Sunflowers, Bees and Honey

I

Clementine Beaulieu was exhausted.

Why, you ask?

Well, quite frankly, even she hasn't figured that one out yet. Perhaps it was from the hours she spent in her violin classes, practicing till her fingers criss-crossed and arms numbed. Or maybe her art courses had a hand in this, leaving her with a permanent crease between her eyebrows and a back arched with the pressure of concentration. Did she mention her late nights trying to catch up on her academics (she'd never been gifted in that particular department, her momma always told her she was a right brained baby who simply wasn't meant to be solving math problems or memorizing historical dates)?

Mayhap it was none of those. What if it was from the constant unspoken list of expectations chasing her around with new tasks everywhere? Could it possibly be in the way her friends always expected her to be the bubbly optimist, or was it because people never seem to understand that she was human too? That she sometimes needed to drop out of an art contest when her fingers shook too much to be able to hold a paint brush, needed to skip a music class or two when her arms ached with the ghost of effort they exerted daily?

Probably all of the above, she thought - albeit a bit begrudgingly - and sighed heavily.
Finally arriving at her all time favorite diner, a 50s themed pastel heaven with the words "Creamy Clouds" written in a delicious cursive font with a cherry on top against a fluffy cloudy background, she sighed one more time before scurrying through the mint carved wooden door and heading for her usual table, a soft pink booth in the corner of the restaurant.

Except, this time, it was taken.

By none other than a couple involved in an intimate spit and tongue exchange competition.

Of all the bleeding days, Clementine thought with no shortage of disgust fueled frustration, it had to be today.

The last thing she was in the mood for was to attempt breaking them apart from what appeared to be almost third base at this point (his hand just made its way up her shirt). She would've probably ended up with saliva flying into her face anyway, from the way it seemed to be dripping onto the rosy, ivory lined table.
Deciding she did not want to test her gag reflex any further, she immediately whisked herself to the front of the place where the butter yellow counter was blissfully empty. With an exception of one man that is, but Clementine decided that won't be much of a problem.

The moment she slid on top of a stool, all the weight she's been carrying around all day seemed to finally lighten up a bit, even more so after she took out her notebook.

"Well what would you like today, huh? The usual?" Dorothy's calm voice piped.

Clementine lifted her head to answer, only to realize that Dorothy was speaking - not to her - but to the only other person on the counter.

Whom Clementine just realized was no man at all, but a boy just a year or two her senior with sand peppered hair that seemed to fall around his creamy toned sharp features, and a pair of well fitted glasses obscuring what she thought were muddy green eyes (from this distance of two stools between them, though, she couldn't really tell.) He flashed Dorothy a sincere yet distracted smile as he glanced up from his novel and spoke.

Clementine forgot to hear the answer as she tried, and failed, to turn her gaze away.

And that was when he looked up.

His eyes clashed with her pale blue ones before analytically taking in her honey brown hair and sprinkle of freckles across her unimpressive set of cheekbones. Seeming to have satisfied his curiosity, he turned back to his book without a second glance.

Well okay then, book boy.

Dorothy, apparently, had already made her way to her during their brief and unremarkable trade, a flicker of a glint behind her onyx black eyes. "What about you, Lemmy? What would you like?"

"Chocolate."

"One of those days then?" Dorothy seemed to find her answer in the way Clementine's shoulders drooped further and eyes hollowed out some more before she hurried inside to put in their orders.

Dorothy Moore, a beauty around her age with wood bark skin and shiny black curls, was Clementine's truest friend. They met a couple of years ago when she first started working here, during the time in which a bunch of men were loudly talking about how they would love taking them both apart slowly in their beds, and they both could take it no more. Some fists and angry, "BITCH"'s later, they walked back to the counter and reached a mutual agreement of always having each other's backs.

That was what women were for when it came to their fellow ladies, right?

So it began, their silent offering of support when one of them had frown lines deeper on that day, and coded sweets as pre-set orders. 'Chocolate' meant 'I'm having a terrible night and need whatever has the highest sugar intake on the menu to lend me a bit of energy.' More followed, and since they were each sweet maniacs, they never had a problem creating these codes.

Clementine came here daily, some nights happier than others, sometimes talking with the regulars, others lurking around in her usual table. She and Dorothy never verbally talked about any of their problems, but she was still one of Clementine's favorites, and one of the main reasons why she stuck with this overly vintaged paradise.

You must be wondering what it was that she did during her hours here.

Simple. She wrote.

Her tree of talents was always leafing, since these hobbies happened to come easier to her than to those academic freaks around her. Yet her favorite and secretly harbored one was writing. Its appeal, she couldn't figure out yet, but she guessed it was the way that spilling her words never failed to ease her damaged nerves. Relating most likely to how writing was not more than a choice, not a competition or a challenge like the rest of her talents were, it was hers and only hers, and she loved every aspect of it.

"Modern Shakespeare," Dorothy sometimes greeted her, with an accompanying fond smile that added stars to her night like eyes.

A familiar soft voice and an additional unknown one shook her out of her memories, resulting in her focus zooming back in to see Dor casually converse with book boy while she delivered his order. Plain croissant and black coffee. Hmm, she thought, dry guy.

Not that his previous dismissal did not already indicate that.

A while later, her order arrived, composed of a cup of hot chocolate and cream puffs. Feeling a gaze eyeing her food, Clementine subtly turned to find book boy openly judging her diabetes packed meal before returning to his business when he realized he was caught.

The rest of the night passed in a blur of half written stanzas and slyly stolen glances.