drowning on a dry land [ls]

Chapter 9: A floral Landscape of Pain

Louis was yearning to such an extent that it was driving him mad. He had wickedly stacked his drawer with some of Harry's things that would compel him to pay him a visit. So far, it has been useless.

In the hindsight, he should've stolen a few boxes from the pile the movers we-

Just to spite himself, he dreamt of throwing those things away for good.

Ended up with him crying while clutching Harry's shirt to his chest.

If one still couldn't catch on, he was miserable.

Everything he did to get over Harry made his body ache for his touch even more. The dead flowers were a reminder of how badly an ardently adored thing could crumble when not cherished well enough.

Harry and Louis had hit the rock bottom in their relationship. Turns out, there's no rock bottom if you have a shovel; you can always dig deeper and crawl further into the endless space until there's a crater in your heart where all the love was treasured.

In his last-ditch attempt to hold on to at least something they had, Louis finds himself in front of a flower shop.

He's just gonna buy those peonies and go on with his life.

Here goes nothing he thinks to himself as he pushes the door open. The fragrance hits his nose and he feels like he has been transported to a nose-and-eyes- only paradise. His heart swoons at the sight of rose bouquets arranged colorwise with a note hanging from it. The glittery heart-shaped notes in different colors ranging from pink to baby pink.

Too bad he no longer has someone to buy it for

From the sky scrappers of lilies and poppies, there emerges a lady on the desk. She sees him looking all shades of helpless and makes her way through the rows of roses to stand in front of him. The first thing he notices is her eyes, blue- much like his own. The tall woman has her blond hair tied in a loose ponytail with a little braid tucked in it. She smiles at him expectantly.

"Hello, I'm Taylor," she chirps. "You looking for something special?"

"Um, hi. I'm Louis." He fumbles, she smiles politely regardless of that. "I need peonies for my garden."

"That shouldn't be a problem," she gestures towards the aisle on the corner. "Lemme help you."

He trails after her like a little puppy until she stops walking. She effortlessly picks up the flowerpots on the uppermost shelf and that's when Louis notices how tall she is.

"We have red, pink, white, yellow and oh if you need purple, it's kept over there." She rambles, pointing to somewhere behind his back but Louis' eyes were transfixed on the pink flower.

It's not the one Harry and him had picked

"Are these all the colors you have?" He hoped it didn't give away the fact that he was sulking internally.

"I'm afraid so, yes," Taylor wills herself away from commenting on his pinched expressions. "These are all the colors you can find peonies in." She searches his face for some sort of reaction.

"Um, okay," he swallowed. "Are you sure? 'Cause the ones in my garden were a lot darker than this pink," He waits for her to tell him that he needs to take this fit of madness elsewhere. She says nothing. If she was judging him, she didn't let it show on her poker face. "I'm sorry for being so finicky, actually me and my partner had these planted in our garden and I got a little irresponsible and forgot to water them and now they're wilted." He sighs. "He's usually the one taking care of them and now-" He tripped over his own words and conveyed them with theatric gestures.

"So you want to replace them before he returns so he never finds out," she dutifully fills in for him. " I hope it works for you."

"No, um actually Taylor. I uh, we broke up." Her mouth forms an O. An apology almost makes its way through her lips but he simply shrugs it off. "He loved them so much. I feel like I've wounded him by letting the peonies die."

"Oh, Louis," Taylor consoles him. "You know what? I'll ask around a little. I think I can arrange them for you. Come back to me next weekend. Till then, maybe you can join me on my 15-minute break to the lemonade stand," she offered earnestly.

Yeah, lemonade fixes everything! "Thank you," he nodded and let her guide him out of the flower shop.

The lemonade stand is surprisingly crowded for such a small area. It's a yellow spray-painted mini-van from one of the movies where children are kidnapped and killed in a van. Irrelevant here, of course. The boy on the counter smiles at Taylor. She grins back and sneakily takes Louis' hand to lead them towards the backside of the stand. She pokes the boy on the shoulder and he hands her two glasses.

"Here you go, blondie." He hands her two straws with lemons drawn all over them.

"Thank you, red." She chirps back in the same sing-song. He takes his glass from her hand.

Never had a lemonade tasted so good.

"You wanna tell me where you met this peony-loving bolter?" she offered to fill in the awkward silence. Hell no!

"Yeah, sure. Just to let you know, It's as hilarious as it gets. However, if I cry in the middle of it, promise that you'll let me start over." Taylor pats him on the shoulder.

" A house party- a perfect setup for meeting your soulmate," he says, eying her reaction to his theatrics. " There's a tattooed punk yelling at something. Don't worry, that's not my Harry. Actually, he's the only witness of the big guy screaming at a painting beside me."

She is perplexed and waits for him to continue.

"So it all started when I really needed the toilet but the crowd was testing my last ounce of patience........." He chuckled and waited for the best to come. She was giggling by the time it came.

༺❀༻

And just like that a week had gone by. It was Saturday. Louis sips his morning tea and sprints towards the flower shop like a madman. On his way, he wonders what Harry would think if he saw what an eccentric he had made of himself.

Through the glass window, he sees that the shop is less crowded than it was last week. There's a teenage boy and girl sitting on either side of a big pot with exotic flowers kept on the edge of the shelf. With the boy's right hand awkwardly stretching out and grasping the flower while also hugging the girl, it was sure to drop. Louis chooses to ignore them.

After wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans, he gently pushes the door open. Taylor waves at him from the same desk. She calls out to him."Louis," she hugs him enthusiastically, "I rang a few friends and look what I found." She dramatically presents the flower pot to him like she's a television host showcasing the prize to their audience.

It was the right shade of pink

"I can't thank you enough. Oh my god, you're the best." He engulfs her in another hug. She pulls away and meets his eyes.

"Um, hey Louis, If it's not too much, would you be okay if I set you up with a friend of mine?"She asked casually. And this was Louis' cue to freeze.

"I'm sorry, love. I don't think it's fair for me to go out with someone when I'm not over him." He reasoned with her. She nodded. Before she could open her mouth to speak, there's a hand on Louis' shoulder that gently spins him around.

"You sure?" His eyes encompass emeralds. His hair is a little bit longer than the last time they saw each other. He has a pale yellow tracksuit on.