She’d never gotten flowers before, in her life.
It was simply one of those things, the Southside rarely offering the kind of softness, or even the typical teenaged experience, that leant itself to such things. All there were, were drugs, liquor, the things to numb the day to day and the quiet that same when ones thoughts were simply left unmoored, leaving a person to themselves, and only themselves. The exactness of that what a girl like her needed to keep herself together, sticking together small pieces of herself to form a mocking wholeness. There was no times for cracks and lines, only plans, next steps, a decisiveness to help drive a person forward. Some called it determination, but Toni knew it to simply be survival at its finest.
Still, in passing, she wondered what it’d be like. Cynical eyes passing over pale flowers. These were the things that Hara liked, weren’t they? They were always in her room, always hanging off of ledges. Stolen, maybe, or from suitors, maybe. She seemed to bang her way through life and come out with literal roses, a feat that she’d never been able to understand. Pretty things that died too easily, the practical part of her soul couldn’t comprehend it, but yet she was still and staring. Perhaps that was what came with the art of sweetness. A skill lacking within her.
Hands on her camera, feeling the urge. She couldn’t afford them, but there was another next best that she could, entering inside with a lift in her features. Play sweet, play it like the Northsiders do, even if it makes you feel a little sick inside. “Hello.” a hand slid over the countertop, eyes flickering to the girl that sat behind the till. The kind of blonde perfection that seemed to define so many of the girls up here, pale and untouched by the world itself. “I was wondering if I could photograph some of your inventory. Is that alright? They’re pretty. I figured it might look good in our school newspaper.”
And thank god, she supposed, for the excuse she had now, silently thanking Jughead Jones for his strange intervention in unknown hours within her life.
