Flowers competing for the sun

I'm back to prompts.  You thought I'd forgotten, huh?  Not quite.  I just got distracted.  
Write a story from the point just after an important event has taken place.

Sitting in my front yard, I plucked at the weeds, toyed the blades of grass between my fingers, tore them in half neatly.  In half again.  And again until there was nothing left to tear.  Blissfully alone, I watched the clouds do their far-off shuffle against the neat, flat horizon.  The sun was finally starting to sink lower in the sky, offering a half-assed reprieve to the hot, damp spring afternoon.  I reclined onto my back, feeling the uncomfortable scratch of grass against sunburned skin.  I pulled my denim shorts further down my thighs and sighed, yielding to the discomfort.  Turning my head to the side, I smiled when I saw my friend coming down the street, heading towards my house.

She flopped down next to me so casually, so confidently, so identical to the way she had yesterday and would tomorrow, that I knew something had to be said.  I plucked a dandelion from the edge of the bushes and sat, tearing the petals from the head one by one.  "Well, I did it," I said as I looked away from her, up towards the sky.  I said it in a way that offered her the chance to respond with nonchalance, if that's the way she wanted the conversation to go.  I said it like it didn’t matter, in the event that, to her, it didn’t.

A look of surprise registered on her face.  She sat still for just a moment and then leaned forward with a smile.  "And?" she asked.

"And. . .I don't know.  It was perfect.  I guess.  Whatever.  It's done now."  I immediately wished away the tone of annoyance in my voice.  Tones like these, I've found, can invite conversations I'd rather avoid.

I laid back down, an arm flung over my eyes, knees still bent, locked together as if.

We went quiet, which was not uncommon for us. I watched the clouds, holding fallen leaves over my eyes in order to catch the pattern of the day from behind the furred lens of the leaf.

She rolled onto her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows, scratching one foot with the other.  Stretching, she reached for a dandelion, pulled it and tucked it wordlessly behind my ear, smoothing the hair there.  Finally, she sighed, “Okay, I have to go.  My parents don’t even know that I left.”

I walked her halfway home, as was our custom.  At that halfway point, I turned to hug her and realized that she had tears streaming down her face.  “I know,” she laughed through her tears, “It’s ridiculous for me to cry.  You must think I’m a freak.  I just. . .This means we’re different now.”

I shook my head, trying to laugh off the perceived difference, but in the end I stopped myself from going through with it.

I took the flower from behind my ear and tucked it neatly into her hair, hugging her again and wiping away her tears.  I turned away from her then, conscious of my bare feet on the pebbled road.  A few giant steps led me over into the grass and I walked the soft way back home.


*Title from Winter by Tori Amos