Page 6 of Poetry of Flowers

Mom loved to say that time changes people, and it had changed him too. Kayden was always grumpy and would get annoyed by the smallest things that didn’t work out as planned. My best friend hated conversations with too many people. Then again, he loved parties, which didn’t make any sense, but when it came to Kayden Kidd, nothing really did.

He had grown more bitter with each passing year. If he were ready to tell me why and what was going on, I could try to help him, but Kayden wasn’t ready for that yet, and I accepted it.

We even had a phase where we didn’t talk much at all because we didn’t understand each other or because seeing each other like this simply hurt. It didn’t even bother me that much to stop talking. In the end, we figured it out as always, but I think I like being lonely because I keep ignoring my cousin Autumn and my friend Theo. Why they even bother to still call me their friend is a mystery to me.

It started when we went to high school.

I welcomed the feeling of isolation and the mean words my classmates threw atme for getting pitied for my situation by our teachers.

The bullying had become a part of my life at this point. Sometimes I waited for the moment they came up to me, just to say their pieces that their tiny brains hadn’t even thought about before. Sometimes it even felt like a relief when someone was angry at me; this made me feel less alone with my own view of the version of myself I never wanted to become in the first place.

My family always went to church with the Kidd’s. That must have also been why he was wearing a suit and his hair was styled for once. It didn’t hang over his eyes for once. He liked clothes, but suits weren’t his thing; he wore them only when his mother asked him to.

His green eyes softened when I looked up at him directly. Probably because he saw how red mine must’ve been from crying.

“I never get sick,” I mumbled and looked back at my mother’s grave. My immune system was spectacular. He didn’t need to be so overprotective.

I heard him sigh before he took off his jacket, spread it on the ground, and sat down next to me.

Getting his clothes dirty isn’t really his thing.

“She wouldn’t want you to spend your teenage years here, Tillie.”

I didn’t look at him; I just looked at the stone that connected me to my mother. Pathetic.

“You don’t know what she would have wanted; maybe she likes our conversations,” I shot back and shrugged.

I talked like I was mentally ill, which apparently I was. When I was nine, Dad wanted me to see a grief therapist, shortly after my mother passed away. I went there until I was thirteen. She told me that sadness was normal, but that the state I was in was close to depression. She spoke with my father about what was wrong with me; I hated it. It didn't take long until I told my dad I never wanted to visit her again. She had no right to tell my father, I was depressed when, in reality, I was just sad.

It was a school night, and the air was slowly switching from warm to cold as the night arrived. A seven-year-old should get ready for bed around this time, but instead, I had opened the door fully expecting my mother. It wasn’t Mom; it was a police officer with his hat held to his chest. I was still a child when he told my father that his wife’s car had been hit by an unknown driver on a bridge. My mother drowned, and if that driver had called for help instead of running away, she could have survived.

The police never found him or her, and my mother had to suffer because of one dumb person’s actions.

My mom was my best friend. How could anyone expect me to make peace with her fate?

“A conversation is between two people; you don’t have to come here to talk to her.”

His voice was soft, even though his reply was unnecessary because he should know better than to tell me the same thing every time.

“I feel closer to her when I’m here.”

It’s true, and I don’t even understand why; maybe because I saw her body getting laid to rest here, and my brain thinks she’s still right here, she can hear you. When I’m talking to her at home, I’m too far away for her to understand.

“And at church? There are candles you can light up.” I side-eyed him, and he sighed dramatically as he laid his arm around my shoulder.

“You are cold.”

“I don’t believe in God; that’s why I don’t talk to her there. I only go because it makes my dad happy.” I changed the subject again. If God were real, he wouldn’t have taken my mother so soon; it’s just not fair that other kids get to grow up with a loving mother but not me and my brother.

If God were real, he would take the cruel people, not the ones who are loving and caring.

“Yeah, at least we agree on this.” I turn my head toward him. Kayden wore a rosary, and he was going to tell me he stopped believing in God? There was no way.

“What’s with that, Kidd?” I asked him as I lifted his rosary necklace, which he wore together with the forget-me-not necklace. He had never taken it off after that Halloween eleven years ago. This means so much to me; he has no clue.

Kayden chuckled and pulled the rosary out of my hand.

“I wear that for my sister; she believes in God and prays before dinner. She would be sad seeing me without it.”

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