Sunflowers and Lillies

𝟙𝟠

When I woke up, I was in the bathroom. My head was leaning against the cupboard and my feet were sprawled in front of me. My back felt stiff, so stiff it hurt when I stirred, and I groaned.

My hand rubbed over my face as my eyes peeked open, catching a bit of drool on the side of my mouth. I brought it down and stared, blurry-eyed, at my hand.

My head felt empty—hazy—all that came from last night were flashes. Waking up in a pool of sweat, going to the bathroom to wash my face, my eyes staring back at me—no contacts. And from there it all went downhill; I remember vaguely shaking so hard I fell on the ground and then maybe sobbing, crying, not breathing, then—well nothing.

I forced myself up, gripping my hands on the sink and looking at myself in the mirror. When I glimpsed the flash of green in my eyes I whipped my head away, grabbing my hands under the sink for the contacts pack I kept. I crouched down and put them on, so easily, slipping them on like a glove.

Then I looked up again, clenching my jaw at what I saw

Disgusting, horrible, ugly, all those words ran through my mind but I paid them no heed. I only cared that I didn't look any better than I had three years ago—that none of it was getting easier and by the looks of it only worse.

There were—red spots all over my face. Under it. Completely covering around my eyes. It looked like I had been beaten up. They were different shades of red, rose, blood, crimson. And I would've been appalled if this hadn't happened to me before: a year ago.

When you cry too hard, the blood rushes to your face, to around your eyes; if you're unfortunately leaning down while you're crying it just intensifies it. The strain of the blood vessels clot around your eyes and as a result, they burst and tiny, minuscule, spots appear where they did. And that's what had happened to me last night, and now my face looked bruised and beaten.

Exactly what I needed.

I exhaled slowly and turned away from what looked back at me. It wasn't me. This girl; she wasn't me. I felt like crying all over again—how did I allow it to get this bad?

I walked out of the bathroom and sat gingerly on the bed, laying down and burrowing into the covers completely. Maybe when I woke up ... it would all be a dream. Maybe I'd find her smiling next to me again.

A useless hope to cling to, dumb and irrational, I fell asleep that way. Curling into myself, and letting soft and silent tears leave my face.

________

Three days passed; I didn't go to school for all of them. The clots around my eyes were still prominent, maybe slightly faded, but it still looked like the after-effects of a bruise. They were kind of blue now, actually.

I didn't do anything in those days. Just stayed in bed, slept, ate. My phone was closed and I had stashed my laptop in my desk drawer. When the night would come, I would lay awake, staring up at the ceiling and just recounting memories—and nightmares.

On the fourth day for some reason, my thoughts became eminently packed with Brandon. I couldn't help my curiosity—I grabbed my laptop and started to search.

It took me a while to find him actually, he had no Instagram and I even looked for his old one but it was gone. There was no social media under his name, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, nothing. I even searched for his parents' names; I found their social media but nothing about Brandon was posted there, just a few quotes from his mom and pictures of boats on his dad's.

Then I found an article, a small one but an article nonetheless. It was a collection of poetry posted by some school; I scrolled down all of them until I found one that was written by him. A kernel of warmth bloomed in my stomach, and maybe some pride. Because Bradon had always been a writer; amongst the two of us his imagination was the furthest, I was glad he kept it with him.