Constellations & Cactuses

chapter 4

every single star is a swirling mess of gas and heat, lighting up the hollow emptiness around it. every star is a possible solar system. every solar system a chance for life.

think of the myriads of possibilities of other things that could have, but didn't, happen to our solar system. imagine if the sun had gotten just a bit too close to another star and their gravities swallowed each other up, collapsing into a sea of nothing. imagine if an asteroid crashed into the young earth and split it back into the pieces it was made from.

   

does fate have us on an iron leash? Or are we merely the children of coincidence?

please send help, i am overwhelmed with thoughts, with only one thing ringing in my mind.

i'm tired of being alone.

•

I couldn't go to school on Friday. I was a mess, my thoughts were even messier.

nights like those weren't unusual and I was past the age now where I could run down the hall to my mom's room and knock on the door for her comfort.

so instead, i would sit in the tangled mess of bed sheets contemplating until the early hours of the morning.

as soon as i stepped into the kitchen my mom tried to convince me to go back to bed, but we both knew that wouldn't happen.

we agreed on cleaning up the shop together my mind on something else. a silence filling the air neither wanting to talk about why i looked like an actual zombie from the walking dead. we both knew anyway.

friday quickly turned into a blur and before i knew it, it was saturday and i had to open up the shop.

i had risen ealier than usual this morning, eagar to begin my day, but it wasn't long before my mind wondered back to my preivous thoughts from yesterday. my thoughts on the girl with emerald ocean eyes. she had been haunting my every thought since monday, and it was really starting to irrate me.

every stupid thing reminded me of her, which was completely absurd as i didn't even know the first thing about her other than her name. yet the ocean along the road the bus travelled on into the centre of london reminded me of her eyes and the fresh orange turllips that hap just arrived at the shop reminded me of her hair, and i hated it.

it's like something about her draws me in, like the way i will glance at her at school and i catch her already staring. but instead of looking away like most people she just smile at me.

and oh boy her smile. it's one of the most prettiest things i've ever seen and i see why people are drawn to her, she has a welcoming vibe.

i couldn't bring myself to speak to her though. it's not that i was scared, well in all honesty i was a little scared, but that's besides the point. i physically couldn't bring myself to speak to her. maybe it was her friends. unlike her they exchanged smiles for judgemental looks before looking back at Ellie with disapproving glares.

but it wouldn't take long for me to forget about them because then i would make eye contact with Ellie and everything else in the world seems to melt away.

i sound like a love sick middle school boy, which was not the case as there was no way i liked her. she was just millie's annoying friend who enjoys visiting the flower shop and who happens to make my knees weak at the thought of her. but i'm totally one-hundred and ten percent not into her.

the bell of the front door rang aloud interrupting my thoughts and i look up from the plants i'm watering to make eye contact with a conscientious millie about to clock in for her shift.