Sunflower seeds

Agatha’s solo time with How I Met Your Mother was interrupted by Claire storming into their shared apartment, and the clangor as she slammed the door behind her. 

As Claire started approaching the sofa where Agatha had buried herself in a mountain of pillows and blankets, Agatha began asking, “Is everything all ri-” She stopped herself as she noticed the stream of tears falling down Claire’s fair cheeks. “Oh no, what happened?”

The short spams of Claire’s breathing made is hard for her to string a full sentence together. “I hate… myself… so much.” Her voice cracked with the last word, and she fell crying soundly into Agatha’s arms.

“What happened?” Agatha repeated.

“I did it again!” Claire wailed.

“What could you have done that was so terrible?” Agatha asked.

“I had a panic attack in the middle of my chemistry exam.”

Agatha stung with the knowledge of how hard Claire had it with her anxieties. She wanted to shake her friend and tell her over and over how capable she was even without the validation of a piece of paper, but before she did that, she knew she needed to calm Claire. 

“Come on, I know what will make you feel better; do you want to binge watch the office while stuffing ourselves with confort food?”

Claire’s eyes widened with hope. “Will you toast me sunflower seeds?”

Agatha chuckled at Claire’s idea of “Confort food”, but still she hurried to the kitchen. “On to it.”

One hour and a half later, Claire flung the bowl with their snacks into Agatha’s face while moaning, “Please take these away from me, I can’t control myself.”

Agatha took an arm out of the blankets covering her up to the neck in order to block Claire’s incoming sunflower seeds. “Stop it, I’m going to explote if I take one more.” When Agatha’s arm made contact with the bowl, Claire lost her grip on it and the seeds spilled over both of the girls. In unison, they turned to took at each other with equally panicked expressions, and then both of them busted into laughing.

“Come on, we have to shake the blankets and then move the sofa in order to clean this mess.” Claire said.

As she started getting up, Agatha took her hand and pulled her back down. “Can’t you see why you shouldn’t be so scared? You always have everything under control. You can’t let yourself spiral at the mere idea of failing a couple of questions when you’re one of the best students in your class.” Agatha made a gesture to their surroundings. “Just because we can potentially spill a few seeds, doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy having a snack.”

Claire gave a sigh. “I know you’re right, theoretically, but when the time comes I always freeze.”

“Hmm.” Agatha mused. “Well, there’s something I haven’t told you that will change your mind.” Agatha declared. 

“And what is that?” Claire twisted her head sideways.

Agatha picked up a fallen sunflower seed and showed it to Claire. “While I was making these I added a magic ingredient that will make you more confident.”

“What ingredient?” Claire asked, wondering what one could possible add to such a simple snack as sunflower seeds.

“Love. I love you and I think you are the most awesome person in this planet.”

Claire blushed and shoved Agatha. “You’re so cheesy sometimes.” She paused, and took in a deep breath . “Thank you Agatha, I love you too.”

Agatha smiled. “Come on, lets clean this mess.”

Latter that night, while sleeping in their shared room, Agatha woke up with an itching neck. Specifically, she was struggling to reach a lower point in her nape that was killing her.  

“Pss, Claire,” Agatha called out to her sleeping companion.

“Hmmm wha’s’it?” Claire mumble from the other bed. 

“I’m itchy.”

“Go check in the bathroom in case you have a rash or smthin.” Claire said in more alertness, getting into her worried mom mood.

Agatha stumbled in the dark towards the bathroom. She half-closed the door and undressed to look at herself in her underwear. She turned on the bathroom light and used her phone against the mirror to check her nape. When she brushed her long, curly mane aside, she almost dropped her phone as she covered her mouth, muffling a scream that threaten to spill out and wake her sleeping roommate. In that infuriating spot on her back she hadn’t been able to scratch, seemingly adhered to her was a single leaf and a tiny sunflower. Agatha twisted her free arm, grabbed one of the yellow petals, and pulled. 

“Ouch!” She screamed when she felt a pinch. 

