𝙝𝙞𝙙𝙚 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙝𝙮𝙙𝙚! ˊˎ-

1 ☓

dedicated to vi, my lost sis, two years empty of you feel really damn empty! slow start ahead, but the book picks up its pace with the chapters!

. . . before all, before the first splash of crisp water clashed with his backside—refreshing him from the heat but no less annoying him—before that and when the guys came crowding around him his name was simply Adrian Deigh and his life was simple, then it all kinda got easier.

The reason it was always simple was Adrian Deigh's mum, who worked in an aesthetic flower shop by the corner, always smelled of the freshest flowers currently in season, today it was Forget Me Not's, bunch of two-coloured blue-and-yellow flowers that grew together in a cluster, never die alone, can't. And there's not much smell to Forget Me Not's, actually, so she smelt of nothing much today.

Debora Deigh herself was a quite simple woman, she worked, kept her house clean and tidy, her wardrobe loyal to the colours black, dark and primary red, and always let her son smoke at home whenever the first drops of red wine made a spill into her favourite bulbous wine glass, with a gurgling sound as the liquid swirled into a whirlpool at the bottom before it raised to the top.

She always had her own way of doing things, sometimes those things were just quirky other times she seemed outright possessed. She tipped those bulbous glasswares towards the ceiling as if an angel was just randomly floating thereby to kiss it, before Debora tipped the glass to her lips, all occupied with nude lipstick before the wine washed it away.

When that happened Adrian usually strolled from the living room into his room, turned up some music in his stereo and knew after ten songs it was time for the first cigarette. To the sound of rap he smoked, silver trails running to the ceiling and the crummy taste setting on his tongue.

Debora Deigh, his mother, was laughing by then, at 8 pm which was the happy hour of the pub close to them downtown of Brooklyn.

Her merry laughter was shadowed by the familiar chorus of laughter coming from the TV. For a moment Adrian wondered what exactly she was laughing at, was the scene in the friends episode that kept her hooked really that funny or did the influence of alcohol help her tip that way of silly? Then his senses concentrated back to the bouncy beat of the current song, nearing its end.

One time, Debora Deigh brought Adrian with her to the flower shop, he was just nine years old then and curious of all the flowers, stocked on the wooden shelves, while also very bored at the same time.

Across that shop Debora had went on her tiptoes, creasing up the front triangle of her black dress shoes. And all the way to her black and bob-cut hair there was her stockings, pencil skirt to go along with it, and the flesh coloured blouse too, with rose patterns. Roses were in season then and Debora loved those most so she didn't shy on using her spare collection of clothes with roses on them.

She plucked a petal from a bundle disappeared with it behind the counter and Adrian watched her glide the tip of a ball point pencil over, with very smooth gracious gestures, before she stabbed the pencil back into its sleek black holder and returned with the petal delicately placed on her veiny palm. She held it under Adrian Deigh's nose. On it it read with blue ink that bleed into the severed skin of the flower: Your sister died today, sweetheart.

And who knew, maybe that's where he caught the habit of scrunching up any leafs or petals that got into his possession, and too many of them eventually did. He felt like he was starting to built up a resistance towards anything that bloomed, flowers were just constantly in his face, and plants, and nature.

When he walked the leaf strewn path of Run Avenue, he passed by a black fence where the bushes were bursting out from between the bars. It took him a second to realise it was the Bernard's house, and then he was already tearing a leaf from their obese bush to crush it up thereafter in his palm.