Relative Fiction | ✓

25

I was good at excuses by nature. I'd tell my mom I needed money to pay for a tutor, and then go buy Xanax and weed. I'd tell my sister I was going to Hunter's to play video games, and then go fuck Sage in her BMW. Excuses and lies were like a second language to me, and they rolled as effortlessly off of my tongue as telling someone my own name.

But when I knocked on the door of the little guest house AJ lived in, the afternoon after our date, with a bundle of orange roses (orange for desire, because red meant love, and I wasn't ready to stomach that possibility), my ocean of excuses had suddenly become a dried up desert, tumbleweeds and all.

I had never been to AJ's place before, but I knew it was on the nicer side of the island, closer to where Sage's parents lived but a few blocks in from the beach. She mentioned her mother's cousin was some kind of Doctors Without Borders volunteer and was rarely home, and she let AJ use the two-story guest house on the property behind the pool. It was low tide, so even the tiny inlets of rivers that snaked through the marshes were dried up, muddy and crawling with crabs. It was like the universe was telling me to leave, and that this desert would pick my bones clean, but I didn't care.

When AJ answered the door, and the scent of vanilla and lavender came wafting from the front hallway, I should have expected the look of surprise on her face, but it was more than that. It was a moment of sheer panic, and even though it was gone as quickly as it came, it still made me want to throw up over the side of the railing on her steps.

"Hey," she finally breathed out, a little more at ease as her eyes trailed down to the flowers in my hand.

"Hey," I grumbled, clutching the stems tighter in my hands. "I just uh...I'm sorry I didn't mean to just show up but uh...well, I thought it was probably really asinine of me to work in a flower shop and not give you flowers yesterday so..."

I stuck them out to her before I inserted my foot further into my mouth, and she took them from me gently, running her fingers over the rose petals. "I've never seen orange roses before. I love them, but you really didn't have to. Yesterday was...pretty great, even without the flowers."

"Okay," I let out a breath I hadn't even realized I was holding in. "Well, I guess uh..."

"Do you want to come in?" AJ blurted out, and then it was my turn to be surprised. I thought I was hearing things until she actually stepped aside and waved me in.

"Uh...sure," I nodded, following her into the front hallway. AJ immediately pulled me into her open living room and plopped me down on the plush beige couch. She fluttered around to the kitchen island and put the roses in a large mason jar, pushing them into the center of the island next to a basket of peaches. Other than a few pieces of art that looked like they were bought at the local gallery, the walls of her condo were pretty much bare, and the plain wooden coffee table that sat in front of the couch had one book on it - Humans of New York. A TV hung on the far wall of the living room with nothing underneath it except a jumble of wires. In the corner by the sliding glass door to the deck, a pile of half a dozen boxes were pressed up against the wall. I didn't know what to expect, but I didn't expect it to seem like nobody truly lived there.

"Sorry," she sighed out, leaning her elbows on the countertop and rubbing her forehead. "I'm just a little...stressed, I guess."

"About what?" I asked, perking up as she walked over to the couch. She sat on the other side, and even though there was only one cushion between us, the conscious effort she made to put some distance between us stung.

"This book I've been working on," she groaned and pulled at her hair, letting it drape over the arm of the couch. "Just...writers block, editing, deadlines...that's all."