My eyes were slammed shut, when the irritating alarm sound woke the whole house but me. Since I was a baby, I was a hard sleeper, not even a war would wake me up from my slumber, and so, I was a late worker.

The late, disorganised worker, who would show up with my clothes stained, my hair messy and would always forget something important. Lucky was I that I hadn't been an employee, but an employer. Ever since my dearest mum died, I inherited fifty percent of our family business, and did not have a strict schedule. Beatrice, the other owner, and a close family friend was sweet enough to understand me and cover me when I needed it.

Jumping out of bed, and onto the cold wooden floor, I shivered. My eyes turned to the warm, beautiful bed that was, as if, calling my name. Shivered again and turned round. Covering my body with a bathrobe, I opened the massive white wooden door of my bedroom and stopped in front of the stairs. A cold air, as sharp as a knife, cut my face with freeze.

Scanning the living room to see what was wrong, I noticed the big window next to the sofa opened. As I said, I was a forgetter and so, probably let it open the whole night. I shrugged and turned on the kettle. It made a sharp, furious sound that made me jump in fear.

Of course it is empty. I blew away the long, curly strand of hair that was blocking my view and filled it with water. The clock read half-past six and so, I had a lot of time to drink my coffee in peace. I tied my messy ginger hair in a messy bun and dressed for work. As I managed to finish my short morning routine, I brewed my coffee and left the cup on the kitchen counter, looking at the beautiful sky that now had lines of orange and yellow. It was breath-taking. Even if I was not a morning person, I could appreciate the beautiful morning sky, when the city starts to transition from the silent night to the busy day.

As my coffee cooled, I opened the little kitchen window and lit myself a cigarette.

I looked at it burning and thought;

Complicated feelings contain addiction. People fear that addiction means alcohol or drugs, when, in reality, it isn't all about that. Addiction means the thing that makes you happy, satisfied, that you believe in the worst without it. For some are the drugs that keep you high over your toes, or the alcohol that knocks you out, making you forget about the desister you`re living. For others, addiction has a name, a face, pretty eyes, lying lips and a body. For them, people are their addiction. I forgot that addiction a long time ago and I`m happy to be clean, as they say. I swore that I will never let people be masters over my feelings.

My addiction is coffee, coffee and cigarettes. But who can blame me, without them and without Beatrice, I had nothing else. My house was empty and depressing, lonely I can say.

On the wall in front of me, hanged was the photo that I still wanted to throw in the attic. Each time I lay my eyes on it, pain, sharp like a sword, stabs my soul. It was in the photograph that I was the only time happy to remember.

My mum looked at me with joyful eyes from it, and it only saddened my sorrow. I really miss her a lot lately.

She was so beautiful, with her long red-blonde hair, braided in a tail that rested on her left shoulder. Her skin looked flawless, as if she was the perfection, depicted in a human. Her smile melted my heart and her eyes were like the green of the spring trees.She was dressed in her favourite yellow dress with a big flower tucked in the hair behind her ear. Next to her, a twelve-year-old child was looking back at me like a stranger. She was smiling, with wobbly teeth and home-cut bangs of brow-nish coloured hair, tied in two long pigtails. Her eyes were big, as blue as the sky and full of happiness. Like a window to her pure and innocent soul. I cannot recognize her.

That version of me is so long lost in the back of my mind, that I don't remember knowing. Those big, happy eyes were now tired and sad, darkened by the sleepless nights of nightmares and insomniac phases.

I finished my coffee and tied my shoes, collected my grey coat and black backpack before locking the door.

My nostrils flared at the scent of roses, lilies, rosemaries and mint, coming from our backyard. My mother was a herbalist, and so, she brought home different seeds of plants, or trees from God-knows-where, making our backyard look like a complete jungle.

The birds started singing their repertoire and the roses that covered our fence were blooming. Ironically, the street was called the Roses Lane, but we were the only house with roses on it. For some time I thought that the street was called by our house.

The house was a traditional Tudor style cottage with a decent yard and a pavement that led to the iron gate that was hot to touch each summer.

