My Sunflower Solace

Category B: Highly Commended (2024) Monash Short Story Writing Competition
Author: Lynn Hyun

The bus was late.

I shivered, cold wind nipping at my face, and sending tremors up my bare legs. 

In hindsight, choosing a skirt in this frigid weather hadn’t been wise, but I’d wanted to look nice today, and someone thought skirts looked nice on me. No.. I couldn’t really remember.

The bouquet in my hand wasn’t faring much better. The ribbon was nearly undone, with most of the sunflowers looking rather rumpled.

A barrage of autumn leaves came my way, littering nearby roads like flaming spores, contrasting against the dull concrete with their warm hues, practically begging to be stepped on to hear them crunch.

The frosty wind picked up substantially, making my hair go haywire and fly in random directions, and most conveniently, right into my scowling face. 

“Addie?”

I looked up, registering straw-coloured curls, and mischievous hazel eyes—a familiar face, grinning wide, adorned faintly with freckles.

She seemed picturesque, even in this weather: her hair perfect as always, and attitude endlessly sunny.

The yellow t-shirt Mars had on looked quite thin, and I wondered how she wasn’t freezing. It was paired with worn denim overalls and matching ratty sneakers, with bright, dangly sunflower earrings to complete the look. It seemed fitting—so Mars.

Mars looked me over with an appraising gaze, humming, and then nodded, smiling at what she saw.

“Ooh, sunflowers— my favourite!” She giggled. “The skirt looks great! These plaid ones definitely look best on you!”

I flushed, suddenly thankful for the insufferable weather, and hoping the sudden rosiness in my cheeks could be passed off as a product of the cold. Once again, I was amazed at her proficiency in making me feel.. feelings. 

The bus finally came into view, and we got on.

Mars sat down without even attempting to reach for her bus card, shrugging unapologetically. I sighed, and sat beside her, setting my bag down. 

“You’ve become such a stickler to the rules.” She pouted, twirling a pale lock around a finger.

I huffed, shooting her a glare.

Mars chuckled at my apparent lack of response, light hitting her hazel eyes just right, making them look golden for a moment, and her soft smile quirked into more of a roguish grin that somehow made her look even more endearing.

She said something witty, and I couldn’t find it within myself to truly listen. She looked like a goddess. I’d never been the religious type, yet her ethereal face at that moment made me reconsider.

“Your.. eyes look.. pretty.” I muttered haltingly, suddenly feeling very forgiving. I couldn’t really stay mad at her.

Mars cackled, slapping her thighs in amusement. I went crimson this time, and couldn’t help but feel embarrassed at my cheesiness.

She quickly recovered. “My eyes? I like yours better. They’re such a pretty shade of brown, and they fit you just right.” Mars huffed, her face morphing into an expression that said, ‘I thought you knew this, silly!’

I’d always thought my eyes were rather uninteresting, but of course, she’d managed to make them feel special.

The bus hit a bump, and I clutched onto the bouquet, steadying myself, while Mars seemed not to have been affected at all.

“Addie.”

I pretended not to hear her and began adjusting the ribbon on the bouquet. Since when were ribbons on bouquets? Did the colour of the ribbon also have a meaning, like the many meanings a flower could hold?

“Addison.” Mars murmured again, softly, yet with clear resolve; her tone becoming serious for the first time since we’d entered the bus.

“Yeah?” I looked at her, smiling, yet my body betrayed me by tensing; my hands crinkling the cellophane layer of the bouquet.

Mars looked anguished.

“Excuse me,” a voice interrupted. It seems Mars didn’t need to do anything. “Would you move your stuff?”

A man was glancing at my handbag occupying the empty seat beside me. 

I moved it and looked away as he sat down.

Away from her. Away from where she was supposed to be. The fantasy was lost, my hopes extinguished; akin to a dwindling flame of a candle providing warmth to a lonely room finally being snuffed out for the night, letting darkness and cold begin to fill the empty room again.

That’s how I felt. Empty and cold. Mars had been my one comforting solace, and I had basked in the gentle warmth she provided until she was gone.

Although ‘Mars’ had always managed to prove herself to be a figment of my imagination, something shattered torturously in me every time it happened.

I wanted to laugh at the irony— even in my fantasies I couldn’t escape her. The lack of her.

The bus reached my stop, and I numbly managed to pay before stumbling off.

I began walking dazedly along the street, mind blank, and legs taking me on a painfully familiar route.

Before I knew it, I’d arrived. The headstone had accumulated some grime while I’d been away. It seemed everyone had moved on from Mars but me.

I sat down next to her, gently setting the sunflowers over where she lay.

“So,” I started. It felt wrong to introduce myself to someone I knew so very well. Thus, I never did.

“I’ve had a day, today. You wouldn’t believe—” I started talking without preamble, not really listening to the words coming out. She must’ve been lonely.

There were too many things that were never addressed before Mars was gone.

Too much left undone. Those movie tickets to surprise her, now never to be used, and that board game we’d left for ‘later’, but there hadn’t been a ‘later’, had there? 

Too many words left unsaid. I had been too cowardly, too weak, too pathetic to say—

“I love you.” I whispered hoarsely. The words came out as both a painful epiphany and confession at once. 

Distantly, I realised the words were wrong. It was supposed to be ‘loved’, not ‘love’. 

I couldn’t bring myself to phrase it differently.