𝐟𝙪𝐥𝐥 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙜𝙚 ┃ 𝐥𝙪𝒌𝙚 𝐩𝙖𝒕𝒕𝙚𝙧𝙨𝞸𝙣

Chapter 10

I spend about two hours alone, putting headphones in and listening to his favorite three songs over and over again. I pull my one headphone out because I think I hear something and sure enough, someone's knocking on my door.

"What's up?" I say loud enough for them to hear me.

"Hey." Alex comes through the door, and it startles me, kinda forgot they could do that.

"What's up?" I ask, pausing the music and pulling the other headphone out.

"Why'd you run off?" He asks, playing with his hands, standing there so awkward.

"Got overwhelmed." I shrug.

"You should come eat, Ben tried finishing your sandwich for you." Oh no. Ben and cooking.

"Ok." I slowly roll out of bed and start heading for the door.

"Just ok? You aren't gonna argue with me?" He seems shocked.

"I don't have the energy to argue right now." I mumble back, grabbing the door handle, not looking at him.

"Are you ok?" His hand goes over mine, through it, but I get what he's trying to do.

"I'm fine." I lie through my teeth, before turning the handle and opening my door, still refusing to look at him.

I walk downstairs into the kitchen, and Ben scrambles in from the living room.

"I did my best!" He tells me, and I look at the grilled cheese on the plate.

One side is burned and the other is barley browned, but hey he did his best.

"Thanks bud." I grab it and eat. I hear talking from the living room and look up to see Alex and Luke sitting there talking quietly. Whatever.

"Did I do ok?"

"Of course! You are gonna be a great chef one day." I tell him.

"Hey Anne." Alex says from the other room and I refuse to turn around again.

"What's the chance you would like to go to the store with me before tomorrow?" I ask Ben.

"Yes! But why?" I ask.

"What would he do if he was still here?" I ask him. He thinks for a minute before he shrugs.

"He would bring her flowers, he always did. So we should go get flowers and surprise her with them." I fill him in. He grins and nods. "Go grab my keys. Blue lanyard." I tell him. Mom got a old crappy car for me and Kota to share for now, and Kota is sleeping on the couch still, so he won't care. Ben comes running back with my keys, Reggie hot on his heels.

"Where are we going?" Reggie asks.

"Ben and I need to go to the store." I tell him. He nods.

"Is it ok if I come along? Your mom said she doesn't trust that the monster isn't going to show up again." I nod.

"Heads up though there might be tears." I tell him. He nods, and then says

"That's the other reason I wanted to come."

We go and hop in the car, and Reggie asks

"What is going on between you and Alex and Luke? You won't even look at either of them?"

"I just don't have the energy for all the drama that comes with those two. This is going to be hard next few days and there's always some kind of drama from them." I explain. Reggie gets a "ohh" look on his face and nods.

We get to the store, and start looking through flowers. I'm not paying attention when I hear Ben gasp behind me. I whip around, ready to protect him, when I notice him staring at a rose bouquet that I didn't see before. It's yellow, a pinkish color  between pink and red, and red. The same colors my Dad always chose for my Mom. Yellow for new beginnings, the medium pink one was for healing, and the red one was for love. They were each other's new beginning, each other's healing, and obviously they loved each other. I start crying, and there's nothing I can do to stop it.

"Thank you Dad." I whisper, and Ben grabs them.

"You ok?" Reggie asks. I nod. We buy them, and head back to the house. I quickly sneak it up to my room to hide it so I can put it out overnight to surprise her in the morning. Walking out of my room, I walk straight through Luke, who was heading towards my door. I don't even pause, just keep walking. I literally do not have the energy, plus my shins are starting to really hurt, and I need to roll them out.

"Anne?" He says behind me, and I make the mistake of turning and looking at him. "What is your deal?" He asks. "You've been ignoring me and Alex all day."

"It's a bad day ok, I don't have the energy to deal with people right now." I turn back around and walk away, letting him take that how he wants.

"You'll talk to me eventually!" He yells after me and I just roll my eyes, walking downstairs.

I don't see him the rest of the day, but at 2 am when my alarm goes off to go out the flowers out, I roll out of bed to see him sleeping on my floor again. Trying to be as quiet as possible, I step over him to grab the flowers. Slipping downstairs, I put them on the counter, turning around to see him sleepily walking around the corner running his hand through his hair.

"Why are you awake?!" I ask him.

"You got up. Why are you awake?" He asks me.

"I had to bring these down here." I motion to the flowers. He looks confused.

"Why?"

"For Dad. He couldn't give them to Mom so I did." He looks at me for a minute and I can tell he's so confused. I'm holding back tears, I'm mentally and physically exhausted, so I just go to walk past him to go back to bed, when he physically grabs my arm.

"Anne, what are you hiding from me and Alex?" He pushes.

"Nothing let go Luke."

"No." He grabs harder, not enough to hurt but enough to force me to stay.

"My Dad died today. It's going to be the worst day of the year because Mom never does good on this day, and you guys constantly being full of drama doesn't help." I hiss back, yanking my arm back away from him. He looks shocked and heart broken.

"I'm so sorry." He whispers, and with that I'm pulled into a hug, that I can actually feel.