Gardening is an art form. With careful touches, support, and passion, it will all grow quickly. It's almost like magic. One second there isn't anything there and the next you have a practical felony in your spare bedroom.
The singular grow light would eventually need to be replaced with something bigger, but the room still looked like a jungle, or at the very least a thriving garden. It was enough to make my knees weak if I stared too long.
I was back in business for sure. Whaya had taught me well.
Unfortunately Whayas life was funded by a mix of disability funds, retirement and her hobby of growing plants on the side. I was in a bit more trouble than that because pot alone was not going to fund my life. Even though I'd found my way into a couple of small parties, I was not making enough money to keep the lights on, and I certainly wasn't making enough to feed myself or to get myself clothing, or to do any of the things needed for life.
I didn't want to use any of grandfather Benjamin's money. I staunchly had a certain pride about that, and I couldn't bring myself to break. I had to make it without him. Unfortunately "making it without him" tended to involve sitting on the floor reading while pretending my stomach didn't ache from hunger.
"Explain it to me," I stated into the phone.
I was at the waterfront again. Over the past several months I'd been frequenting to visit with my friend Penelope on Saturdays. She always gave me free pastries and I always offered her cheap conversation and somewhat meaningful advice on whatever man she was currently seeing. She rarely asked for details about my life, which I greatly appreciated. My stalker had started keeping better distance. He was still around, but I assumed the distance was meant so as not to alarm her. I liked to imagine he was lectured for that by God or whoever else cared about the continual surveillance of me and my mundane activities at the market. They had to be getting bored.
It was September now and that meant it was hot but not as ungodly hot as Summer had been. Sitting next to the water only did a small bit to cool things. After visiting with Penelope and getting my goody bag of free muffins, I'd walked down to the riverfront where the ground sloped away from the concrete walls. My feet were submerged, and I was trying to pretend the water was even remotely clean enough for such a visit.
"What part did you want me to explain?" My father requested.
"All of it," I replied. "How do you make things that people actually want?"
I hadn't spoken to my dad in almost a year. It wasn't out of malice. I wasn't ignoring him, and I had happily responded to at least two of his letters since I had returned from the reservation. It was just that we both knew there was a line between us, drawn solidly in the sand. We would always have that separation. He never called me either. I knew that service was limited and that almost everyone in his home relied on the single land line telephone, so I wasn't bothered by the lack of calls any more than I was bothered by the fact that we didn't talk. It was better that way. It was more natural for us to not pretend.
But he was a maker. He was an artisan. He knew how to survive off of what his hands could do, and he didn't need an employer to deem him worthy. He just set up a booth and sold things.
"It has less to do with trying to be what people want," he assured me. "It's about providing something that they didn't know they needed. Then, when they see it, they can't leave without it."
"How do I do that?" I asked.
"It depends what you want to make," he said, and I could practically hear him shrugging through the phone. In the background I heard yelling that had to be Scout and Tamara. "Or what you have to make things with. What do you need?"
I actually needed a lot of things, which was part of why I was considering the merits of this endeavor. I needed my lights to not be turned off. I needed to be able to take care of myself. I needed food. I needed toothpaste, and soap, and all the things that I'd been so easily charging Grandfather Benjamin's card on for years.
"What can you make for cheap?" My father added. "That's always key. If you spend a bunch of money making shit nobody wants, then you haven't gained anything."
And I thought about my limited resources. Then I thought about my garden and all the things I had out there. I thought by about the mint leaves I chewed on when I couldn't stand the pangs of hunger that hit late in the evening. I thought about everything I'd done to survive.
"Thanks Daniel," I said, without really answering him. "I appreciate the help."
He launched into a goodbye that included an invitation for me to come visit. I thought about the people following me and about the threats and then hung up before I had to hear any disappointment that Daniel would voice at a rejection.
I walked home barefoot because I didn't want to put my wet feet back into my shoes. It was a regrettable decision. Walking through downtown in the city is something that absolutely requires shoes.
I changed course halfway home, only because I couldn't get the idea out of my head. Instead of home, I went to the library. I hadn't gone in a while, and I didnt exactly know what I was looking for, but I couldn't help but feel comforted when I walked down the familiar hallways. I recalled how many hours my mother and I had spent there. I could practically see her in the visage of the bean bags we used to occupy together while she was teaching me how to read.
I got five books focused on crafting and then walked home. I'd put my shoes on at that point. Although the stupid SUV had been following me closely the entire time, nobody was on my porch, thankfully.
I spent that entire evening oscillating between pouring over the books and staring thoughtfully at my garden. The seasons were already starting to change and they would change dramatically again soon. I was going to need to clear out the garden bed for the next season of plantable foods. Some of them were going to have to move inside. I had no idea yet how I'd keep them alive in there unless I planted them in the room with the ever stretched grow light. I was going to need to replace that soon too and I had no idea where that money was going to come from. Could I sell seeds? I had a lot of seeds.
