In the Language of the Flowers

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✾ Evening Primrose ✾

The city noise kept me awake for a while, but it was more than just that. My mind kept spinning a mile a minute, jumping from Ren to those people to mom and back to the strange situation I was in with this stranger.

I kept wondering why I had decided to follow him. Why was I even curious about him in the first place? He'd called out to me from nowhere, but why had I answered? I could have walked away from the sound of his voice searching in the dark, but instead, I walked towards him like a moth to flame.

Had I been looking for a way out? Had I been looking for some sort of light to illuminate my sad life, my loss, my mistakes? I was hanging on by a thread.

And now I was here, sleeping in his apartment. Or...not sleeping, for a while. But once my exhaustion had become more pressing than the loudness of my thoughts and the noises outside my window, I was gone to the world. I didn't dream much of anything, which was strange. I'd had some heavy dreams about my mom lately. Almost every morning, I'd wake up expecting her to be alive since I'd just seen her moments before. I had to realize all over again that she was dead.

But in this new place, I woke up without that feeling, peacefully. I'd slept better than I had since mom died.

Sunshine streamed into the room through the slightly filthy windows. Fine particles of dust floated in and out of the beams, drifting gently. I slowly sat up. My body felt unfairly heavy. My muscles struggled to lift the weight of my grief.

The dust moved steadily through the sunbeams. I could hear the cars honking outside. Life was so fast. It was always go. Nothing was ever enough. The dust made the room feel slow, and I needed slow.

Somehow, Ren must have understood that because he didn't even attempt to wake me up. Maybe he just didn't want to disturb a guy who'd just been on a rooftop the night before. It must have been afternoon by the time I pulled my body out of bed. I felt somehow both restored and burdened as I cautiously ventured beyond my door.

"Ren?" I asked. He wasn't in the living room. The apartment wasn't that big. There were two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen-dining area, and one bathroom. But still, it was more than I would have been able to afford, especially in New York. Ren had saved me, even if he acted like he was the one indebted.

"Ren?" I repeated. He didn't answer. I wandered out into the living room, walking past the leather couch we'd sat on the night before. The huge blank canvas, Ren's masterpiece, stood in the corner. I narrowly avoided banging my shin on the coffee table. My mind was absent.

He wasn't in the kitchen, either. I wondered if he'd gone out for the day. He hadn't told me anything, but it wasn't like he should have. I had no reason to expect anything more from him than I'd already gotten. He didn't owe me a note.

I stood in front of his door. The wood was scuffed in places and the paint was flaking. I reached out and peeled a little piece off, staring at the black space the white paint left behind. I crushed the peeled paint in my hand and knocked on the door. "Ren? Are you in there?"

I didn't hear anything from inside. I knew I shouldn't have, but I gripped the doorknob. The metal was cold under my skin. Oddly, it reminded me of how cold Ren's hand had been when he'd touched me the night before. I felt my face heat up as I pushed the door open.

It creaked softly. My blush deepened when I saw the inside of his room. It was full of canvases of all shapes and sizes, but they were all covered in sheets. I wondered why he bothered painting if all he was going to do was cover his work up. I wanted to see what he'd created, how he saw the world.