Page 28 of Poetry of Flowers

“But you’re not happy.”

“Of course, I’m not, I want him to get better so bad, but it makes me useless! I’m needed right now, Remy needs me, I got stuff to do like cleaning the house, buying groceries... I don’t want to feel useless ever again.”

My best friend pulled me against his chest, stroking my hair with his fingers that were rough from playing guitar.

“Don’t ever say that again. You’re not useless, you hear that? I need you; I need you like I need fucking oxygen, Tillie. We all need you, the only thing that will change is that you’ll get time to be a teenager, you’ll get to live.”

My cheek pressed against his chest, I take in the smell of rain from walking over to my house and the smell that always calmed me as a child. I didn’t even know how to describe it, he just smelled like comfort, like home.

“I think I have a problem, Kayden.”

I say against his hard boarded chest.

“You don’t have a problem Tillie, you’re black and white, I’ll make your world colorful again. I promise.”

Pulling back, I wipe away a few tears that had slipped out. I had told myself I won’t cry again today, I lied.

“I love you, Kayden.”

Those words felt different as we grew older, but it never changed that I truly meant them.

“I love you too, Fleur.”

He leaned forwards and kissed my forehead as he cupped my face with his warm hands.

“Why do you want to go to Chicago?”

I hadn’t asked that yet even because I knew I would go with him whatever the reason.

A smile lightened up in his face.

“Your birthday, why not celebrate it in the Windy City. Let’s make your seventeenth birthday the best day of your life, my beautiful Fleur.”

ChapterEight

KAYDEN

Ihad lied to her.

Fuck, I just discovered how hurtful lies could be, yet I still lied to her. In my defense, she hadn’t been in a good place to hear what I had just found out.

Tillie is an empath, and this would have broken her. I would have to hold it in. Maybe once we were somewhere in the wilderness I could just scream and let everything out. Screaming therapy is a thing apparently, it’s when you release all traumatic or painful feelings through a spontaneous and unrestrained scream.

Her words had hurt me, she had never told me before that she would feel useless if she wasn’t caring for her brother or her father or doing housework. I mean… I had assumed she needed to keep herself entertained through the entire day, so she wouldn’t overthink all her actions, but I never figured out she would feel useless without those jobs.

It should have been good news, but those sad brown eyes when she told me Jonas was going to rehab had told a different story.

Tillie and I were basically the same person but different, we knew what the other was thinking before one of us spoke. We needed each other; otherwise the world would suffocate us both.

It had always been like this, but something had changed, we never retreated from each other before. No, that wasn’t it.

I began to see my best friend differently, and those weird glasses I saw her through made me blind at the same time.

When I was fifteen, I first dreamed about her in a way that made me disgusted about myself.

I remember dreaming of her sleeping next to me. We had had sleepovers before, but this was different.

Tillie wore my shirt without anything under it, and she started kissing my neck, making her way towards my lips. She had tasted so sweet in my dream but forbidden at the same time.

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