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After hours of walking, they reached Mack’s trailer. He was embarrassed to invite her, but she let go of his hand and opened the door then went inside.
Mack stood outside, expecting her to come out disgusted, and maybe even run away. But she never came out. After a few minutes, he went inside and found her sitting on the chair and crying as she looked at the wall of roses.
“I’ve never seen anything more...” she said.
Mack froze in place, waiting for her to continue and finish the sentence, but she didn’t. All he saw was that she got sadder and cried some more.
Eventually, she got quiet, and looking at her, Mack knew it was over. He couldn’t bear it anymore and had to finish it once and for all, he had to fill in the gap on the wall and in his heart.
Mack got out the hidden box from under the floor and took out a few scrap metal pieces. He bent them, ripped some of them, and twisted a few together.
She sat quietly on the chair and watched in awe as the metal came alive in Mack’s hands and transformed into a perfect rose, one that except for the colors, was almost real.
Then Mack got a nail and a hammer from his toolbox and approached the empty spot on the wall. He pressed the rose against the wall with the nail and moved the hammer back.
“No,” she cried.
The hammer stopped in mid-air, barely touching the nail.
She got close to him and gently took the rose away from his hands.
Mack watched her confused as she bent the stem and twisted it.
“Please, don’t,” he begged.
She touched his hand to calm him down and then continued playing with the rose.
Mack looked away, afraid, unsure of who he let in his trailer, and in his life. He looked out of the window, far in the distance, at the green light, at his beacon of hope. Will he ever get to be on top of the world again? Clouds moved in the sky and hid away the green rays. It was all so far now, so impossible, that he probably didn’t even have enough energy in him to go all the way up to the tower.
This, whatever surrounded him at that moment, this was it for him. And the faster he accepted it, the less energy he was going to waste chasing the impossible. He closed the window, both to forget, and to stop himself from remembering when something pulled on his hand and took him out of his trance.
Mack turned and saw her, the beautiful creature in his trailer, pulling and pointing for him to look somewhere, look at his little table. There was something on top of it, something that wasn’t supposed to be there. The rose, as he never imagined it, standing on the table supported by its stem. Standing more beautiful than any of the roses that he nailed to the wall.
He stared at the rose for the longest of time and a smile slowly bloomed on his face. But something was missing, a feeling that grew inside him, an idea that smiling was not enough for the simple beauty he was witnessing. Mack realized that he felt the need to cry, weep at the gift she had given him. For his date not only freed the rose from its inevitable punishment, but also freed his soul to finally see a beauty that he missed all his life and was not able to experience alone, until now.
Mack reached out for her hand and their fingers intertwined and grew together like vines in a perfect match.
“I’m Mack,” he said inviting her into his heart.
“Grace,” she almost sang back, a melody he kept repeating in his head, one that was becoming his favorite.
They held hands and hearts together, and time flew. And not long after that, Mack realized that he didn’t have to take Grace to the green light, that he was wrong all this time, because whenever they were together, and definitely every time they held hands, he was already on top of the world, because he was with her.
