10 Days [Brallon]

Morning Glory

[this is gonna be really short bear with me here pls and thank]

For as long as I could remember, I always had Ipomoea flowers on hand. Morning Glory flowers, whichever worked - it was an interchangeable phrase.

I never ordered them, I never grew them in the planters crammed side by side in the back room, and for the life of me I could never remember if they even grew in this area of the country. Yet somehow, I always had at the very least one either in the pocket of my work clothes or the jacket I'd bought when I first opened that stupid little flower shop.

Because every day without failure, a single purple Ipomoea flower would appear in the loading zone behind the store, tucked in between crates or settled somewhere else. Occasionally it would be nicely sitting on the front step, maybe even carefully lodged into the door jamb. Sometimes it would be stuck to the overhang, once or twice the pile of sticky stuff I never dared to go near except the fetch that stupid flower. A while ago I'd narrowed the substance down to either tar or cement, and thinking it was simply that, I got a couple feet closer to it than normal. After the encounter I was led to believe it was either a zombie that had died and been resurrected more than once, or a gateway to hell.

At first I thought someone was leaving them for me, so I set up a video camera on the overhang to hopefully catch a glimpse of whoever it was. I didn't even know what I would do if I found out who - I was stuck between thanking them or calling the cops for trespassing for years. After a good 2 minutes of internally discussing the options, I'd decided to just go along with whatever happened and maybe try to be nice for once.

Yet nobody but the wind ever appeared. And each time, a purple Morning Glory would be brushed on to the back steps. So each time I stuffed it in my pocket or dropped it into a small cup filled nearly to the brim with cool water, and replaced the wilting ones with the newer ones, adding them to baskets every once in a while if I was in the mood. They always made me a little happier somehow.

I kinda wish I knew why I found them, just to know. They mean affection and there must be a bigger meaning behind them if I find one every single morning. I just kinda hoped it was a little more than a coincidence.

Again, I found one, dangling in a spiderweb this time. So I grabbed one of the petals and yanked out the remainder of the flower before any spider could wreck my plan, stuck the stem into my shirt pocket, grabbed the planter I'd left outside, and headed back inside.

Brendon was out and about, visiting his parents for a day. Patrick and Tyler had volunteered to help around, while Josh attended one of his afternoon classes for law school and Pete tackled another chapter of his book.

"Tyler, you can't cut flower stems with a pair of kid scissors. They're gonna stick together after a while." Patrick sighed, reaching over Tyler's shoulder for the scissors. He wasn't able to reach that far though, and could only watch as the stems were chopped off a little too close to the petals.

"They're not sticking together right now, so it's fine." Tyler whined and tossed some tulips into the closest bucket filled with a decent amount of water.

"Dallon! Tell him he can't use children's safety scissors to cut flower stems!"

"I can if I want to and I'm gonna - Josh wouldn't stop me!"

Patrick had stolen a couple pairs of safety scissors from elementary school and I'd kept them after all this time. They were falling to pieces anyways, so I could care less about if the blades were superglued together or not. That might even keep them together a little longer.

I shrugged and began pulling simple white Gladiolus flowers (which mean strength of character) from the dirt. "He can if he wants to, but it's not recommended."

Patrick scoffed, narrowing his eyes while tussling with Tyler for the scissors again. "Who's side are you even on?"

"My side, loser." Tyler mockingly stuck his tongue out and dropped just stems into a bucket.

"You wish." I rolled my eyes and kept fixing the planter while they continued to fight over the scissors. If one of them pokes their eye out I'm gonna laugh. Then probably drive them to urgent care. Whichever happens first. Doing so simultaneously was a possibility as well.

I grabbed another Morning Glory sitting in between a couple yellow roses (for friendship, y'know?), stuck that one in my shirt pocket beside the other, and kept pulling flowers from the dirt.

I hate flowers.

[this was so short I low key hate it but gotTA SET THINGS UP YEAH also I've got like 13 chapters all written out and finished and I wanna update but like 's' so much]