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Jamil followed Kalim as he ran through the field of golden flowers, hands in his pockets. Kalim had insisted on a road trip this summer, and Jamil hadn’t said no. They’d been on the road for half a day when Kalim had insisted they stop at a sign advertising a sunflower farm. Kalim had only seen sunflowers at school; they weren’t native to the scalding sands and he’d been excited, rushing down the rows before Jamil could finish talking to the owner.
"They're so bright, they really do look like sunshine," Kalim observed when Jamil finally caught up to him, tilting his head back to look up at one of the taller stalks. The sunflower was easily level with his shoulder, its face turned toward the late afternoon sun. Kalim looked almost personally delighted by the fact, like the flower had chosen to grow this tall specifically for his benefit. "Look how tall they are…Have you ever seen a flower this big?"
"Can't say I have." Jamil glanced around at the field, back at Kalim—at the sun reflecting off his white hair standing out among the golden petals of the flowers. Even though the petals were as yellow as the sun's rays, something about the flowers reminded him of Kalim. The cheerful boy had never once in his life tried to make himself smaller or dimmer to fit in somewhere. HIs personality could be as loud as the bright flowers around him.
"You're staring at me," Kalim said as he spun around to smile at Jamil.
"I'm not staring. I'm making sure you don't trip and faceplant, or break the plants."
Kalim's response was to stick out his tongue and slip through the green leafy stalks in front of him.
Jamil moved to catch up. Even here in this happy place, there was danger to Kalim. There was always danger to Kalim. As he watched him wandering further down the row, hands trailing along the edges of the flowers, humming some pop song, he, not for the first time, wished that was different. But then they may never have met.
"Jamil." Kalim's voice pulled him out of his thoughts. He'd stopped a few rows ahead, crouched slightly, one hand wrapped carefully around the stem of a particularly large sunflower, its head nearly the size of a dinner plate. "Can I pick this one?"
"I pre-paid for us to pick a few. Weren’t you paying attention?”
Kalim grinned at him and snapped the stem, carefully raising the top-heavy thing to sniff it. “They don’t really smell like much.” He held it up, turning it slightly so the late afternoon light caught the petals.
“Jamil! Take it. Isn’t it pretty?”
"What am I supposed to do with a giant flower?"
"Keep it! Or…I know you like to eat sunflower seeds. You could figure out how to dry them….”
Jamil raised an eyebrow. "You want to dry sunflower seeds?"
"Yeah, or we can save some to plant next year… Or just eat them. " Kalim shrugged. "I just thought you'd like it. It reminds me of you.”
Jamil looked at him incredulously. “A sunflower…reminded you of me?”
“Yeah! They’re tall and strong, and the guy at the front said they’re really sturdy, and they're beautiful!”
Jamil frowned as he looked around, seeing the sunflowers he had thought were so much like Kalim. He realized some had shifted their axis…always pointing towards the sun. He turned to look at Kalim again, his smile so warm it made Jamil’s own lips twitch up. He supposed two things could be true; the flowers were bright like Kalim, but like Jamil, they always turned towards their sun.
"Fine," he said. "We'll dry the seeds."
Kalim's whole face lit up, "I'll get a bag from the car," Kalim said, already turning to jog back only to have his arm caught by Jamil.
“I can carry it. We don’t need a bag.” He reached out with his free hand and looped it around Kalim’s waist to pull him against his chest. “We should get going if we want to make it to the hotel by dark.”
“Ok, Jamil! I’m hungry anyway.” Kalim pressed a quick kiss against his lips and took off back the way they’d come, Jamil following more slowly as he shook his head, looking at the flowers around him with a new light.
He twirled the stem of the one Kalim had picked and snapped another one off its stalk, a smaller one. He wanted to keep the one that Kalim had given him because it felt like a symbol of them.