Flower Girl | h.s.

47.

Daisy

tw: minor eating pattern discussion

Breathing in the salty, spring air felt like heaven on earth. I would consider Malibu to be a place where God settled, just by shutting my eyes and listening to the world around me.

There wasn't much to it, but knowing that the sun would warm against my skin and the subtle breeze that would fly through the open window was enough to comfort me in an odd way.

Saturday afternoons had suddenly become my favorite day of the week. They were filled with laughter; solemn moments of spending time together from the hectic weeks. Routine had started to become a part of me that I hadn't expected.

I loved having a scheduled, but knowing I didn't need one yet was assuring. Growing up didn't feel natural yet.

In the back of my mind, this is what I had always wanted. I wanted to be a wife and a mother– I, of course, had my older sister, but I knew that I had so much more to share with kids younger than me. It's why I wanted to be a teacher and why I thought that would suit me.

But these past few weeks had reminded me of what the feeling of home was.

Some Saturdays included taking the kids to their sporting events, some involved going out to get a coffee in the late morning for an impromptu date with Harry's hand never leaving my lower back. Sometimes, it meant staying in my pajama pants for the majority of the day, rereading pieces of novels to Harry that felt memorable to me while we sat on the porch.

With graduation around the corner, I was starting to figure out what life was starting to mean. I was excited for this future for us.

Harry was in an incredible place. He was smiling all the time, he seemed at peace with parts of himself that I think only hurt when he thought about them. But I assured him that being hurt by memories was something we all felt at one point or another.

Memories were allowed to hurt us; they were allowed to make us feel because we were humans and it was alright to acknowledge those parts of us that hurt at one point or another. Looking back at them, we knew we didn't hurt now and that's what mattered.

Otherwise, happiness looked spectacular on him. It gave him freedom to be the brother that he needed to be, and the partner that he wanted to be.

He had been regularly going for runs in the morning before we all got up, which only elevated his natural tone. I swooned when he'd get ready for bed or a shower, noticing the way his muscles tensed more than before.

He had been reading more– we had spent a majority of our nights wrapped up in sheets with the dimness of our nightstand lights, tangled together as we read out paragraphs to one another, discussing the beauty of the work. Discussing what it meant to be in love and why it could hurt so violently, but felt so delicate.

It was exceptional to read the work from the author, but it was more to see his mind interpret it.

Harry was so smart; he was so intellectual with his thoughts and piecing together parts of things that I wasn't able to bring myself to. It reminded me that he was so self-taught and eager for knowledge wherever he could find it.

His experiences and his wonders on life were so different from mine, but they complimented each other in ways that I think made us stronger. We were able to see what life was like from many different avenues, and that was essential to the growth of ourselves and our past.

We were able to work on us and ourselves at the same time– it was a gift.

He hadn't been playing music as often, either. Lace had offered Harry to play with them a few more times, even Mitch had suggested it, but he declined. When asked why, he would shrug and say 'maybe next time'.