…

The hanahaki support group are meeting for their third session.

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Episode 33: The Third Session, Part 2

Anabelle

Valentine’s Day can go screw itself.

Well, that wasn’t a surprising sentiment. Anabelle had spent too many Valentine’s Days in her pyjamas on the sofa with a bottle of wine and an extensive line-up of documentaries on cults and internet scammers to not understand that bitter feeling. It’s hard to celebrate love when you are suffering unrequited feelings; even harder when it is quite literally killing you. Overtime, she’d realised that it was only one day, and pretty easy to ignore if you temporarily blocked your friends from contacting you, avoided going to the shops, restaurants, or cinema, and deactivated your social media for about a week either side of the fourteenth of February. She was at an age now where Valentine’s Day had somewhat lost its charm anyway and even her happily-coupled peers didn’t bother with anything more than a cheap supermarket card and a takeaway from the local Chinese restaurant. But it was different if you were still young. The idea of heart-shaped chocolates, a bouquet of red roses and and a card full of expressions of admiration and devotion was still a novelty. Valentine’s Day wasn’t just a day for revealing hidden crushes and honest feelings; it was the day of the year where your own worth was revealed: how desirable were you? Were you the object of someone’s affection? Was there someone who secretly pined for your love and attention? Just how loveable were you?

And isn’t that a frightening question to face when you’re still young, insecure and impressionable?

Heck, it terrified Anabelle even now, firmly in her thirties, the owner of her own flat, and mother to a plump ginger tabby cat. She was so glad she was no longer seventeen; her first Valentine’s with hanahaki had been brutal, just two days before her operation. She had spent it crying inconsolably in bed, mourning the imminent loss of her memories and a friendship that had meant everything to her at the time. This Valentine’s there would be no crying: just a quiet day curled up on the sofa with Marmy, a cheap white wine and that documentary on the bee cult that everyone was raving about right now. And the hanahaki, of course.

Why couldn’t this disease leave her alone? Why did she have to be one of those cases she’d just reassured the group were so rare? She hadn’t just been unlucky in love, she’d been unlucky in the gene pool draw too.

Anabelle switched off the lights of the Blue Room, locked the door and headed to the caretaker’s office. Frank was at his desk, eating noodles from a mug with a plastic spork.

“Ah! Hello!” he greeted her, scooting closer to the door in his battered computer chair. “All done then?”

“Yes, thank you Frank.”

Anabelle handed Frank the key and he eased stiffly out of his chair to place it in the key cabinet. “No worries,” he said cheerfully, “Heads up, I won’t be here next week, but Todd will be on duty—he’s a reliable lad, but if he’s not in the office when you get here, he’ll probably be out back having a ciggy. I’ve told him he’s not supposed to smoke on duty, but you know young people—tell them not to do something and they take that as permission to go right ahead instead.”

Anabelle hummed sympathetically, trying to picture Todd—a six-foot-three, fourteen stone human tank, and definitely at least fifteen years past being considered a young adult—being scolded like a naughty school boy by his wiry-framed elder.

“Have a good evening then, Frank,” she said, giving him a little wave goodbye. “And have a good weekend, when it arrives.”

“Take care, missy.”

Anabelle made a dash from the community centre to her car through the puddle-riddled carpark and the thrumming rain, and slid a little breathlessly into the driver’s seat. She coughed abruptly as she reached for her seatbelt and a flurry of petals fell like snowflakes into her lap. After the coughing had subsided, she buckled her belt, collected the petals up in a tissue and then took a moment to collect herself, with her head on her hands as they gripped the steering wheel. Which approach should she take this time? It was interesting to hear the thoughts of the group on how they hoped to get over their unrequited feelings. If only there was clearer evidence to support one approach over another. Was it better to avoid your crush as much as possible and hope that distance dampened feelings over time? Or was it better to go the other way and expose yourself so much to that person’s company that eventually, like a child gorging on sweets, you got sick of them and purged your heart of its candied fantasies?

Anabelle had tried both in the past, but had found that absence only made her heart grow fonder whilst indulging proved addictive. In the end, the surgery had been the only option left to her. Could she survive the process a third time? She wasn’t sure she could face the scalpel again: erase another chunk of her life, pack up, move on and rebuild her life yet again. It was no way to live, repeatedly carving up her life and her lungs to remove and throw away the poisonous bits… what would she have left by the end of it?

With a weary sigh, Anabelle lifted her head, started the engine and flicked on her headlights. She had better get going; she needed to pick up dinner for both herself and her ginger lodger or she would be complained at all evening long. She really hoped her five mentees were going home a little less worried and a little more hopeful than when they’d arrived. It was good to have Taran back—since they’d arrived together, she had to assume his reappearance had something to do with Merryn. And at least Remi and Emery had a sense of purposefulness to keep them going through the last few months of their disease; she sincerely hoped they would both be successful in their chosen methods for overcoming their hanahaki. She couldn’t help but worry about Hassie though. A second case of hanahaki was a disheartening development, especially so young and so soon after her first illness. Anabelle’s heart ached for her—ached for all of them. If only she had some clearer answers to offer—if only there was more research-based guidance on how to manage this disease. If only there was a cure, if not for the hanahaki gene, then at least for a broken heart. The problem was that heartbreak took time to heal and time just wasn’t on anyone’s side. Twelve months for a patient’s first hanahaki case—that was doable, for sure, except that it took three months for the hanahaki symptoms to show themselves, so even the most generous time line was still limited to nine months. And then with each subsequent iteration of the disease, the time frame shrank as the hanahaki developed at a faster rate.

Time was certainly not on Hassie’s side, and it was all but an enemy to Anabelle. There was no time to try to move on from her feelings, by any method; no time to try for an alternative cure. There was only one choice to make: have the surgery and live; or don’t and…

Well… at least this Valentine’s Day would be the last she would ever have to endure.

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Next time: Episode 34—The Third Session, Part 3

Teaser:

C: Today, 15:41—your gf’s cute

C: Today, 15:41—i like her wellies

C: Today, 15:53—what’s her name?

C: Today, 15:53—is she our year? what course?

C: Today, 18:08—we shuld to a double date.

Taran lay on his bed and glared at his phone screen. Shit.

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Author’s Notes:

My sister and I were baptised on Valentine’s Day, so we always spend it together, whether we’re single or not. Sisters before misters 👊

Next time: Episode 34—The Third Session, Part 3

PJ

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