Hybrid

Sunflower

A wooden spoon came flying at my face, and I covered my head with my hands, turning away. The spoon crashed against my back and shattered, a piece soaring across the room and the remainder still within my mother's grasp. She looked between the spoon's handle and my back.

"That's new."

I uncovered my face, "Why were you swinging it so hard?"

"Isaac said you wouldn't feel it if I didn't hit hard enough," My mother said.

"Isaac lied!"

"Well I see that now!"

"Why would you listen to him in the first place?"

My mother ignored my question, "Sorry honey. Next time, don't come home with a tattoo."

My mother dropped the handle on the floor and walked away to leave me to deal with the mess. I cleaned up the spoon fragments, trying to wrap my hand around my back to rub the spot she hit. I wasn't flexible enough to reach the spot.

Maria said my name and I made my way upstairs. I could hear her moving shit around and I tried to use my limited amount of brain resources to figure out what she was touching, but I failed. I opened the door and she dropped everything in her hands.

Maria smiled at me, speaking slowly, "Hey."

"What are you up to?" I looked at the contents on the floor which were all mismatched items.

"I'm trying to hide some of Isaac's things before he gets home to get him angry."

"That's a terrible idea. Why would you do that?" I asked because I couldn't imagine a single reason on my own.

"We bet that I couldn't make him angry," Maria said, "And I didn't want to do anything cruel."

I had no patience for whatever she was getting herself into now that I knew she had a tattoo I hadn't seen. There was a good chance I would start knocking things out of her hands if she took too long. That's exactly what happened because I was impatient and curious and I needed to know at that damn moment.

I pushed her back so she was sitting on my bed and started examining her skin to find it myself. Maria sat quietly and let me do what I was doing. I moved her arms around and found nothing that wasn't already there.

"Colder."

I sighed, "Is that really how we're going to do this?"

I pushed her thighs apart and immediately smelled panic on Maria. I met her eyes which had widened to the point where I could see more white in her eyes than blue. Letting go of her thighs, she relaxed only momentarily before I could see her mind racing.

"Talk to me," I said quietly.

Maria backed up and pulled her knees to her chest. I didn't move an inch, worried I would scare her off. Tears welled up in the back of her eyes and I knew I needed to act before this got to the point where there wasn't anything I could do. I moved so slow I annoyed myself and eventually gave up.

I tried to wrap Maria in my arms to calm her down, but my touch threw her deeper into her spiral and she pushed me away. Trying a different tactic, I grabbed a blanket and put it over her arms and rubbed it up and down to provide comfort. She pushed that off too and got up to pace around the room. 

"Maria, I didn't mean to-" I said.

"You think I don't know that?" Maria interrupted, "I don't know why I'm freaking out. I shouldn't be. This is fucking ridiculous."

"It's not, I shouldn't have-" I made an attempt to comfort her to be interrupted again.

"You didn't even do anything!"