A Garden of Flowers and Bones [Lloyd Garmadon x Reader]

Chapter 19: Of Losing People

'Ah... today's that day, isn't it...?'

She'd noticed it as soon as she woke up. As if her body had been trained to recognise it right away. Perhaps, to some degree, it had been. Yet it had crept up on her once again until there was no room to spare between her and it.

These days, she no longer felt immense dread as they neared the end of summer. In fact, the significance of the days seemed to wither with time until it was just another day rather than some ominous marker in the future. It was probably extremely heartless or... something... that the impact had long since worn off. Maybe some people still grew heavy and depressed and cried their hearts out when loss came to the forefront of their minds.

Some people felt the pain as if the wound had been delivered just yesterday- as if the stitching had come undone and the fresh agony was just as potent as the first time the injury had been caused. Deep within the flesh and oozing blood.

To Y/N, it had been years since she last cried on this day. She remembered all the times her mother would simply collapse over Celine's grave and sob her heart out. Eventually, dad stopped trying to help her up and calm her down. He just gently corralled his children away so that they didn't have to see their mother in such a state.

Celine's death date was something that wasn't easily forgotten, so it was the day Y/N had chosen. Her day off. Like clockwork, she got up and began getting dressed.

On the day she'd first introduced her sister to Blondie, Y/N had sat Dwyn down afterwards and had talked to her about her issues regarding Y/N talking to men and whatnot and that whole 'you are mine' talk which had concerned her that day. Dwyn's responses had amounted to childish remarks- all of it innocent. Possessive, yes, but still simple and silly stuff that kids worry about.

-

"Well, now I know where that bad smell was coming from! It's because you've been kissing smelly boys!! Now you have to stay away from him so that he doesn't stink up the house!"

"We weren't kissin, Dwyn... and he doesn't smell bad, either," Y/N had sighed, weirdly embarrassed.

"How do you know how he smelled unless you were close enough to smell him unless you were KISSING HIM!"

"You're bein silly. Nothin like that happened."

"Uuummm sOMETHING LIKE THAT HAPPENED, THOUGH! You wanted to kiss him!"

"When have I ever wanted somethin like that!???" Y/N was terrified of the idea that her sister might just smell her lie in the air.

It wasn't that she'd ever actually wanted to kiss him, she'd reasoned to herself, she was just swept away by the moment! That was it! That was all! It was the risk of being around an attractive man. Sometimes, you just want to kiss them. It was normal and perfectly natural. Anyone would say so.

These were facts. Nothing but the truth. And if anyone ever said otherwise then they were a liar and a fraud and she didn't believe them because the alternative to that was something terrible and she wanted to kick herself for even considering such a possibility.

Haha... how crazy would that be? So crazy. So stupid.

"Right now, you lying liar."

"That's crazy, you silly goose. I don't wanna kiss boys. It'll rot your teeth, y'know? I like my teeth. It's how I eat food and my mouth bites things."

It was because she'd never kissed a guy before. She was just inexperienced and ignorant, and so her mind started filling in the gaps when she was around a pretty boy. Who doesn't want to kiss a pretty boy? Even men wanted to kiss pretty boys. It was normal.