“Are you good in there?” Claire called out. 

Agatha threw the petal into the toilet and hurried to dress back on. “My period came early, that’s all.”

“Is itchiness another PMS symptom?”

“Apparently.” Agatha struggled to maintain a calm facade, and the only way she did so was by convincing herself that she was just too tired. In the morning everything would go away, she reassured herself. 

The next morning, however, not only had the flower in her back grown leafyer, she had sprouted even more flowers all along her spine. For the next few days, Agatha tried her best to cover the yellow petals poking through the back of her neck. Soon, she had to replace the t-shirts for hoodies as her flowers kept growing rapidly. Luckily, the receding autumn and the approaching winter gave her an excuse for her sudden change in attire. 

One particularly sunny afternoon, Agatha and Claire were working on painting their living room green to match the natural aesthetic they were going for with their growing collection of houseplants (half of them living thanks to Claire, and half of them dying at the hands of Agatha’s ADHD). Agatha thought an old turtleneck and letting her curly hair down would be enough to cover her sunflowers. 

“Help me out here.” Claire said as she struggle to move their mirror resting against the wall were they were going to paint next. Agatha took the other side of the mirror and groaned the whole way to setting it down on the wall parallel to the balcony. Agatha dropped it hurriedly, thinking quietly to herself how that was enough exercise to last her the whole week. Claire, however, didn’t seem to share Agatha’s problem, as she frequently went to tennis classes. Instead, she focused intently in lowering down the mirror gently and setting it straight. While she was doing that, sunflower from spider-man started playing on Claire’s phone. Agatha couldn’t decide wether she wanted to cry or laugh from the irony. Instead, she looked at herself in the mirror, and then she noticed her sandwich reflection in the balcony’s window. She cringed when she saw the yellow petal that had grown through her collar and was poking through her curls like a peacock feather. Quickly, she took Claire by the arm and rotated them a quarter of a circle so that their back were facing the empty walls. By accident, Claire’s face ended up inches away from Agatha’s, looking bewildered. 

“I love this song.” Agatha said quickly. She took Claire’s hand on her own, and started moving them, carefully avoiding aligning them towards the balcony or the mirror. Claire followed along to Agatha’s weirdly stationary dance without questioning, and soon both girls were singing along at the top of their longs.

“You’re the sunflower,” sang Agatha.

“I think your love would be too much.” Claire replied.

Claire raised her arm, trying to twirl Agatha around. In a panic, Agatha closed the space between them and kissed her roommate. Claire froze for a second, too stunned to reply, and then she too was kissing Agatha back, harder and faster. Agatha hadn’t notice the pit of fear in her stomach till relief came flooding in. And then the only thing she felt has her lips starving for Claire’s. Claire slipped the hand she was resting on Agatha’s waist up along her torso and then got to her chest. In an attempt to deepened the kiss, she took it further up to Agatha’s nape, and stopped herself and she felt a feather-like material stuck between her fingers. She pulled her hand back to revel the bright sunflower petal. 

“What is this?” Claire asked quietly.

“I guess there’s no point hiding it anymore.” Agatha gave a resigned sigh. Then she lifted her shirt and turned around too show Claire her spine brimming with sunflowers. “They have been growing science we ate those sunflower seeds, and they won’t stop.” Agatha had no way of predicting how her friend would real the, and still she was socked by the hysterical laughter that started coming from Claire. She turned around to see Claire lifting her long sleeves from her cardigan that was her staple. Yellow petals sprang free from Claire’s arms. A happy tear fell of Claire’s blue eyes, and Agatha kissed it away. She pulled Claire into a hug, and then lifted her off her feet to take her towards the bead room. An hour later, the girls had closed in the space between their beds, and they were surrounded by yellow petals all over the sheets while they cuddled in the middle. 

“I love you. Like, love you, love you, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Agatha said. 

Claire mouth ached from her inability to stop smiling since her roommate had kissed her. “I love you too, sunshine.”