Page 38 of Poetry of Flowers

KAYDEN

Was I right to be mad?

Yes.

Was I right to let my anger out on Tillie?

Hell no.

I didn’t even notice that all the emotions I had held back had built up like a Jenga tower. She had pulled out one block with the remark about her being a waste, and the whole tower had come down.

Someone, please slap me for that.

Theo and I waited in the car while Tillie went inside to tell her aunt that she would be fine and to say goodbye to Remy.

“What do you think of Autumn?” Theo suddenly asked from the back seat, snapping the rubber band against his wrist, he did this a lot back when we were younger…

“What do you mean?” Why would he talk to me about Autumn? That girl has been going on his nerves since elementary school.

“You think she’s hot?”

The rubber band snapped against his wrist again as he put his legs up on the back seat. If he smeared dirt on my upholstery, I’d throw him out of the car.

“I never looked at her that way, man, of course she’s a beautiful girl but... but to me, she’s more like an annoying sister.”

Autumn and I were good friends, when we were children, we fought a lot because of Tillie. It took us a while to notice that there was nothing to fight about, everything Tillie did was Tillie’s choice, not ours. Since then, we’ve been great friends, it was like someone had flicked a switch and our rivalry was gone.

“So, you never fantasized about making love with her?”

I turned around to actually face him.

“Are you crazy, Theo, I just told you she’s like a sister to me; it’s obvious that I never fantasized about sleeping with her!”

Snap.

He let go of the rubber band, and it snapped against his wrist again, before he looked from his arm up to me.

“Calm down, I just asked a normal question.”

“I’m sorry to break it to you, but that wasn’t a normal question.” Just the thought of it made me want to throw up. Just no.

“Sorry,” Theo apologized, but he didn’t sound like he meant it. He never sounded like he truly meant it when he apologized for anything.

Sitting back in my seat, I grabbed the coffee I had made myself before Tillie and I had driven off.

The coffee tasted disgusting because she didn’t have milk or sugar at home, and I couldn’t stand black coffee.

The proverb “coffee as black as my soul”really had some truth in it. No person with a normal soul could drink that shit without a ton of sugar in it.

I had no choice but to drink it. Last night, I had barely slept at all because Tillie moved a lot in her sleep and her hand kept touching me and that made me hold my breath. When I had finally been about to drift off, she had started sleep talking.

Theo’s head popped up beside me as he leaned forward.

“You think of Autumn Thatcher as a sister?”

“Uhm—yes, I just said that.”

“That means you would be angry at me if I told you I actually did make love to her?” he said dryly.

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