Sunflowers and Roses: Chapter 2

The only reason I knew Haley was there was because she yanked my headphones off and held them above my head just out of reach. She was tall where I was not, but she forgot the importance of watching people’s feet where I did not, kicking her in the shin and promptly reclaiming my headphones.

“Can I help you?” I said mildly, choosing to ignore her facsimile of a greeting in return for not mocking the half hearted curses she let drop over her pained leg. 

“Archer, you were supposed to meet me like an hour ago.” She said, trying to regain a shattered aura of superiority. It would have worked better if she weren’t still rubbing her denim clad shin. I would have made fun of it if I hadn’t been catapulted back to Fallon’s side at the mere mention of my absence. The ghost of rain slipped down my face and my eyes were dazzled by phantom sunlight forming the indistinct image of-

“I got caught up with something.” I replied, doing my best not to remember how Fallon’s hand had felt in mine. How Fallon’s hair had looked slightly damp. How Falloon had the smallest crease between her eyebrows when she was thinking. Instead, I pulled off my backpack and took out the sheaf of notes for her. “Besides, this is what you were looking for, right?”

Quick as a viper, she snatched them from my hands and started reading over them. “Yeah? What’s something? You didn’t even bother to text me you’d be late. I like this one for the dagger scene.” She jabbed a finger at what I had thought was a fairly uninspired plan for a single spotlight on the leading actor. 

“It’s a spotlight, it’s not reinventing the wheel.” I folded my arms and leaned back against the wall, dragging a hand through my hair. It had been nice talking to someone about something outside of the theater for a little while. I wondered whether it would be boring for an art student to go to a museum if it meant getting to listen to her talk about that stuff again.

“It’s simple and classic.” Haley reached the end of the notes and jammed them into her own binder. “Now what was so all-consuming you couldn’t text me you were dead in a ditch?” 

“Relax, Hale, it’s not the end of the world,” I tried not to openly wince at her borderline carelessness with the work I had protected with my life. “I got caught in the rainstorm with hand drawn notes and a dead phone, I ended up under this awning near the science buildings with this drop-dead gorgeous chick for a couple of hours.”

“Sounds like fun, what’s her name? Audrey Hepburn?” Haley’s incredulous tone and quirked eyebrow dropped me from cloud nine faster than vomit on a roller coaster. Haley didn’t date and didn’t get dating, she wouldn’t understand how someone could set your heart on fire the way - well, not Fallon I’d only just met her. If I kept repeating that, in twenty years I might have had myself convinced it was true.

“Her name is Fallon, you unromantic bitch.” I did my best to throw an arm over her shoulders as the two of us made our way to the Black Box. 

“Oh I am sure that it is, I’m sure she had freckles like dewdrops and a voice like melted caramel.” Haley rolled her eyes though she let me keep my arm draped around her. I was almost hurt enough to take it back anyway.

“Look, I can prove that it’s true because my phone will fully charged and mercifully undrenched,” with my free hand, I started digging in the pockets of my pants and then those of my backpack when they yielded few results. “She charged it on her laptop for me while we waited out the storm - where the fuck is my phone?”

Reaching the Black Box, I all but dumped out my entire bag trying to find it with only one conclusion to draw when I couldn’t. Slumping into my seat to take notes on “Screenwriting in the 21st Century,” I couldn’t bite back the grin that was slowly spreading across my face, scratching at my beard and trying to let it slip back away.

“What’s up?” Osmond fell into the seat next to me, his body and his bag making a noise that could only be described as slumpf. I couldn’t bear to respond and we all stewed in a crock-pot of indifference. He scratched his own far more scraggly beard and leaned around my body to get a clear line of contact to Haley. “What’s up?”

“He’s in love.” She replied, not bothering to look up from her planner. 

“I am not in love and I am offended--” I interjected, but was abruptly cut off by Osmond.

“What, again? Who this time?” 

“Some Audrey Hepburn type chick.” 

I spluttered and gasped in indignation for a moment before I gathered my things and rather ungracefully climbed over my own chair to move to a row behind the two of them and away from their rather childish antics. I settled into my new seat and tried not to pout. To their credit, Osmond and Haley just put their own bags on the chair I’d kindly left open and dutifully ignored me. Osmond picked at his nails. Haley picked me apart.

“When you say Audrey Hepburn-”

“I mean he had that look in his eyes that he got after watching Roman Holiday for the first time.” As much as I hated the conflation of a Hollywood classic and my daily life, I had to admit that Haley was making me re-evaluate my standards for romance. Maybe Fallon was the Gregory Peck in this scenario. 

“Great! Who is she?” Osmond clapped and rubbed his hands together. Even Haley couldn’t hide her hint of a smirk. Ozzy was the sun to her moon, bombastic and full of nuclear explosives while she literally had a dark side. Osmond turned his back on Haley and faced me, glittery hope dancing in his eyes. He didn’t need to ask again.

“Her name is Fallon,” Just her name felt warm in my mouth and sent me cascading back into dreams.  “She’s into art. She wants to do this internship with the Museum of Modern Art.” She has hair like waves of wheat, eyes like a peat bog with algae swirled through it, and a smile like a soft spring breeze.

“Sounds like a catch,” Haley said dryly, her brow arched. “Do you even know her last name? Her instagram?”

“No, I don’t!” I said with a smile, feeling the crinkle of my eyes like someone lit the fuse on a firecracker. “I have something better! Or rather, she does.”

I paused for dramatic effect, an effect that was shattered by Ozzy leaning forward to ask what it was like I was Homer delivering a recitation of Penelope and Odysseus’ reunion while Haley just threw a highlighter at my head. “Shit or get off the can, Archie.” She said with all the inflection and care of a beached whale. 

My chest grew tight and I smiled at my closest friends, giving a  moment’s pause before saying “She still has my phone.”