The chrysanthemums were striking in their glory. Yellows and whites, kissing softly, heads bent together in reverence. Oh, Ria wished to be one of those flowers, heads bent in secret with another.

“...thing is nobody laughed! It was a funny observation, and nobody laughed,” Jacques continued, his frustration with the situation thick in his voice like the red wine in his glass. Ria snapped back to the conversation, her attention back on Jacques. He was disarming in his beauty, like the very flowers that dotted the grounds around them. But, like the flowers, he had a tendency towards blind belief that the sun would always shine in his favour.

“Perhaps then, the reason they didn’t think much of it, darling, is because it wasn’t all that funny of a joke in the first place,” Ria offered, a sharp bite in her tone. Really, for as much as she loved the man, he was a moron and a fool. Jacques stared at her, stunned hurt and sadness in his gaze.

“I thought you were supposed to be on my side,” he replied softly, pain clear in his voice. With a deep sigh, Ria put the wine glass she clutched in her hand down on the stone bench beside them. The waitstaff would find it eventually before the night was over, she concluded before taking a deep breath and looking squarely into Jacques’ honey brown eyes.

“Once upon a time I was,” Ria said. “But things have changed. I’m not the girl who worships the ground you walk on anymore,” she told this man, this charming fool.

And as she stepped away from him, and his kicked puppy dog eyes, Ria stepped along the weeping petals of the yellow and white chrysanthemums, paving her way to a newfound freedom.