Then I decided I needed to buy a bag of lye. Lye made soap. I could make soap.
Lye was expensive. That's what the internet told me. I laid on the floor in the living room that no longer had a couch and thought about how expensive lye was for what I thought would be the rest of the night.
Thoughts of lye and also of how expensive everything was wouldn't leave me. Instead of wallowing in that, I got up and went to the spare bedroom full of pot plants to grab some joints.
Parties are easy to find if you know how to look. It helped that I'd taken to collecting a rolling list of contacts, but I found most of them on social media. Someone mentions an event, and that event maybe ends too early in the evening for some. Those few people create talk of a smaller event and they maybe mention a neighborhood and then conversation flourishes and eventually all I have to do is walk into an apartment building near the college after a back to school event and follow the sound. I was careful to look out for my old friends. If I saw a sign of Bonnie or Harrison or even Cameron, I'd leave, but I hadn't seen them since our quiet departure of friendship and it didn't seem to be posing barriers.
By midnight I'd walked my way into a party in the apartment complex next to the university again, and I was selling joints with purpose. I had a goal to accomplish. I had a price point to reach at the very least. I was resolved to work hard enough to reach that.
Then a guy with dark hair and a weirdly wide smile was holding out a little white pill to me after I offered him my current product.
He said, "I'll trade you."
If I was smart, or even prophetic with all the foresight in the world, I might have turned him down. I also might have gathered that I knew who this person was, however vaguely. I would have stopped and considered if his features were similar or even identical to one of the many revolving doors of faces I'd seen in the last two years as I lived under almost constant surveillance from Roy Barker (Who had asked me to call him God).
I think I did recognize him anyways. I think I probably told myself to ignore it because it felt safer just for the moment to ignore it. And because I hadn't been offered real drugs like that in a long while. Not since I'd had friends anyways. We were always so safe together and even when I maybe did smoke some of Whayas laced joints with acid in them, they were there to take care of me on my way home.
I didn't use logic in the moment. Instead I thought about how nice it would be to fully check out for a while. I thought about how stressful everything was. I thought about how my current career prospects centered around learning to make soap if I could figure out how to afford a bag of fucking lye.
"I'll do it for two," I stated.
The man reached into his pockets and then handed me two little white pills that I could not identify. I handed him a joint. When he asked to borrow my lighter, I told him no.
I took one of the pills and pocketed the other. Since my world didn't immediately stop turning correctly, I kept schmoozing and selling joints until my basket was empty except for the uncountable pile of cash I'd amassed.
Then I got dizzy and sat down on a bench near the door where I figured I would work up the energy to walk myself home. While I sat there, I atleast straightened up all my money into an even pile that I then stuffed into my pockets for safekeeping. Because I didn't have friends that walked me home at night anymore, I had to be smarter about my money basket method.
I wasn't alone on my bench by the door. I'd sat myself next to a slumped individual with curly brown hair who was very obviously asleep. Their hair was hiding their face so I couldn't see any of their features, but their shoulders were rising and falling in a steady pattern that told me I was atleast sitting next to someone that was living.
I was about to get up to leave when the persons head fell onto my shoulder. I froze. The person kept on sleeping.
With the hair falling back, I could now tell I was sitting next to what I assumed was a man. A very young one, with heavy eyebrows and a gentle yet pale face. I recognized him too, although not in the way I recognized the man that had given me drugs. He just seemed familiar in a way I couldn't place instead, but I immediately noted the softness of his posture. He was leaning into me the way children do, like how Scout had done when falling asleep next to me on the couch. There was just something vulnerable in the trust of being asleep next to a stranger that seemed exclusive to kids and to this presumably inebriated individual.
I didn't really want to move him, but I also didn't know him. I didn't want to let him stop me from my forward motion, and truly I knew that I was too high. I could feel whatever I'd taken in my brain making me soft and malleable to persuasion. The warmth of the person next to me was stupidly inviting and I couldn't melt into that with my brain already muddled like it was.
"I'm sorry," I said gently, and I very slowly slid away, hoping he wouldn't fall. "So sorry."
The individuals eyes fluttered open, revealing warm and innocent looking brown eyes. He blinked up at me like a tired doe.
"Where am I?" He muttered, eyes still barely open.
It took me a moment to realize he was talking to me and not himself.
"A party," I answered.
"Who are you?" He asked me. Apparently he wasn't phased by his location. I watched him lay his head down on the bench next to himself, where I'd been sitting a moment before. He curled his arms around his torso in a little hug.
