Title: Peach Tree Leaves
Genre: Original Fiction
Word Count: 920

Author's Note: hello! This is something a little different than usual but I thought I'd share. This is a completely original work with no pjo/hoo characters. I hope you enjoy :)

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Peach tree leaves.

I stared at him, his sun-soaked face splashed with freckles, like tiny kisses sprinkled across his cheeks. He reached up, plucked a leaf from a low hanging branch, and handed it to me.

When I asked him why, he shrugged. I asked, why the leaf instead of the peach? He looked up again at the leaves, rays of sunshine like hands reaching between the open spaces and resting on strands of his hair. His eyes were almost iridescent.

He finally said, The number of times I want to kiss you is the same as the number of leaves on this tree. There are far less peaches.

He didn't smirk, or wink, or even blush. He just stared at me. And I stared back. I felt this warmth burst in my heart, like a flower blooming through winter frost. I wished I could've taken that moment and put it in a locket to wear around my neck forevermore.

Then a breeze blew by, rustling his hair and I felt the cold come creeping back. It wasn't supposed to be this way; none of this was ever meant to happen. I knew that with every step I took the further I was falling down this rabbit hole, and the less likely I was of finding my way back out. This would end, I would do what I need to do, but I would never come back from this. My heart would never come back from this.

He turned and continued walking. I followed.
I watched the way his body moved, how his shoulders flexed as his arms swayed. He was relaxed. I should've been. Hiking through a tropical place with nothing but a picturesque man and sunshine should've been the ultimate serenity. I wished I could've enjoyed it. But my shoulders were tense. His stayed loose.

His notebook was tucked tightly in his back pocket. I recognized it to be the same one he had been scribbling in yesterday. Lying on the beach, he reclined with a pencil in his hand and that little black notebook.

I didn't pay it much mind, but I kept track of how many times he glanced over at me as he wrote. I didn't question him. I sat there, pretending not to notice while the gears turned behind my sunglasses. I wondered what he wrote in that notebook.

I stayed silent.

Now, I sat, staring at the bag in front of me.

$50,000,000.

Was it worth it?

The thought played over and over again in my mind, like a video used to torture a hostage. Clips of his hands, his smile, his freckles, peach tree leaves.

After all, that's what this was. A hostage situation. My sense of duty was holding my moral compass hostage, torturing it until it was diminished to nothing. Until it was out of the way. Until my heart was no longer a factor. Nothing more than a shriveled, hollow vessel, barely beating. Just enough to keep me alive but not too much so I could feel. That was what this assignment had done to me. That was what I had done to me.

Peach tree leaves.

$50,000,000.

Had there been 50,000,000 leaves on that tree? Had he really wanted to kiss me 50,000,000 times? There was no way of knowing now. I would take the money and go on with my life. The world would keep turning, the sun would keep rising and setting, but I would never feel again.

I would wake up in cold sweats at still hours of the night, pictures of him flashing through my mind with the rapid pace of my heart drumming against my ribs. Thoughts of his little black notebook that I would never get to see. Thoughts of what he thought were sly glances but I counted each one. Thoughts of his disappointed, tear-streaked face. Thoughts of his once warm, lively eyes turning cold and lifeless right in front of me. By my own hand.

I would reassure myself, try to convince myself that it was what I needed to do. The monotonous mantra that I needed the money, that it was all justified. But how do you justify killing the one person you've ever come to love for something as impersonal as money? Money for a cause, I could argue, but I knew that there was no getting past it.

My hands would be stained with his blood for the rest of my life. Cruel reminders of the pain I cause others, the pain I cause myself. That I damage everything I touch.

I would deprive myself of sleep. It was tiring work ruining everything, especially your own life. But I didn't deserve to sleep. I didn't even deserve to die. I deserved to live with what I had done.

But peach tree leaves didn't last forever.
Every single one on that tree, every single kiss, would eventually fall to the ground and disintegrate to dust.

So now I sit in the dust. What should have been beautiful memories haunting me into insomnia. Sometimes I can still feel it in my hand. The smooth texture, soft and delicate. It lays just in my palm. But when I try to close my fingers, it disappears.

Peach tree leaves.

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