hydrangea;
a symbol of frigidity and heartlessness
__________
"He proposed?" Riley's hazelnut eyes widen with excitement for her best friend.
"And I said yes!" Maya answers, her eyes brimming with tears of joy.
"Took him long enough," Riley replies, the grin on her face so wide it seemed to hurt her cheeks. She lunged at her best friend, enveloping her in a tight hug, "I'm so happy for you, Peaches!"
"You should be happier for Huckleberry. I mean, look at what he just scored," Maya says, gesturing to herself, a smirk curving the tip of her lips up.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, Maya," Riley rolls her eyes, a smile still plastered on her face.
"Anyways, we obviously want you to do the flowers for our wedding," Maya continues, sipping her iced tea.
"Talk about planning in advance," Riley muses from her seat beside Maya.
"You might be one of the best florists in town, but my wedding has to be out of this world," Maya explains, beaming.
Riley's never seen Maya this happy since the first time Lucas asked her out in middle school. Meanwhile, Riley has nothing going on in her love life at the moment. In other words, she's single as a pringle. Totally available and desperate for anybody hot to date her.
"You know, I could totally set you up with somebody from my workplace," Maya chuckle, a glint of mischievousness evident behind her electric blue eyes. Riley swears Maya can read minds.
"You know how much I hate blind dates," Riley groans, reminiscing about the other blind date that Maya had set her up with. Long story short, she had tripped over a waiter's foot and landed on her date with her hand pressed tightly to his crotch. In too much of a daze, she didn't do anything about it except wallow in her own misery and forgetting to take her hand off his crotch until he cleared his throat rather curtly.
"That last time wasn't so bad," Maya tries to stifle a laugh.
"Yeah, Maya, because falling into your date's junk is totally alright," Riley drawls, which leads to Maya bursting out in laughter and some people around the cafe to turn their attention to them.
"Yeah, I hope you take your task very seriously. You have eight months to plan which flowers are going to appear at my wedding," Maya reminds Riley before putting her shades on. "I have another art exhibition in an hour so I have to go, but we'll catch up again!"
"Farewell, Peaches!" Riley waves as Maya throws one last apologetic glance at Riley and hurries out of the cafe, muttering something about being late.
As soon as Maya's out of sight, Riley slumps back into the cushioned chair and heaves a huge sigh. Maya's career had just taken off and she was already such a big hit. She was a big hit because not only was she a professional artist, her webcomics were detailed and just wonderful in general. And Riley was absolutely happy for her — I mean, who wouldn't be happy with some paintings dedicated to her and some comic characters based off her?
And Maya was engaged, sticking with the same ol' Lucas Friar ever since the last year in middle school. Talk about dedication.
Lucas Friar, another one of Riley's best friends, who seemed to pushed the role of the third wheel to her when he decided to ask Maya out. Also, a very successful businessman despite his young age of 29. Fresh out of college, he had decided to use his savings to start a small business and buy some stocks. Now Lucas is the proud owner of Friar Finances.
That's why he can afford to buy Maya things like those Gucci sunglasses she was wearing just now or that Chanel bag that she unceremoniously dumps all her art supplies in.
But Riley is content with her simple life. A humble little florist with good pay and a cosy little apartment that Maya used to share with Riley until she decided to move in with Lucas in all his penthouse glory. Riley is perfectly happy to be free of responsibilities at the moment. Her carefree and simplistic lifestyle holds almost no deadlines and pressure. And she hasn't entered the stage of what you'd call a midlife crisis yet.
She picks up her coffee and walks out, the blazing weather presented in stark contrast to the cold blast of air conditioning inside the cafe.
The sweltering heat beats down on Riley as she trudges through the streets of New York, trying her very best not to collapse with heat stroke. She feels like a wilting flower as she uses the back of her hand to wipe off the trickling beads of sweat down her forehead.
"Wait," she mumbles, stopping in her tracks, "wilting flowers?"
Suddenly, her head is clouded with the muddy thoughts of her flowers dying. Her roses, pansies, sunflowers. The entire nursery of flowers she'd raised from birth all crumbling down due to the sheer heat.
Her feet take off without a second thought. Zipping through the drowsy midday crowd, she sprints as fast as she possibly can, adrenaline fuelled by the thoughts of her flowers wilting and the satisfying feeling of her feet hitting the hard asphalt pavement.
Unfortunately, it seems that the odds aren't really in her favour today, because her tip of her bright red right sneaker just decides to get caught in a tiny crack in the pavement.
Riley is falling face first into the pavement, and everything that happens after seems to happen in slow motion.
She puts her left foot in a weak attempt to balance herself, her arms waving frantically. But of course this doesn't help her and instead ends up making her lose her balance even more, causing her to run forward at a steady pace, her centre of gravity insisting on not returning to normal. And just when Riley thinks things couldn't get any worse, she slams into a body.
By instinct, his quick reflexes allow him to reach up and grab her before she stumbles back and falls on the ground.
She looks up at her benefactor. Hair the same colour and texture as caramel, pale pink lips slightly parted in shock, nose adorned with a minimal amount of freckles, but when Riley's gaze travels up to meet his, she finds a pair of greyish blues staring at her coldly.
And before she can say her thanks, she is roughly shoved to the ground.
"Stay the fuck out of my way," he growls, his voice coarse and his tone much harsher than he had intended it to be, not that he had wanted to play nice in the first place.
"Excuse me?" Riley feels a vein throb in her temple as she struggles to stand up, noticing the fresh wound on her bloody hand.
It takes him a second to register that he had injured her.
"Fuck, I'm sorry," he mutters apologetically, his eyes widening in surprise.
"Save it," Riley sighs, running her hand - the non-bloody one, to be specific - through her chestnut hair.
And before he can say anything else, she hurries her way past him, her shoulder brushing past him. Yet, she can feel the stranger's eyes trained on her until she turns the corner and disappears.
A/N:
heyo riarkle fam ;)
if you've read this far, i applaud you and give you my thanks because this one was q terrible oops but i hope y'all know who that stranger is its pretty obvious :-) and sorry for using the forbidden word so early in the story oops. anyways, if you feel uncomfortable with these swear words, you could check out my other story which is relatively child-friendly. not really.
goodbye for now :)
lotsa love,
celeste
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dandelion | riarkle
Fanfiction"if you were a flower, you'd be a damn-delion." "farkle, you know dandelions are weeds, right?"
