In the Language of the Flowers

| 18 |

✾ Bittersweet ✾

I lay face-down in my bed, breathing through the sheets because I didn't have enough energy to roll over and clear my airway.

"You look shitty."

I groaned. I'd heard her come in, but still hadn't moved.

"Get up, freak," she said, shoving my arm. Sallie grumbled to herself as she used her full strength to roll me into my side without any help on my end. "Why are you lying here like a corpse? Last time you were like this was right after you left home."

"I am a corpse," I said, not playing the part all that well.

Sallie sat on the bed beside me, looking around. "You realize how depressing it is in here?"

"Yes, I realize," I replied.

"So you're doing it on purpose?" she asked, raising a thin, perfectly shaped eyebrow.

"I'm stuck," I said.

Sallie looked at me. "Stuck," she repeated.

"Stuck."

"That's not what it seems like to me," she said, standing up and walking to the balcony. She slid the door open, and a cool breeze snaked into the room, disturbing everything. I winced at the chill.

"It's November, Sallie," I complained.

"You gotta leave this room, bud," she said, walking back towards me.

"I can't."

"You're going to run out of cash, Ren," she said. "You need to get painting."

I propped myself up on my elbows, confused. "How do you know I'm not painting?"

She shrugged. "I have my ways."

"Sallie," I warned.

She sighed, rolling her eyes and drooping her shoulders. "Fine. Liam told me."

"You talk to Liam?"

"Despite how he is definitely a human toilet, when he calls me and asks me if you're ok, yes. I lower myself to his level out of concern for my friend," she said. "Speaking of which, how did I not know that something was going on with you? Since when do we not talk about this stuff? I was the first person you came to after everything with your parents."

"It's not like that," I said, slowly sitting up.

"What is it like?" she asked. "I'm all ears."

My brain felt like organ soup. I closed my eyes. "I have no idea what it's like, actually. But it's not like that."

"You're not making any sense," she said. She slapped a hand against my forehead. "Are you sick? You don't feel hot."

I smacked her hand away. "I'm not sick."

"Then why are you acting like an insane person?" she said. "Sickness would be a valid excuse for not talking to me."

"I don't know what's going on," I admitted.

She frowned. "That might also be a valid excuse. What can you tell me?"

"That I feel guilty all the time," I said.

The frown deepened. "You're not really helping me out here. I know that you're saying that you don't know what's going on, but you probably do."

I bristled at the implication. "You think I'm lying to you?"

"No, I think you're lying to yourself."

I swallowed and collapsed back into the bed. Sallie was a peculiar person, a people mechanic. She understood how they worked better than anyone I'd ever met, all the cogs, ticking bits, and wires. If she dropped some psychoanalytic advice on you, she was probably either not far from the truth or hitting the nail directly on the head.