Speechless: REWRITTEN

20. Sunflower

Roscoe

My life has really went into the shithole since New Year's. I can't even explain what's going on anymore, honestly.

Gianna is still with her family, so when I go back to work, I come home to an empty house every night. Just to fill the silence, I play classical music throughout the apartment so I don't go crazy. We haven't called or texted each other since she left, and I think that's for the best anyhow. Our relationship, or whatever it was, completely disintegrated on New Year's and we both just need time. But I didn't realize just how quiet time would be. How emptying and open.

I'm filled with guilt over keeping Cheyenne a secret from Mordecai. I know that if he had the choice to see her or not, he would choose to. Despite him boasting that he's moved on, I know somewhere deep inside, he misses her like crazy. I could at least tell him that she's back in town so he's not stuck thinking that she's long gone. But only half of me has that reasoning. The other half is thinking that it would be stupid to tell him, because seeing her wouldn't be what's best for him. I'm not preaching about what's best for him at all, but even mentioning her would open old wounds for him, and I want him to keep this freshness of a new beginning just a bit longer.

And then, the largest of my worries: Cheyenne. Since New Year's, we've been keeping in contact with each other. She's worried about how I'm doing and checks on me every now and then, but a night of just checking up on me has turned into falling asleep on conversations and then picking them back up in the morning. It sort of sucks to admit, but she's the only thing in my life that has some semblance of life to it. A few times after New Year's, we've hung out doing random things like getting Chinese food or running errands. I help her decorate her tiny apartment while she helps me clean up mine after my mini-breakdown.

Spending time with her makes me see what Mordecai saw in her. She just possesses this youthfulness and brightness that's enough to bring anyone out of a long darkness. It seems like she never makes mistakes, and if she does, she makes it seem like they're all intentional. She's the kind of girl you want to just sit and watch movies with on a rainy day, and count the stars with on a clear night.

I feel selfish. Like she's a little pocket of sunshine that I'm keeping all to myself when both Gianna and Mordecai are way more deserving of her.

"Seriously, have you been eating for the past couple of days?" Cheyenne cocks her head at me, frowning.

She's expressed worry for me since arriving at my apartment and discovering an empty fridge. She promptly dragged me out of the house on a Saturday morning and now we're at the grocery store, stocking up. She claims that she also has a few things to pick up, but everything that's in the cart at the moment is for me.

"Takeout is perfectly fine," I defend, pushing the cart through the frozen vegetables aisle.

"Yeah, but you're wasting so much money on it," she tells me, hiking up the tiny backpack on her back up. Despite it being unseasonably warm outside, she still pulled on a bright orange sweater and high-waisted 80's jeans.

"Okay, but I don't have to cook and worry about leftovers."

"But a hundred dollars' worth of food at the store lasts two weeks. Takeout only lasts a day or two." She looks at me while plopping a bag of frozen spinach into the cart. "I rest my case."

I scoff, but a small smile finding its way to my face.

We check out and head home to put everything away. During the task, she finds little remarks to make about my organization system in my kitchen, to which I brush off or laugh at. Once everything is put away, it's around dinner time anyway, so we decide to try making pasta primavera. During the process, we cut on music (something other than classical for a change) and she floats around the kitchen, snacking on garlic croutons. My eyes follow her the entire time, causing some close calls in the dish, but we finished it nonetheless with only a pot slightly boiling over.