Pink Triangle

by Briny Rivers

Chapter 4 - Jacked Up

It was hot. Swelteringly hot. The heat was wrapping itself around Wallflower like a blanket, leaving her uncomfortably warm. Her dress wasn’t helping, at all, despite the skirt allowing for some air flow.

Her gaze went up, looking towards the adults. Their faces looked blurry to her. There was her father, in his Sunday best—the suit that made him look as tall as a skyscraper. And her mother, wearing a dress with an ugly pattern that made Wallflower feel dizzy just looking at it. And the strangers they were talking to, still deep in a conversation that Wallflower couldn’t understand.

It was baffling to her. They all spent the past hour cooped up in one big hot room listening to a man go on and on about a book Wallflower never found particularly interesting, and now the only thing that seemed to matter was standing out in the heat and torture their poor daughter with the sun.

The other adults looked down on her as she fidgeted with a look of sympathy, because that’s all they could do. Nobody asked her if she was okay, or if she needed to sit in the shade, or told her father to stop holding her hand so tightly.

Wallflower turned to a nearby tree, the shade it provided, and the patches of dandelions that grew around it. Never before did she see such an inviting sight; the shade that would save her from the heat and the tiny flowers she could pluck and examine closely with a smile while her parents talked and talked and talked until they could finally leave.

Instinctively, she tried pulling away from her fathers side and towards the tree. She was met with her father pulling her right back, his grip tightening a bit. This was the warning, and she disregarded it entirely. Momentarily becoming a petulant little annoyance of a child, she whined and tried pulling away again.

Without even looking to Wallflower, her father merely responded by pulling her back even harder. Then his grip tightened, hard. Her tiny hand was gone inside of his grasp, confined to the death squeeze that made her finally shut up and sit still like a well behaved girl should.

Sometimes her mind ran wild with thoughts of things that could happen to her. A tragic event that would make her parents see the error of their ways and wish they had treated Wallflower better. Maybe one day she’d slip and fall on her head, or get run over crossing the street, or even be the sole victim of a car crash. Whichever would be most traumatic for them. One day, she hoped it would happen. And they would cry and cry and cry, while Wallflower would laugh at them from heaven.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

Her fathers gruff voice snapped her from her thoughts. They were suddenly in the car, Wallflower in the backseat. He hadn’t even stopped talking, but Wallflower was already wincing. If he ever spoke to her, it wasn’t for a good reason.

She leaned against the window as her father continued to berate her, his words going through one ear and out the other. Her hand was still sore, nearly throbbing.

“Are you even listening to me?”

Out of the corner of her eye, her father turned around from the driver's seat to look at her. He said something, but she couldn’t hear it. Something was loud, it was hurting her ears. The noise became an ear-splitting cacophony, lasting only for a second but engulfing Wallflower’s whole world. Her body lurched forward, her face crashing against—

---

Wallflower’s eyes opened, her entire body jolting underneath her blankets. It was a dream. Her eyes hastily scanned her room, double checking to see if she really was awake. Sure enough, everything felt and looked real.

It was cold. Not even the blankets were helping. Crawling out of her bed cocoon, Wallflower stumbled to her feet and made her way to the window. She left it open because she was stupid and forgot to close it before sleeping.

After closing it with a thud, Wallflower trudged back to her bed and flopped on top of her mass of blankets. It was probably a good idea to go back to sleep, and normally she would. But she didn’t.

Reaching over to her nightstand, Wallflower grabbed her phone and unlocked it. Having already committed it to muscle memory, she opened her messages with Aria. Their usual routine had been going on for most days again; pester each other at random times of the day, more so after school had ended, and maybe say goodnight to each other if Wallflower was lucky.

Where they were at now was where their relationship began and ended. Good friends, and nothing more. No matter how much Wallflower wanted to deny it, her desire to be with Aria as more than just a friend was still strong in her heart. She couldn’t ignore it any longer, nor try to deny it.

But it was never going to happen. The leap from friends to..being romantically involved was huge, like a giant ravine between the two of them. It was an impassable barrier that could never be crossed, a solid brick wall that Wallflower would never be able to break through. Because how would she? How would she even try? Was there any way to bring it up? There was no way she could try and flirt, that would fail horribly. Even if it didn’t, how would Aria react? What if she wasn’t interested, or worse, thought less of Wallflower because of it? What if she would be disgusted by it?

Staring at their messages on her phone, Wallflower felt the whole world close around her. Her fists clenched, her grip on her phone tightened, and it felt like she wasn’t breathing enough air. She hyperventilated, her eyes suddenly feeling wet.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair how she had to feel this way about another girl, her best friend. It wasn’t fair how she didn’t even know if Aria felt the same. It wasn’t fair how her stupid brain wasn’t letting her think of anything else. It wasn’t fair how Aria wasn’t with her, by her side. It wasn’t fair how someone else could come in and take Aria all for themselves and destroy Wallflower’s world. It wasn’t fair how Wallflower wanted nothing more than to disappear forever and ever and to stop feeling anything—

Three dots. Three dots on her phone screen, in their messages. Aria was typing something. It was the middle of the night, when Wallflower was usually in a deep sleep, and Aria was typing something.

Wallflower held her breath, staring at those condescending dots bouncing as Aria typed something. Did she know she was awake? No, that was impossible. What could she possibly have to say then, in the middle of the night when Wallflower was usually asleep?

And then, they were gone. No more dots. And no message, either. All that for nothing.

A shaky sigh escaped Wallflower as she turned the phone off. Maybe it was Aria, maybe it was some sort of glitch. Maybe it was her imagination. Regardless, there was nothing. No message. No sudden declaration of love that would solve all of Wallflower’s problems.

“..I’m so pathetic.”

Wallflower rubbed her eyes dry and set her phone aside, deciding to instead wallow in her misery and sleep. Her eyelids felt awfully heavy, anyways.

She laid back on her side, dragging the blankets over her body up to her neck. One of the blankets was a weighted one, her uncle bought it before she had a job at the nursery and her own income. She still hadn’t paid him back for it, now that she had money. It was just another example of Wallflower being a burden.

Her thoughts finally began to quiet down as sleep began to take hold, her body curling up underneath the blankets. The bad thoughts could wait until tomorrow, both her brain and body were too tired to think any longer.

There was always tomorrow.

Author's Note:

Bit of a short chapter this time. This week was pretty exhausting for me, but I was already planning to make it a short one regardless. Sorry if you wanted cute romantic tension, I wanted to write some angst!

Comments

[Briny Rivers]

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Thank you, I’m glad you like it so far!