Filling Your Brain With Flowers

20260625

Prompt from “pridemonthprompts” 2025 list.

“I don’t understand how you do that.” Betsy muttered, casting an anxious glance back at the performers, who were in full swing once again.
“What? I’ve always wanted to play a trombone.” Tilly said, as if walking up to a complete stranger and asking to mess around with their professional equipment, in front of a whole crowd of people no less, was just, like, a thing! “And they were cool about it.”
“Thankfully!”
“I’ve found most people are cool about stuff if you’re upfront and don’t make it weird.”
Betsy rolled her eyes. “Babe, I love you to pieces, but I’m not sure you’re capable of avoiding making situations weird!”
“Psh. I make things interesting.” Tilly tossed her head, that trademark self-assured grin flashing between rainbow tresses. It was equal parts enviable, annoying, and deeply attractive. “And hey, if both parties got a story to tell their friends later, that means everybody wins. Right?”
“Doesn’t that… bother you?” Betsy scrutinised her girlfriend. Sometimes it felt like they were different species. “Wondering what they’re going to say? What the person they’re talking to will think?”
“No?” Tilly said blankly. “Why would it? Not like I’m gonna hear it.”
“What if they’re talking to someone you know, though??”
Tilly laughed. “If it’s someone I know, they’ll go ‘sounds like my mate Tilly, isn’t she cool?’. Why would that bother me?”
Definitely different species.
“…What?” Tilly looked increasingly puzzled. “What have you done where a nasty story got back to you?”
“Nothing, thankfully!” Betsy cringed at the thought. “One of the only perks of being as boring as I am-”
“Oh, c’mon!” Tilly scoffed sharply. “We’ve been through this. Timid doesn’t mean boring. It just means you have trouble letting the interesting out. I find you interesting, your friends find you interesting, when I’ve managed to get you to talk to people they generally find you interesting… surely you can’t think we’re all liars??”
Her hurt tone stung deep.
“No, no, that’s not what I meant…”
Tilly raised an eyebrow. “Mmkay? Not sure what else you can mean, when you keep telling someone what they’re saying is total shit…”
It was a question. Not one Betsy had a good answer to you. Because when you put it like that, yes, it made sense Tilly was upset, but…! Of course Betsy couldn’t just think of herself as interesting! And she wasn’t sure there was any way to make Tilly understand this.
After a long, agonised pause, Tilly probed “Have you talked to your therapist about paranoia?”
“Paranoia?”
“Yeah. Thinking everyone around you keeps lying to you, even if you know that’s irrational, is a symptom of paranoia, right?”
That… Eesh. She really didn’t get it.
Betsy swallowed a sigh. “It’s not paranoia, exactly, it… I’ve talked to her a lot about self-esteem. She thinks I absorbed loads of negative self-talk growing up. I’m trying to unravel it, but… it’s a slow kind of process.”
“Growing up?” Tilly frowned. “What, your parents?”
“Not just them, but yeah.” Betsy twirled hair around one finger. “Like, whenever I was… being me… mum tended to lecture me about how I’d ‘never get a man like that’.”
Tilly snickered. And yeah, ok, it was kinda funny in hindsight… but it still hurt. And therefore so did the laugh.
“And at school I got the same kind of stuff from teachers, and the other kids made fun of me for being boring and frumpy and failing at being a girl - when they deigned to notice me at all. I guess I never quite got over it all.”
Silence as Tilly digested this. Utterly lost.
This time Betsy let the sigh out. “You’re gonna say something like ‘but that’s all obviously bollox, so why would it bother you’… right?”
“Was basically what I was thinking, yeah.” Tilly shrugged. Her expression still pensive. “But, I mean, I guess it’s not that easy for you?”
“It’s not that easy for most people, babe.” Betsy scoffed. Unable to keep back a wry, fond smile. “You’re special.”
Tilly just nodded. Clearly still thinking. This lopsided compliment being effortlessly tucked away as a positive observation. After all, this was the woman who claimed she viewed “I’m awesome” as being a similar statement to “I have brown eyes”.
I have no idea what planet you dropped in from, but I wish I had just a fraction of your eldritch power for self-love!
“Ok… so…” Tilly said slowly. “Because they got to you first, when you were a little kid and didn’t know better, now you have trouble believing us, even though we’re the ones who aren’t spouting obvious BS?”
“Uhhh yeah I guess?”
“Hm.” Tilly chewed on her lip.
“…I’m working on it.” Betsy offered softly.
“Well, I hope your therapist has some, like, brain hacks, because that seems like a serious problem.”
“Uh-huh.” Betsy slipped a hand into Tilly’s with a bemused smile. “It’s one they’ve dealt with a lot. It just… takes a while to dig all the old, stubborn brain-weeds out. Ok?”
“Well… ok.” Tilly squeezed her hand. “But know that I wouldn’t lie to you, and I definitely know what I’m talking about when I say that you’re the opposite of a failure of a woman, and way interesting, and I’m so glad you stuck with being you. Even if you ended up with brain weeds.”
Betsy let the words wash over her. Holding them close. Using them to water the flowers she was trying to grow in her mind, to replace the tangled, choking mat of weeds.
She leant close and kissed Tilly’s cheek. “Thanks, babe. And… hey, next time maybe I will join in, if it’s offered. I mean, assuming that guy was serious about me trying the drums…”
“He was totes serious! Maybe next time, yeah?”
“Yeah.” A flower bud crept upwards. Delicate. Tentative. But, at its core, brave. “Maybe next time.”

Prompt was “Self-esteem”.