"It doesn't matter," I answered. Then I felt rude for denying a name to the strangely regressed person infront of me. "Sorry. You can call me anything. Well, not anything. I like plants. You can call me Flower. Or Leaf. Or Sage—. I don't know. I haven't thought about it much today."
I felt like I was rambling through syrup. If I could just give you a bit of advice, don't take pills that you don't recognize from strangers. Frankly, you shouldn't take pills from strangers at all.
"Flower," he hummed. He smiled a small smile that looked exquisite on his face.
"Are you going to be okay?" I asked. "Should I call someone?"
"No," he said. He opened his eyes like he found my offer to help threatening and seemingly worked hard to keep them open and fixed on me. His smile dropped for something more serious. "Someone's coming. I promise."
"Are you sure?" I asked, and for the first time I noticed the tiny little specs that represented the man's pupils in a sea of chocolate brown. This person wasn't just drunk. He was very high.
"You're nice," he mumbled.
"Oh," I responded, mostly surprised that he was fully coherent enough to note that someone was standing there talking to him in a real and physical sense.
"Gotta sober up before he gets here or I'm in trouble," he said in a mumble. His eyes fluttered and then closed again. "Hates pills."
I nodded numbly even though he couldn't see me. I was evidently not sober enough to realize that.
"Don't take a picture of me," he added. "Everybody keeps doing that. I fucking hate Portland."
He leaned into the bench impossibly further and seemingly fell back asleep. I stood there staring at him, oddly enthralled by his demeanor, but also by how soft his face still looked. I missed his eyes.
Then I recognized him. Barely. I was almost sure I was wrong. I was looking at a celebrity whose name I couldn't place, but I recognized the face from a bunch of movie ads I'd seen over the summer. He was starring next to another actress that I recognized better, but still couldn't name. I'd heard the movie was just a little bit explicit. I'd also heard something about the actor being kind of chaotic in his public life. That was maybe a little bit evident infront of me, but he was truly appearing very gentle and tame at the moment. What was he even doing at a college party in Portland? Was he college aged? I had no idea.
I stepped back and leaned on the wall of the entry way and I waited. I didn't want to bother him anymore, because he really did look tired, but I didn't know what he'd taken. I was suddenly quite worried about his demeanor. He'd said help was on the way anyways, didn't he? I wouldn't have to wait too long. As long as I was high and also kind of infatuated, I could wait.
He was quite pretty. I was so weak for pretty. It was like a stupid little kryptonite of mine.
I really liked the curls in his hair. I liked how long it was. It made me miss my own long hair although I'd gotten quite comfortable with it the way it was. It stayed out of my face better. Since I couldn't afford to turn on the AC, it didn't stick to my neck when I was sweating in my house.
The more I looked the more the young man peacefully sleeping on the bench didn't look anything like the chaotic person discussed on the internet with his picture attached. He didn't look wild or out of control. He just looked exhausted and peaceful and also quite handsome and I really did need to be going, but I liked watching him. I was intoxicated enough to keep standing there being weak for someone pretty.
Eventually, the front door opened. Another pretty man entered, this one blonde, and he saw him sleeping there and then sighed, and I knew it was the person that the sleeping man had told me was coming.
"Damnit," he said to his unconscious friend. "We've been here less than a month and you've literally found the worst people in the city, haven't you?"
While that man stood there staring disappointedly down at his friend, I slipped out. I didn't think he'd really noticed me standing there, but even if he did, it probably wouldn't have mattered. I thought maybe I should have offered to help him get his friend out to the car, but maybe he would have been annoyed by me too.
"Hates pills," he'd said. I was high too. I didn't really feel like being hated that night.
I felt quite empty inside on the walk home. I think my real problem was that I needed to see Whaya more often because truly I didn't really have anybody else to talk to. She was quite busy watching over and mildly terrorizing my Grandfather Benjamin for me now that they lived three doors down from eachother, but seeing her on a semi regular basis really did seem to help me keep myself level. Since God had seemingly decided to have me monitored without any sort of stealth attached, I felt weird going to Whaya. I didn't like exposing her to that and in the same way that she'd tried to protect me, I was also trying to protect her. That meant I hadn't seen her in atleast a month. Reasonably, my only other real friend was Poppy, and I never said anything real to her because we were surface level acquaintances at best inside that friendship. I was feeling quite alone. I was also realizing that I'd just met one of the most beautiful people I'd probably ever meet, and I was unlikely to ever see him again just like he was unlikely to ever remember me. I was realizing that, and I was also realizing that I had nobody at all to tell about it.
If I hadn't taken the first pill, I wouldn't have taken the second one. As it stands, I did take the second one. I didn't have any water and I almost choked while swallowing it, but I still took it. Then I threw my basket on the ground like I was throwing a tantrum.
