Sunflower in Paris

[2] Paris is 17

It's 4:00 am on a summer Tuesday morning. There's something in staring at nothing that brings me so much peace and a seldom closure. I go through the past years in my head and think about how they could have been if they didn't happen.

I picture myself as someone else for a while. Someone brighter, an untroubled soul with little to weigh her down. Maybe wearing a blue flowy sundress wondering in a sunflower field listening to an indie song while eating freshly picked strawberries.

Many people aspire to be like famous successful celebrities, or hardworking motivated scientists. I aspire to be a sunflower. There's something about sunflowers that I hold so much respect for.

They grow in the summer when many other of my other garden flowers die. They stay when all is gone, I need that right now. Sunflowers face the light and follow it along the day, and when the light fades away, they stay facing the same direction because they know the sun will always come up.

They have hope even if it seems like it is gone. Sunflowers can grow as tall as I am, thick and sturdy, with leaves wide and velvety, topped with a big brown disk of seeds surrounded by yellow rays of petals.

Sometimes I wonder what it like to have Reynold's life. What it's like having both parents loving you unconditionally and siblings who care for you and occasionally fight with you because they're bored.

I wonder why he is working in that Just Bitter junk coffee shop? He drives a jeep, lives in a mansion supported by both his parents, has a younger sister who looks up to him, and has his college life figured out.

Boys who have his life in movies are shit heads but Rey is not. He genuinely cares for me and for everyone else, his spirit brightens up my mornings even when it gets hard to even fake a smile. He makes me feel special, worthy of love, and warm in all kinds of ways, as if he's my sun and I am the sunflower.

It makes me feel bad saying this because my dad makes me feel that way, but seeing him for two weeks every other month doesn't give me warmth anymore. I don't wait out the front door for him like I used to, I bet he thinks I still do.

I made Rey believe that I live far from town in a villa with a pool and two gardens. I told him my dad owns a company in Germany which is why he is always a way, and my mom died of leukemia.

My house is a shabby two-bedroom shit hole with nothing but a small backyard that I garden in to keep me busy, and my dad has always been secretive about where he works. I don't think he makes much off it, but when he comes from work to see me, he's always wearing a cashmere suit I don't believe we can afford, so I always imagine him owning some kind of business. I know he doesn't, but it's nice to imagine.

My mom killed herself. My mom killed herself because she thought she killed me. It sad when I remind myself how pathetic my life is, so I choose not to.