“Uhm… nothing.”
My dad frowned and stopped what he was doing, turning to give me his full attention. My dad and I looked nothing alike. I took after our mother, with my red hair and freckles. George Fairview was tall, dark, and handsome. He styled his hair into a respectable side part that made him look really suave and put together in his black and white suit.
He also had worn a mustache for as long as I could remember. Once, he shaved it off, and he looked so weird without it that both Theo and I begged him to never shave it off again.
The mustache in question turned down at my clearly sour mood.
“Presentation didn’t go well?”
I shook my head and ground the toe of my shoe into the paisley floor runner that ran through the entrance hall.
“Wanna talk about it?” my dad asked, his voice soft and gentle.
I glanced up at him, the harsh sting of tears burning behind my eyes again, and the next thing I knew, I was spilling my guts.
I told him all about how Clarissa made me ruin my sign, how Kenny called me that horrible word, and that Theo had stood up for me in the hallway but then got in trouble again with Father Samwell.
My dad was a pretty easygoing man most of the time, but as soon as the words ‘faggot,’and‘dyke’left my lips, a scary, angry look that I wasn’t used to seeing crossed his face.
“I see,” he said, brushing one of my tears away with his thumb.
“What do those words mean?” I asked him, sniffing loudly.
He pursed his lips and thought for a moment.
“Those are negative words used by people with a very narrow view of the world to describe people they perceive to be different from themselves.”
I frowned at him. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means, Ryan, that I’m going to have to have a chat with Father Samwell and this Kenny kid’s parents.”
I hiccoughed and nodded. He smiled at me and grabbed my hand.
“Now. If those kids think you’re such a freak for liking flowers, then I guess I’m a freak, too.” He grinned down at me, tugging me toward the back of the house. “What do you say us freaks stick together and make some crazy bouquets for tomorrow’s service, hmm? All of your mom’s lilies are in bloom, and I bet you can help me put something together that would blow Mrs. William’s wig off… if she was still alive, that is.” He winked at me, and I bit back a giggle, following him out the back door.
We spent the rest of the day laughing together in the garden. I lost myself in the methodical and meticulous process of harvesting the lilies and making so many arrangements that soon, we were surrounded in bushels and bushels of fragrant flowers.
My dad and I joked around and chatted the whole time. For the first time that day, I didn’t care that I didn’t have a guardian angel to protect me.
I had my dad, and he made me feel safe and loved andnormal.
Watching him trim the stem of a particularly robust lily stalk, I realized at that moment that maybe I didn’t want to be a florist after all.
Screw what those kids at school thought about me. I wanted to be like my dad, and if being a mortician was good enough for him, then it was good enough for me.
Alexa, play: Seeds - Yoke Lore
(Present Day)
“We went a little overboard with the lilies, as you can see.” Ryan smiled down at the photo, his eyes glassy with tears. “The whole house was full of them for a week, and everything smelled amazing.”
My heart was pounding in my chest, and I was so full of conflicting emotions that I found myself unable to speak.
Before I met Ryan, I didn’t reallyfeelemotions like this. Damian had pretty much pounded the feelings out of me. Every time I started to feel angry, sad, or remorseful about things,I would bury those feelings with stupid jokes, drugs, or just straight-up dissociation.
But now… now it was like a giant wall had come down, and I was drowning in all these feelings I didn’t know how to process or unpack.
I wasangry.