Almost immediately after, I picked up the basket and speedily walked down the sidewalk in hopes that nobody had seen. I probably looked ridiculous, out at two in the morning, dressed in my mothers flowing clothing that I'd had to sew to repair because I couldn't afford new clothes, strung out on whatever I'd taken, and throwing a fit that really had no point to it. There was no point to anything. Even if I continued acting out in public, God wouldn't let me get arrested. He'd just have me picked up and brought in like a child for reprimand. He was probably going to be standing infront of my house waiting to lecture me when I got home anyways. If he wasn't standing there, it would be some other random person he'd assigned to be there. They'd be at the corner just watching me and I was supposed to be okay with that because nothing I wanted truly mattered.
From the moment Adeline and I met, nothing I wanted mattered.
Nothing. They were making me nothing. Nothing I ever wanted to discover about myself or my world mattered to them at all.
I didn't go home. Instead I walked across down haphazardly. At first the car was following me again, but eventually I stopped seeing it. I was being kind of evasive, cutting through yards and climbing over fences just to make it difficult. It was really the only rebellion I could manage in my state.
Eventually I came upon the house I wanted. I jumped another fence blatantly infront of the home camera that had probably always been there, and then walked defiantly in the back door, which was unsurprisingly unlocked. I didn't bother with being quiet. I hoped I woke him up. I hoped his sleep was disrupted dramatically by me. I beat my basket rhythmically on the wall and I walked down their hallway.
Adeline's bedroom door was open, but the lights were off. Instead of kindly waking her like I had my sleeping friend at the party, I dropped my basket loudly on the floor and then knocked on her door frame.
She woke up in a startle, sitting upright with wide eyes while her vision adjusted to the darkness. She didn't really seem to recognize me until she flipped on her bedside lamp. Even then she just stared at me. If I was sober, I might have considered the recklessness of my state, but I didn't.
"You're a horrible person," I said coldly. My voice slurred. It's not something I noticed entirely in the moment, but it was kind of on my mind. "You're selfish, and you're close minded. You think that you know me, but you don't."
Adeline nodded as if she agreed with all of those things. Then she pushed her sheets down and carefully climbed out of bed to stand across from me.
"I'm nothing because of you. ," I said, and my lip trembled. "I can't have anything. I can't want anything. He's in everything I do, and I can't get away from him."
"I'm sorry," she said softly.
To her credit, she really did seem like she felt a little bit bad. Even now, I know that Adeline felt bad. She didn't deserve near as much of the blame that I continually threw her way. It's just easier to be angry at other kids when you're still essentially a kid. It's easier to cry infront of your peers, which is what I was doing.
"I hate you," I said.
"I'm so sorry, Florence," she said.
"Don't call me that," I said, because I didn't want my mothers name near any of this anymore. I didn't want it associated. I didn't want it coming out of anyone's mouth.
"What do I call you?" She whispered gently.
I was already crying, but I wanted to cry more when she asked that because I didn't have an answer. That's what they'd done to me. I felt like I was nobody again in such a short time. I was starving, and my house was hot, and my prospects were based in fucking crafting now. I didn't even want to tell her the name I'd told that boy at the party. I thought about the gentle way he'd echoed Flower and I couldn't give that over to her.
I was breathing heavily actually. I was maybe on the verge of panic. I think I was in the midst of panic and my brain was just too slow to keep up with it. I was swerving a little bit. Even the inner monologue in my head was slurring.
"Talk to me," she whispered. "Tell me how I can help."
I didn't kiss Adeline because I wanted to. I didn't do it because I missed her or because it meant anything. I kissed her because I wanted her to stop talking.
She let me for a moment. She tasted like salt and if I wasn't high I would have known that it came entirely from my own tears sliding down my face. Then she pulled back and gestured to her bed wordlessly.
I don't remember choosing to lay down to go to sleep. I don't remember propositioning her, or being rejected even though I know that both happened. When I woke up just a few short hours later, we were both clothed and snuggled close, and I was holding Adeline's hand while she slept soundly with furrowed and worried eyebrows.
I knew that God knew that I was in his house, but I didn't care. I had way too much to be worried about. I had too many questions about myself to be contemplating. His knowledge of my whereabouts was practically a non issue to me.
When I was fully awake enough to move, I snuck out of Adeline's house through the bedroom window even though I knew they'd all know that I went out that way. There was someone asleep on a chair on the back porch that I hadn't noticed the night before. Blond hair was falling into his face as he took quiet even breaths. He smelled like cigarettes. He stayed asleep as I was leaving.
I took a bus to a hardware store and bought a very big bag of lye. Then I went home and spent a little too much time researching very pretty male movie stars. His name was apparently Ryland.