Page 15 of Poetry of Flowers

Theodore Weston was hard work sometimes, but he was also our friend, and so we made the effort to understand his problems... or differences, I didn’t like to call it problems because they weren’t. Not to us.

“I’m laughing because you talk about your brother like you want to give him away for adoption,” I explained, while I looked outside the window searching for Tillie.

There she was walking to my car with her cousin, telling her something with overly dramatic gestures.

“Why are you so shocked, you love Blake more than Nash,” Theo answered, looking dead serious.

“That’s different, Nash is my brother and Blake my cat. I don’t want to replace one with the other.” At that point, the back doors opened, and both girls got into my car.

I had adopted Blake a year ago. Well, Tillie and I had found that poor baby on one of our night runs. He and his four siblings had been left on the side of a road. I remembered it like it was yesterday that I wrapped all of them in my shirt, and we ran back to the Avril house.

Tillie and I had washed them because they were completely muddy. I still got scars from that little fucker on my thumb.

We both stayed awake all night caring for them like our own little children until dawn. After we took them to the vet, they were all adopted by my aunt who worked as a vet’s nurse, except for little Blake. He had slept the night between my shoulder and on my chest, so I couldn’t let him go.

Technically, he was Tillie’s and my son. Sounds weird, but that’s how we treated our little boy. We loved that cat.

“What were you two dickheads talking about?” Autumn leaned towards us with a big grin.

“We could replace her with a dog, they have much better qualities than Autumn,” Theo said.

“You truly hurt my feelings, Theodore, you know that?” she replied, holding a hand dramatically over her heart.

“Oh, I am well aware,” Theo smiled back at her, making her slap him on the back of his head before she slid back in her seat.

I checked the mirror and watched Tillie looking out of the window, her eyes unfocused as she just sat there staring blankly.

I’m not sad, I’m empty.She once told me.Her eyes never showed much emotion and even when her lips smiled it never reached her eyes.

I started the car, sighed and drove off the parking lot.

* * *

“Canwe make sandwiches with your mom’s sandwich maker?” Theo dropped his backpack next to my front door as he walked straight to the kitchen. He acted like this was his home too, and my mom was also his mom because his own stepmother was more focused on his brother.

“Do whatever you like, man, I would say make yourself at home, but you already did.”

Theo laughed as he grabbed a soda can out of the fridge and threw me one too. “I claimed this house when I first set foot in it ten years ago.”

I noticed Blake running away from us, he probably thought we were Mom and Dad. Blake had vision problems, poor guy was almost blind, a birth defect, but he managed to live with it. I followed him and lifted him in my arms, he purred and rubbed his head against my face as soon as he took in my smell and realized who I was.

“Hello, my boy, had a good day?” I asked and bopped his nose.

“You have a weird relationship with your cat.” Theo told me as he took some slices of bread and threw them on a plate.

“You can’t understand, you don’t have pets.” I replied and let Blake down.

“Autumn is basically like a pet, she needs attention and food, and then she’s happy.”

“You two have issues,” I mumbled.

“So do you and Tillie.”

I glared at him. “Hey, you know I didn’t mean it in a bad way, but you started it with talking about our problems,” he defended himself.

“I was talking about different problems; it was like a joke. Like when you- you know what? Forget it. Not that important, just don’t joke about Tillie’s problems, that’s not cool.”

I circled around him to get a knife and a tomato and cut it in thin slices.

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