Author's Note

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May 2024: "In the Garden"

Rules

They say that everyone is born with the ability to understand the unwritten rules of social interaction. And yet, when Wallflower would ask what these rules were, she would never get the same answer.

Even worse, whenever she would try to apply them, it turned out that there were several unmentioned nuances that changed the rules completely.

So why bother trying? Why bother to fit in?

If only she didn’t want to. Then it wouldn’t matter that she was alone during lunch breaks, that she stood awkwardly in a corner at a school’s party.

But she had something no one else did. After school, she would go behind the parking lot to her garden.

There, she was alone.

There, there weren’t any unwritten rules she had to figure out.

There, she knew what to do, what each plant needed and how to take care of them.

And she was happy.