Flowergirl

✿✽❀~ eight ~❀✽✿

                          w  e  e  k   8   :   g  o  l  d  i  e  s

By the next Saturday, the roads were still closed and so Mum was still at Stacy's but she called home every day make sure I hadn't died. And since my cooking skills were still at a zero—and living off of stale cereal quickly got old,—I had to improvise how I would get my meals. I spent each night out at a neighbor's house for dinner, and since I really only knew three of my neighbors it was more of a rotation, but they didn't seem to mind. They were all very sympathetic about me being on my own (even though I was already eighteen years old and should have been able to take care of my damn self). But alas, I survived off of the rotation, counting down the two more days until the roads were opened again and Mum could return to me.

And although I would never say it aloud, I would have gladly given up having Mum back for the next few weeks if I had the chance to spend even a fraction of that time with Juliet. And I mean with with her, not longing pathetically for her as I stood only one metre away from her, afraid to be rejected by the person that had quickly become my entire life.

She arrived that day at her usual time and rang the bell that I was already waiting behind the door for. I stood there, stalling for a few seconds because 1) I didn't want to look as lame as I knew I was, and 2) I didn't want her to get creeped out by my answering the door before the bell's echo even had time to finish. It came from a good place, but I swear I was crazy.

Finally, after what felt like a good amount of time, I opened the door and smiled at her.

"G'day."

She gave me a happy nod and smiled, "'day Miles," she greeted me. "You're looking handsome."

The saliva I was swallowing then got stuck in my throat and I began to cough violently, trying to figure out whether or not I had imagined what Juliet had said. I leaned over my legs, placing one hand on my knee and the other on the doorframe to hold myself up.

I didn't even want to think about how fucking corny I must have looked.

"Holy dooley, Miles! Are you okay?"

I felt a warm hand begin to rub my back as another one held my shoulder, squeezing it softly. I know that she meant for her actions to be helpful and to calm me down, but having her hands on me just heightened my panic and made my cough source itself from even deeper in my chest.

"Miles, I think you need some water," Juliet said, her voice laced with concern. Concern for me.

I nodded silently, straightening myself up as I tried to hold in the cough that rested at the top of my throat. I was ready to run inside and grab a cup of water from the kitchen, but before I had the chance, a transparent yellow bottle was staring me right in the face.

I looked at it with wide eyes and Flowergirl shoved it at me impatiently. "Drink, Miles!"

Without further hesitation, I grabbed the bottle and began to chug the water from it. It was a fairly large bottle, much too large for her, but within seconds I had emptied its contents and was wiping the overflow from my chin and neck.

I handed her the bottle back with a sheepish smile on my face and she just grinned at me, taking back the bottle happily and asking me if I was sure I wasn't still sick.

"Yeah," I assured her. "I'm fine, I promise. I just, um, swallowed my spit the wrong way." I muttered the last part, wanting to hide myself inside those flowers in her cart. As if I couldn't have been any more pathetic.

She nodded slowly. "Alright...well now that that's over, I'm curious, did you end up planting the seeds I sold you last week?"

"About that," I held a finger up as I took in a breath and Juliet rolled her eyes, expecting the worst. "So, yes, I did plant them, but I did a very bodgy job of it. You see, my mum's still with her friend, and since I have absolutely no idea how to take care of flowers..."

"Oh." She gave me a sympathetic smile and I watched as she scrunched her tiny lips to the right side of her face and opened her eyes extra-wide. As I looked at her I was scared the poor things would pop out and roll over to my feet like golf balls. I didn't know much about anatomy but I was sure that eyes weren't supposed to come that far out...and it sure as hell shouldn't have made everything around me suddenly feel hot. "That sucks mate," she said. "I'm not sure what to do now, because I'm supposed to sell you seeds again today. Your mum called me and told me she wanted to plant goldies in the garden."

"Goldies?"

"Yeah," Juliet nodded. "Goldies. It's a nickname for golden celebration flowers, they're English roses."

"Ooh, fancy."

She wiggled her eyebrows and grinned.

I laughed, even though I wanted to groan and just grab and kiss her already. "So if we're planting the seeds, then that means that roses grow on trees...?" I trailed off.

"Bushes."

"Oh," I said, feeling like a dope but trying my best not to show it. "Well do you want to help me plant them?" I asked. "I don't want to ruin these ones as well, and I was also hoping you could look at the cherry flowers from last week before Mum gets back and sees them. If she found out I ruined them she would kill me!"

I saw confliction run across Juliet's eyes. They were far too big for anything to hide in them.

Reluctantly, she agreed and I wondered if her hesitation was because she didn't want to enter the house. I cleared my throat. "We can—um, go around the back if you want to?" I suggested. "I'm pretty sure you don't want to see the mess I've been living in for the past week anyway."

She smiled. "Yeah, that would be nice," she said. Then she pressed down the brake on her cart, pulling out a seed pouch that had 'goldiess' written across it in a messy scrawl that I could immediately recognize as hers. Something about the handwriting embodied the pure essence of this girl. It was messy as a nun's nasty was dry and it was extremely hard to read, yet something about it captivated me. I couldn't get over the way the loop from the 'g' overlapped with the 'o' or how she dotted her 'i' with a crooked dash that almost made it look like a capital 'T'. I found myself studying how the two 's's could have been mistaken for one if not for the slight curve at the end of the second one. It was unique, but more than anything else, it was hers.

"Only six dollars this time, mate. These are cheaper, yet just as pretty as the cherry blossoms."

I chuckled and handed her a ten. And even though I wanted her to keep the whole thing, she insisted on finding and giving me back every last cent of my change. I frowned, sighed, took the money, and then showed her the way around to our back garden.

It was a weird experience, walking back there with her and entering a whole different setting than what I was used to. It was as though I had almost mastered our interactions on the front porch—save for the choking incident—and now I was being thrust back into square one with the not-so-plain-looking girl that inexplicably intrigued me.

Was it bad that going back there with her made her less marvellous to me?

Before she had just been an enigma, not human in the least. And I know I was completely to blame having raised her up to that pedestal myself, but actually seeing her walk, move, bend down, plant a flower, get dirty, laugh at said dirt, it somehow made her more human. More normal. And maybe that was a good thing, because her chameleon-esque look still made my knees week, but now I knew that there were things that made her knees week as well, and I hoped that maybe—just bloody maybe—I was one of them.

🌷 🌷 🌷

Ship name #Jules??