Espoir

Five

Jasmine

She kicked a pebble as she strolled down the pathway with Trevor by her side. Her mind wandered back to Uriah, recalling the conversation they had and now that she thought about it, she still knew nothing about him except for his name, age, and some really basic info. They had only talked about everything else but themselves.

The wind howled and a small lightning flashed. Jasmine glanced at the sky, seeing dark clouds forming overhead. It was going to rain soon. Her gaze flickered to her left, at the field as something blue caught her attention.

Jasmine felt the cold wind hit her face as she stopped in her tracks and turned left. She walked down the gentle slope and strode with large steps, eyes focusing on what was in front of her, not noticing that Trevor followed behind.

She crouched down and stared at the Forget-Me-Not, swaying in the wind. It lost a petal and appeared more battered than the morning when she had found it.

"A Forget-Me-Not?" Trevor raised an eyebrow at her.

She hummed, eyes still on the flower. A storm was coming, and the fragile flower wouldn't survive it.

Hours ago -- when it was still full of life -- it never would had thought that everything would end so abruptly, right?

"Why do you know?" She asked.

"I do know a little about flowers, and it just happen to be my favourite, so why can't I?"

"Because it just turned my favourite." Jasmine stood up as a drop of rain hit her arm. "Let's go."

Trevor gave her a weird look before picking up his pace and jogged. With his long legs, it didn't take too long to overtake Jasmine.

"Hurry up. Mom and dad are going to give us one hell of a nagging if we are home late and soaking wet." Trevor held out his hand to her. "Shall we hold hands? For old times' sake."

Facing her elder brother's huge grin, she felt her cheeks heat up from embarrassment as she recalled memories when they had held hands everywhere they went years ago because she couldn't walk very fast or far.

"No."

"C'mon, Jas,"

"It's embarrassing. We are not kids anymore."

"Literally no one's here. And no one we know of anyway."

She pursed her lips together. "Well, yeah..."

"So." He took a step closer as his grin widen.

Jasmine zoomed past him, leaving him in a frozen state.

"If you can catch me before we get home, I'll let you!" She called out to him without turning back as she sprinted ahead.

Trevor huffed. "It's on!"

🌸🌸🌸

"Jas, can you help out in the store tomorrow?"

Jasmine looked up from her plate of Mac n' cheese to her mom. "Tomorrow?"

"Yeah, grandma isn't feeling too well today, and she might need some help. You've got nothing going on anyway, right?"

She stabbed the macaroni with her fork and pushed it around her plate. That meant she wasn't going to Astilbe tomorrow and breaking a promise as well. She didn't have the permission from her parents to keep on going out everyday after all, so despite the feeling of disappointment sinking in her stomach, Jasmine had to agree. She mumbled, "Right..."