Prologue
If you asked me to choose between my two jobs, I’d pick the first one without a second thought.
For two very important reasons.
First, I love flowers: their colors, their scents, and their overall variety and uniqueness. I know each flower individually, along with its symbolic meaning when given as a gift.
I know how each one smells, and I know exactly what kind of care every species needs in order to bloom properly.
The second reason is that flowers don’t look at you with judgment. They don’t lie, and there’s no chance they’ll ever betray you. You feel good when you’re among them.
Not uncomfortable.
You don’t expect them to open their mouths and throw poisonous words at you. Words that hit straight at the heart.
Their thorns exist only for their own protection, not to hurt anyone on purpose.
And if you give them your care, they fill your world with beauty in return.
That’s why I love my job at the flower shop.
Honestly, I wish I had never taken the second job.
But I needed the money. The landlord of the apartment I live in—Mr. Fotis—was getting ready to evict me if the rent was late for even one more month.
That’s what he said.
And as wonderful as working with plants is, it doesn’t exactly pay the bills.
I didn’t have another choice.
Maybe if I hadn’t taken that second job, none of this would have ever happened.
Looking back at how it all started, I realize that if I hadn’t been under such financial pressure, I would never have ended up in this position.
I remember the exact moment, the fateful fall that would later become the reason my entire life, as I knew it, came crashing down with me.
I remember it like a scene from a movie, as if it happened to someone else.
Not to me.
I'm holding the tray in my hands, full of glasses containing ridiculously expensive drinks whose scent is making me dizzy.
Not that they smell bad, just that ever since I arrived, I haven’t been feeling well.
Everything irritates me.
The uniform feels tight, the crowd is overwhelming, and the place itself is enormous.
A mansion.
I swear you could easily film a horror movie in here.
In the hall I’m standing in, nearly every wall is covered with framed artwork, muted tones clashing with bursts of intense color.
Lavish decorative objects are placed with precision in every corner. The ceiling is massive, with enormous chandeliers hanging from above.
And if the hall weren't so suffocatingly crowded, I imagine my footsteps would echo across the glossy floor.
It's so packed with people, and they're all dressed so elegantly, sharp dark suits, shimmering gowns, and jewelry that I'm sure is worth a fortune, that I feel completely out of place here, like a fly in a glass of milk.
I feel like with every step I take, heads are turning to look at me, even though when I lift my gaze, almost no one actually does.
And when someone does, it’s only to reach for the tray, to take a glass, with perfectly manicured hands adorned with bracelets that catch and reflect the light from the chandeliers, without, of course, saying a single "thank you."
I feel like every glance that happens to land on me is there to judge how out of place I am. How I don’t belong. A nothing among them.
I feel like they’re commenting on the way I walk, on how I hold the tray, on the slight tremor in my hand, on the tone of my voice when I offer it to them with a polite smile.
“Would you like something?”
Maybe all of this is in my head, but I can’t stop it. Just like I can’t stop it every time I’m surrounded by people.
And I can’t convince my legs not to drag across the floor as I move forward mechanically, one step after the other.
I maneuver, gripping the tray even tighter, trying to dodge a guy in a suit and tie who’s talking to another man and doesn’t even notice me.
I’m sure that if I hadn’t swerved, they would have walked right into me.
A woman stops me and reaches for the tray, giving me an indifferent glance from beneath long, heavy lashes. Her lips are pressed tight, painted a deep red.
With everyone else, I don’t lift my gaze to their faces again.
I simply stop in front of them, my eyes fixed on the tray— on the curve of a man’s neck where his white shirt bears a small stain,
and then on the next person, on the colorful silk scarf wrapped around her throat.
My steps begin to go numb.
My hands start to shake even more. I try to focus on my breathing, but the loud conversations and elegant laughter around me won’t let me keep a steady rhythm. My breath starts to come out uneven.
Uncontrolled.
I feel like there isn’t enough air.
I move toward the edge of the room, where there seems to be fewer people.
A small pocket of space beneath a massive gray painting marked with yellow figures.
Below it stands a large crystal vase filled with orchids.
It looks less overwhelming there.
I get closer.
One step.
I can hear the tray clinking in my hand, even over the noise of the room.
I close my eyes for a fraction of a second.
Two steps.
My knees buckle. I instinctively reach out to steady myself; my fingers claw onto the cold surface of the vase.
The flowers scatter across the floor, and the vase shatters with a deafening crash that cuts through the conversations around us.
The tray slips from my hands, and everything it carried collapses into a mess of shattered glass beside the flowers.
And I fall.
I fall face-first onto the jagged pieces, and I can’t stop it.
Everything happens as if in slow motion.
I close my eyes and bring my hands up in front of me, bracing for the end.
When I open them again, I’m on my knees, staring at the gleaming white marble floor with sharp shards of glass scattered in front of my knees, stained red where my palms have touched it.
The red turns pink where it mixes with the clear golden contents of the spilled glasses, forming a small puddle.
I lift my hands and turn my palms upward.
The red liquid runs in thin streams along the lines of my skin;
in one of them, a shard of glass is still embedded, protruding from the edge.
Nausea rises in my throat, and everything begins to blur.
The bright, glittering light around me dulls, almost making me forget the sharp, wet pain in my knee.
I want to look around me, but I can't.
I want to pull the shard of glass out of my palm, but I can't move.
I stare at the red and try to imagine it's a rose—a red rose that could be beautiful and not carry this awful metallic smell that reaches my nostrils, mixed with expensive perfume.
That the red spots on the floor are its petals.
But it doesn’t work.
I know what’s on my hands is blood.
I know I’ve made a complete mess of everything.
I know I’m ashamed to stand up. That an entire room would be looking at me with quiet contempt.
But even if I wanted to, I can’t get up. The floor is pulling me down like a magnet.
And for a moment, everything that was blurred begins to fade into complete darkness.
But at that very moment, when my body is urging me to collapse face-first onto the broken glass, a hand slips under my chin.
Warm fingers gently lift my head. The metallic smell fades away, replaced by something beautiful.
something I want to lean into, to breathe in more deeply.
And maybe I do.
Because I feel soft fabric brush against my cheek.
When I open my eyes, my gaze meets two intense hazel eyes staring at me piercingly.
“Can you stand?”
His voice is deep and steady—maybe the only steady thing around me right now, something to hold on to.
So when he lets go of my chin and extends his hand toward me, I take it without a second thought.
And now I wonder if I should have thought it through more carefully.
If instead of taking his hand, I had stood up on my own, turned away, gathered my humiliated self, and walked out the door without looking back.
If everything were different now.
