A Sunflower and the Pebble

The First Day

Song: Everything has Changed by Julia Sheer

I sat at the kitchen table, sketching a Sunflower. My mum had asked me to paint a mural on her shed, and I had planned on doing a Van Gogh inspired painting of sunflowers, so I figured dinner at my grandparents was as good a time as any to practice sketching them. I often did that when I went anywhere. Sketching was just part of who I was, and I never plan on changing.

I reached for my back pocket, pulling out my phone to check it. A common habit, though I almost never have a message from anyone. To my surprise, there was one notification. An Instagram message. I felt my heart spike in anxiety. "I'm going to go find some colors." I said, rising from the table. Once in the safety of the guest room I pulled out my phone to check the message.

It was from Callan. The handsome stranger. I just saw him a couple weeks ago, why is he messaging me? He probably just has me confused with someone else. I doubt he even remembers who I am. I shrugged as I replied, trying to validate that he was talking to the right person.

The drawer rattled as I opened it, looking for my old shoe box full of colored pencils and broken crayons I'd left when we moved out of my grandparents house. Only instead of a shoebox, the drawer was filled with clothing. My Nana's. I pushed the drawer back closed and moved to their office, hoping for at least some sharpies. I reached for my phone again, eager to see if he had replied. To my delight, he had.

He had told me he'd had a dream about me. A weird dream at that. I laughed, He had a dream about me? Me of all people? Well now I'm curious... I asked if he could tell me or if it was top secret stuff, I mean, c'mon, some people's dreams are just too personal to share. He replied saying he could tell me, so I put my phone away and spent my waiting time looking for the sharpies. My nana had a few fine point sharpies in various colors. And one of them was yellow, the color I needed most. I grabbed the mug and headed back to the kitchen and began to "color" my drawing. By color I mean drawing lines of color because I didn't want the sharpie to bleed onto more paper.

My papa was outside grilling as we waited for it to get dark. There was a free movie that was supposed to be shone that night out by the lake, but with the nearing storm, nothing was certain. "Hey, hey, Be?"

"What, baby?" I asked my cousin, as she tugged my arm.

"I wantchu to come outside wif me." Jane pulled on my arms, trying to drag me outside. Her blonde curls were tousled and messy, which matched her personality pretty well.

I smiled and got up, "Alright, kiddo, let's go."

"C'mon!" She squealed, running outside.

Part of the sky had turned an ominous grey, while the sun still shone brightly on the other side. My papa pointed a his garden as he started bagging about it. I listened in amusement as his enthusiasm about his green beans and zucchini plants until my eyes fell upon something. Something that one day would mean more to me than I could hope to understand. Sunflowers. In the garden was 3 beautiful, tall sunflowers. The reached past the top of the fence, waving at everyone who could see them.

I checked my phone again, seeing a couple messages from Callan. His dream was, in short, hilarious. In this dream, he discovered that I had a hug crush on him, only to later find out that I was actually in love with him. As I read about the dream I couldn't help but laugh. Is this his way of trying to see if you like him? Because if so, that's pretty clever. Okay. Yeah I have a little crush on him but I barely know the guy! What do I even say to that? I guess I could say something like, "Well I can reassure you that I'm not in love with you", but that's a little off, um...I'll just agree with him. I'll just say that's a weird dream and I'll thank him for sharing.

I put my phone away and walked over to the sunflowers, attempting to pull one down. Isaiah, my brother, had a small gardening hoe in his hand as he often enjoyed chopping things like grass, weeds, branches, my self-esteem, just the usual boy things. "Here." He pushed over the stalk, breaking it at the base before chopping off the flower for me.

Delighted giggles erupted from me as I tried to take aesthetic pictures of the bloom. Despite my efforts, each picture turned out blurry. Another message popped up on my phone. I expected the conversation to end soon, I mean that seemed like the only logical thing. He hardly knew me, I barely knew him, so what else could I expect? I responded to his message, expecting a farewell or a 'have a nice day' comment...only that wasn't what I got.

I went back inside and continued to draw, sketching anything my hands felt like sketching. Loud thunderclaps echoed through the house and everyone listened in amazement, everyone but me. Rolls of thunder made shivers run down my spine and goosebumps rise on my arms. Beautiful, magnificent, almost magical. But thunderclaps made my body stand on edge, every nerve in my body tensed and my heart raced as fear coursed through my body. Powerful, foreboding, almost alarming. I closed my eyes and tried to block the sounds out, until the rain started. Large raindrops pelted the windows as the wind whistled through them.

The movie was cancelled that night and moved to the next evening, something that I am still grateful for. Callan and I kept talking for awhile, at least until early in the night, by early I mean 8. I shrugged it off, He probably just got bored. I deleted the messages and continued on through the night. But there was something I couldn't get off my mind, no matter how hard I tried. It was him. Somehow, in the span of just a few hours, he'd worked his way into my mind. I didn't know it at the time, but he was there to stay for a very long time.

It's hard for me to say the moment I realized I liked Callan, because there never was just one moment. There was never the realization. I just knew. From the moment we first met I knew there was something different about him. And I wanted nothing more than to figure out what it was. Why he stuck so long in my mind. Why, out of all people, it was him. So many questions I asked myself. And so many questions I couldn't answer. Maybe there are just some questions you can never answer, and that's okay. Maybe there are things you can't explain, like how I knew my life would be different from that first message, and that's okay, too. And maybe, just maybe, that's how things are supposed to be.