After the Crash ✓

18| Sunflower

As I wonder through the multiple aisles filled with different types of flowers, I wonder which ones to get Isla. My first thought is roses, but on second thoughts I realise I'll come across as over-bearing and desperate little school-boy (which I definitely am.)

A few odd flowers are scattered across the till, and the owner arranges them into a perfect bouquet. The owner eyes me from behind her large glasses, with big beady brown eyes. I decide to keep moving along the aisles.

I don't want to give Isla something too big or small and seem annoying and pressure her. This is her choice. I lied to her and snatched her life out from under her feet like a carpet and so she has every right to hate me, but for my sake I hope she can forgive me. Soon, please.

I walk down the other aisles, smelling and intricately inspecting each flower. Rows upon rows of flowers and they're all different kinds. Geraniums, forget-me-nots, jasmine, sunflowers.

Then finally I know exactly which flowers I'll buy.

Sunflowers. Bright, beautiful and delicate. Everything she is herself. I can imagine her dancing in fields sunflowers intertwined in her wavy brown locks.

I grab a handful of sunflowers, and rush to the till to get them wrapped up. The lady measures them and places them in a bouquet, fixed with a bright yellow ribbon. Perfect.

"Thank you." I yell, to the lady with the big glasses.

She just smiles at me and says:

"Good luck."

Well, I'm going to be needing that luck. I decide to pocket it for later.

Grinning and humming to myself, I leisurely stroll down the street. I decide against chocolates because they'll probably melt in my backpack, which is already near-bursting with my sunflowers peeking out of the top.

Isla's house isn't too far away. I decide to walk, but as I find myself baking like a potato in the scorching heat, that I stupidly decided to wear jeans and a denim jacket in, I turn my walk to Isla's house into a walk to the bus stop.

Inside I'm even less cool. I'm maniacally shooting scenarios around in my head. Isla never opens the door. She's moved to another town. She's dating someone else. Shoving the ludicrous suggestions to one side, I try to concentrate on something else. But, all I can think about is the burning heat and how I now smell of a mixture of sweaty bus bodies and flowers.

Great.

Luckily, the bus is a short trek to her house, but among screaming hot and hungry babies, a woman holding a very fierce telephone conversation, and being crammed against a few heavily-perspirating  business men. All I know is that this is going to be a very long journey.

And, I can't stop playing out all the physical ways Isla could reject me in my head.

●●●

Isla's face stands in the doorframe, her hair pulled back into a messy bun and a rigid expression planted on her. When she makes no effort to invite me in, I decide to start my apologetic recital right there in her porch, watched by the on-the-goers of the road.

"I'm so sorry." I begin. "I messed  up big time and I blew it. I just can't tell you-"

Isla holds her fingers up to silence me. She speaks calmly, but what she says seems like it should be screamed into my now-pale face.

"Bradley." She begins as if she's coaxing a toddler. "If you are here to tell me all the ways you ruined my life, don't bother, you aren't doing yourself any favours."

Then, Isla rejects me in the one way I didn't think of in my head.

She slams the door on my face.

The on-the-goers look on with expressions of pity and sadness. Inside, it feels like someone's landed a blow directly at my heart, like it's a punching bag. Isla's words cut deeper than any knife could.

But, I am stubborn, like everyone in my family. I don't give up easily, which made me incredibly good at basketball. I ring the bell.

And I decide in my brain that I will wait on the doorstep of Isla Woodley until she opens the door and talks to me.

Unfortunately, it seems Isla is just as stubborn as me, if not more, when she doesn't open the door on my 10th ring. So, I find myself sitting on the porch of a girl I put into a coma, waiting for her to open the door of her house and talk to me.

I'm coming across as desperate, but drastic times call for drastic measures. And right now, this situation is drastic.

●●●

"Bradley Monse, are you literally sleeping on my doorstep?" A sweet voice asks.

My groggy self fails to identify the voice, until I prop myself up on my elbows and look directly into the gaping face of Isla Woodley, rubbing her tired eyes in rabbit pyjamas and slippers.

God, I'm more stubborn than I thought.

"Seriously, Bradley." She sighs. "Your even more childish than I thought."

A moment of silence falls between us and I consider that it my cue to start my apology. But, the well-rehearsed speech escapes me.

"Aren't you gonna say anything?" Isla asks.

I just furrow my eyebrows, fighting the urge to just fall back onto her porch and sleep.

"Seriously, you aren't gonna say anything?" She purses her lips like an annoyed teacher. "Bradley, I'm giving you a minute."

Suddenly, the added time pressure kicks in. My speech may have left my tired brain, but my sunflowers must still be in my bag. I reach for my bag that's leaning against the garden gnome.

I open my bag to smell the putrid scent of dead flowers and I don't even need light to tell me that my Sunflowers are dead.

"30 seconds, Bradley." An impatient Isla says. Somehow she looks even prettier in the dark.

I begin to worry. I'm blowing this like a broken cannon.

"I'm sor...rry." I stutter.

Don't break down, Bradley.

Just as I think that Isla is going to slam the door on me for the second time, the latch opens.

"Let's get you off my doorstep, Monse." Isla leads me into her house with a smile.

And all I can think of is her pretty brown hair laced with my non-existent sunflowers.