Little Flower Girl

Chapter 4

Oliver walked home from his bus stop. His backpack was slung over his shoulder and so heavy it almost made him look lopsided. Oliver walked along a sidewalk, cars passing by every now and then before he finally took a few turns and walked down his own street. Oliver walked up the two steps to his front door and pushed open the door.

"Hey Mom, I'm home," Oliver called as he entered the kitchen to grab a snack from the fridge.

"Hey honey, how was school?" Oliver's mother asked, and she sat on the living room couch, staring down at her laptop working on something for her business.

"Oh, it was good, I...uh...got my phone taken away," Oliver replied, a brief silence ensued between the two.

"I can't go get it right now, ask you father when you see him," her cold tone sent a shiver down Oliver's spine as he closed the fridge door, an apple in hand. Oliver walked from the kitchen to his room, roughly closing the door behind him. Oliver dropped his bag in front of the door and dropped down on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. There was a knock on his bedroom door, causing him to jump up.

"Come in," he called staring at the door as it's handle turned and his father pushed it open.

"How was school?" Oliver's dad asked stepping into the room and closing the door behind him.

"Good, mom is too busy to go pick my phone up from school," Oliver stated.

"How did you get it taken away this time?" Oliver's father questioned cocking his head slightly and furrowing his brows.

"I was done with my work, so I took it out," Oliver replied with a sigh. Oliver's father whispered a cuss under his breath, shaking his head slightly. "Can you uh, go pick it up for me?" Oliver asked tightening his jaw as he eagerly waited for a response.

"Fine, don't say I don't do anything for you," Oliver's father answered before opening the bedroom door once again and walking out.

"Can you close my door?" Oliver called, his father making another appearance in the doorway and swiftly closing the door behind him. Oliver dropped his head back onto his pillow, doing what he had before and staring up at the grainy white ceiling. He laid there wondering if Lilly had responded to his message yet; he hoped that she had but assumed she didn't. Oliver rolled over onto his side, now beginning to stare at his empty blue wall. His breathing had been the only noise in the room, in the distance he could hear his mother talking to someone. Oliver felt as his eyes become heavy and begin to close.

Oliver fully closed his eyes and flipped himself over onto his other side in an attempt to get comfortable and fall asleep. A half-an-hour which felt like minutes to Oliver passed, Oliver laid there with his eyes closed shifting here and there. His bedroom door opened and he felt something land on his bed. Oliver opened his eyes and sat up as his father closed his bedroom door; Oliver looked at his phone and quickly grabbed it. Oliver now wide awake, unlocked his phone and immediately went to his Facebook messages. His eyes scanned the message before his thumbs got to work, and he began typing his response.

Oliver Corzett: "sorry i got my phone taken away"

Just after sending the message, it took a few seconds before a bubble popped up indicating Lillian had been typing.

Lillian Bryson: "oh... that sucks,,,"

Oliver let out a small scoff.

"She is just as awkward online as she is in real life," he whispered to himself. The two continued talking for a few minutes, before the conversation simply dropped. Lilly stopped replying to Oliver after a few of his messages, and when she had it was a simple 2 letter word. Oliver sighed and locked his phone, throwing it to the side and laying on his back like he had before. Oliver felt his stomach grumble, and he shifted uncomfortably not feeling like getting up to get food. Oliver moved onto his side and closed his eyes, wanting to go to sleep like he had previously before beginning to talk to Lillian. He thought of what their conversation would have been like if Lillian wasn't so socially awkward. After spending too much time thinking of their conversation and not enough time trying to sleep, Oliver finally fell asleep.

Lillian closed her laptop, too embarrassed for herself to even continue talking. Lilly looked at the time and realized she had left the hair dye on for longer than she intended to. Lillian pushed her laptop aside and jumped up from her bed, racing out of her room eager to wash the excess dye out of her hair. Lilly closed the bathroom door behind her and threw a towel from the bathroom closet on the toilet. Lillian took off the plastic bag that wrapped around her head and dropped it in the sink. Lilly then turned on the shower, letting it warm up before stripping from her clothes and climbing in. Almost immediately the water began turning purple, and the white tile and porcelain turned a tint of purple.

Lilly washed herself, skipping over shampooing and conditioning her hair in fear it would turn her hair lighter than the warm water probably already had. After the shower had finished, Lilly stepped out of the shower. She quickly grabbed the towel and began wiping herself down before wrapping the towel around her body and reopening the bathroom closet. Lillian searched around for the towel she used when she had done her hair, finding it pushed to the back of the closet and pulling it out. Lillian shut the closet before turning back to the mirror and beginning to dry her hair. Water fogged the mirror, Lilly could only see her pale silhouette and dark long hair. Once she was done with her hair, Lillian eagerly leaned over the sink and began to wipe the mirror clean so she could see herself. Lilly immediately began running her fingers through her hair, tilting her head this way and that as she stared at herself in the mirror. A smile spread across her face happy with how it looked. Minutes later Lillian opened the bathroom door, turned off the lights and walked out, making her way to show her mother.

"Mom!" she called making her way to the living room where her mother usually stayed.

"Yes?" her mother asked looking towards Lilly as she entered the room.

"How does this look?" Lillian asked walking towards her mother and stopping in front of her so she could get a better look at her hair. Lilly held the towel wrapped around her body to make sure it didn't suddenly fall off.

"I like it! I like it a lot better than the lighter color...it does something for you!" her mother exclaimed. She paused for a moment before cocking her head up at Lillian "Do you like it?" she asked.

"Yes, I like it a lot," Lillian responded with a large smile on her face, her mother smiled back before looking back towards the TV in the far corner.

"Well I'm glad you did it," she said exchanging one more look between Lillian and the TV before focusing on the TV. Lillian walked out of the living room and to her bedroom so she could get dressed. Lilly opened the room door and closed it behind her as she entered, swiftly making her way to her closet and grabbing some pajamas and underwear to put on. Lillian dropped her towel and began pulling on her undergarments and clothes, before wrapping up the towel and tossing it in her hamper. Lilly walked over to her bed and dropped herself onto it, immediately finding herself in a comfortable position and closing her eyes. Lillian shifted on her bed multiple times before crawling under the covers and curling up with her pillows.

Ruby-joy sat awake on her bed, flipping through her finished homework and putting it away in her binder. She scanned the two homeworks that sat there unfinished, she pulled them onto her lap using her binder as a table and began working on them. Ruby-joy's eyes read the math problems over and over again, her brain seeming to not be able to think of what to do at that moment.

'I can't do this right now,' she thought to herself as she put the work to the side and rubbed her eyes. Ruby-joy looked over at her alarm clock that read:

9:21 PM

Ruby-joy knew she couldn't stay up much later or she wouldn't be able to get up in the morning when she usually did. She finally decided she would do the rest in the morning on the ride to school and stuff the papers inside her binder and shoved it into her backpack that sat at the side of the bed on the floor. Ruby laid back on her bed and stared up at her ceiling, little stars were sprinkled across it; they slightly glowed due to the darkness in her room. Ruby-joy stared at them, a slight smirk appearing across her face as she thought of when her parents' had first got them for her. Ruby-joy laid there for a few minutes before rolling over and turning off her lap on the end table that sat next to her bed. Ruby-joy then pulled a blanket from off the of the floor and wrapped herself in it, rolling over a few times before closing her eyes,

All three of the teens lay asleep in their bed, two of them tossing and turning in their sleep. The third teen sometimes woke up and laid awake staring at their dark ceiling and wasn't sure if they would ever get back to sleep. But they finally went back to sleep and woke up an hour later thinking the same thing.