Page 12 of The Guy Sure Looks Like Plant Food To Me
I look back at The Portal for one final look. There’s a glowing light from a still-lit candle shining through the windows when my father puts the car in drive to head toward the north side of the city. An immense heat burns through me before we make it a block away, I bite my cheeks to contain the screaming, the scorching pain thrumming through my veins the further we get from the shop.
From the plant.
From Runa.
From everything I know that is supposed to be mine.
I clutch my stomach, making myself as small as possible, quietly grunting and whimpering until the feeling dulls. It doesn’t go away, but with every second I suffer, I somehow become a little more used to it. The sensation becomes almost familiar, like second nature, like breathing.
The pain becomes a part of me.
By the time I arrive home, I’m nothing but a shell, a cried-out version of the girl I was just a few days ago. A phoenix is supposed to rise from the ashes, but from the burning fire all I am is smoke. I hope for the wind to take me away, to carry me back to Runa and Chewie, but I know soon it will be these fancy walls that trap me. And just like smoke, I’ll stain them with what remains of me.
7
RUNA
Icome to on the floor from a wave of pain, it shocks me back to consciousness with just enough time to see Meri’s father driving her away. It feels endless, the kind of torturous misery that won’t ever temper, can’t ever be soothed. I’m forced to push through it, Chewie’s loud screeching beckoning me from the dark alley behind the store, where she waits in my truck bed, covered by a raggedy blanket.
Everything hurts, it’s as if I’ve been run over by an eighteen-wheeler but the only thought in my head is how to get America back. It’s as if there’s a physical crater now, a cavity that can only be filled by her existence.
A fated encounter.
That’s what Mabel, the psychic said.
So, I pack my bags, emptying every single thing from the bedroom to the shop shelves. From my sneakers to the hairbrushes, from the smoky quartz drawer and the ethically-sourced rabbit pelts all the way down to my pajama pants.
I box it all, one cup of coffee after the next until it’s nearly three in the morning and shapes begin to have a smell. There’s only a few old posters left on the wall when I’m done, that and the furniture, but I don’t need them.
All that matters is moving quickly.
The Senator said something about a wedding, and just the thought alone makes me nauseous. I don’t need outside confirmation, I don’t need a plant who screams to tell me what I feel, and I didn’t need a psychic to warn me ahead of time.
America is my soulmate.
She’s the person for me, the one I’m meant for, and nothing in this world will separate us.
So it’s time for plan B.
The one I’ve been holding onto in my back pocket as the bills pile up and the sales go down. There’s no shame in admitting defeat, that I can’t make ends meet and that The Portal can’t survive another fiscal year regardless of how many prosperity spells I do.
It’s only when I’m locking up the door for the final time, and slipping the key into the mailbox for the landlord that I realize I have no idea where to go.
I don’t know where America is.
Aside from knowing her name and that she’s the Senator’s daughter, I have nothing else. No phone number, or address, no inkling to where he might have taken her.
My hands shake, the fear of wasted effort washes over me like a deluge of disappointment, I was ready to throw it all away, I was ready to explode my life and start all over—for her.
A cold laugh escapes me as I’m hit with the realization that her leaving might have been for the best. Feelings this powerful, this strong—they can’t be tamed, too wild, too raw to be anything but destructive, and maybe that’s why Meri chose to save the plant instead of fighting for us.
To preserve what she can of what she has.
“You’re leaving, then?” A soft voice whispers behind me.
I scream, unprepared for a confrontation in a pitch-black alley at the crack of dawn. Arms wrap around me to comfort, her smell floral and sugary as she pulls me close. “It’s me.”
I tremble in her hold, tears streaming down my cheeks as I turn to face her. “You came back?”
