Sunflower

12 - Maybe it is Love

Theo

I lead Micah out of the school and walked with him down the sidewalk. I still had no idea where everything was in this town so I let my feet take me wherever they desired to head to. Going home was not an option because if Micah saw the empty bottles on my floor and the blood that stained the wood of my floor then he would run away. Leave me like everyone else.

"Do you even know where we are going?" I turned to take a look at him, shaking my head with a cheeky smile.

"Nope." He is the only person I think I have never lied to and will never want to lie to. He makes me feel safe and small but at the same time soft for his hugs and his small actions. If it is love maybe it could work. Maybe we could work.

Sometimes I wish we would work out to be together. Even if I had only known him for three days now, I have never been closer to anyone than Micah, unless you count Zeke, but we never really talked. We just aided one another when we looked like shit and helped one another survive each night on the streets when people who would have money walked by and needed some pleasing.

That is why we could never work, because I am a whore. I am no virgin; far from it. I drink, I used to do drugs from some school mates until I stopped attending classes, and sometimes stole Zeke's fags when I ran out of liquor. I am a toxic person to be around, while Micah is the softest boy I have ever met. It's like beauty and the beast, but I play the Beast while he is the innocent and kind Belle. Except I do not turn into a prince at the end, but a cruel monster.

I was lost in my thoughts, so I didn't notice Micah had taken the lead now. He pulled me up to a nearby coast, a beach with a close by sunflower patch. I laughed as the cold ocean air brushed through my messy, faded-white strands of hair. I noticed from the corner of my eyes as Micah and I leaned over a railing that he was gazing at me and holding a small smile on his handsome face. I decided not to acknowledge it incase he would stop. I just wanted him to smile when he was with me.

We both just looked out at the ocean. At some point I closed my eyes and leaned my head onto my crossed arms, letting the chilly breeze brush over my still slightly hungover body.

"Why do you drink?" It was an unexpected question that I had no actual answer to. I don't know when and why I started but I knew why I continued.

"It helps me sleep and lets me forgot everything for even the shortest amount of time." I seemed to be like Pinocchio, except my nose didn't grow because I was speaking truthful words.

Silence embraced us again and we stayed silent till the same question from yesterday popped into my fucked up mind. I was a virus that had no cure and would kill anyone at any given moment if they were infected, I was an unwanted fly that annoyed everyone and everything around me, I was a cockroach that nobody had ever liked, so maybe that is why I needed an honest answer besides what Micah had told me yesterday.

His envy of me not caring wasn't valid enough for my heart, because I did care, I just didn't show it. I care about Zeke, I care about how people portrayed me, and I care about everyone's well being before mine, even if I don't know the person. Most important, I care about him.

"Why do you dislike me so much?"

After I asked that question, I felt the hangover run cold and leave me behind. I felt my spine nearly break inside my body, my boney hands imaginarily shaking in panic, and my head starting to spin.

I needed him to be honest, but I was not sure he would answer it truthfully. Yet for no reason I trusted that the boy that made me soft would do me this one favor.

Maybe it is love.