Standing in front of her house, Benjamin smothered his black cashmere suit jacket and ran his fingers through his hair, arranging it. He hated when his hair got messy, or his suit was dirty. Tardiness and organisation were his strong points. It made him feel like he was in control of the situation. Even after he striked, days before, he still had his jacket clean. With his hand in his pocket, he lifted his cigarette holder, opened it and drew one to his lips. He positioned his finger at the edge of his cigarette and a small flame lit from it. With a long puff, he exhaled the smoke between his lips, still watching the gate, hoping for it to be open soon. When the gate finally opened, he had already finished smoking and threw the cigarette muck on the ground. As he stepped on it, dust of ashes flew into the air from it. Leaving a burning footprint.

His hair had the colour of gold and tips coloured in the red of the blood. His deep set chocolate eyes had a tint of gold in it, had plum faded-red lips and razor-sharp jawline that was accentuated by his sand coloured skin.

A faded blue light covered her body, as if through cracks of a glass, leading him to her. Benjamin searched for her existence for a long time, but only recently he found her. She was looking like a human, if only her powers did not appear, he would be fooled.

With a decent distance, behind her, he walked, following her steps. She stopped, after a few streets, at a florist, as she entered the building, the blue light disappeared, hiding her. He listened closely and could hear her heart, beating inside, a fast sound, as if she was a mouse. He tried to enter after she got inside, but there was a barrier that threw him away. The place was spelled. A protection spell that he never saw before.

The florist wasn't big, it was the size of a neighbourhood fast-food restaurant. As I approached it, the door was already open and most of the flowers were already outside. Beatrice was the opposite type of person. She was always early, kept everything clean, ensured everything was ready, and she opened even before the schedule.

Beatrice Delegvine was a petite woman, in her mid-fifties, immigrant from France. She left the small town of Annecy and came to Edinburgh when she was young. She was a smart young woman, studied Biology science at the University of Edinburgh where she met my mother and became inseparable. As time passed and they finished studies, they came up with an idea of starting a business and named it "Sanatio" a florist where you can buy, obviously, plants and flowers, and also medical plants, teas, ointments, creams and stuff that was natural medicine. All the medical plants were grown and processed by Beatrice herself.

When my mum met my dad, at the Glass House in Pittencrieff park, both studying the plants there, they fell in love and soon enough married, Beatrice being their Wedding Godmother, and volunteered to be my Godmother when I was born, almost two years later. So then, they agreed to call the florist "Ceae" as my name, she said, was from Ericaceae, a plant species of wildflowers in Scotland. Apparently, Beatrice came up with this name, after seeing my wild blue eyes, that looked like the blue heather, a flower that takes part in the species plants.

I pushed open the door and the small bell from the threshold made a sharp, metallic sound. Nobody was there. In the back of the shop, where the storage was, I could hear the sound of boxes moving. I walked past the small hallway to meet her in the back, humming and opening boxes of flowers that she packed this morning.

Only psychopaths would humm in the morning, all hyped up, when I`m sleeping, even with my eyes open.

"Beatrice, can you stop? You're making me feel old." I said, rubbing the bridge of my nose in exhaustment. After a loud yawn, she turned around to see me.

"Dieu!" she dropped the yellow cardboard box.

She studied me, looking at the panda circles that surrounded my tired eyes and my mess of brown hair that started falling from my bun.

"When was the last time you've had a haircut?" she asked, playing with a small strand of my curly hair.

Since my hair started growing, when I was just a baby, it never stopped. After a fresh haircut, in a day or two would grow back. "Last week." I responded, with a blank expression.

Some girls would kill to have my hair, but I would kill to have theirs.

My mother always said that I had ravishing hair, but for me, it was a burden. Having that long curly hair ripps of every hair tie and it is a bloody nightmare to wash.

In front of me, Beatrice smiled, and I couldn't avoid the thought of her beauty.

She had long silver hair and eyes as blue as the stormy ocean.

She had the same height as me, even smaller, had her face and hands wrinkled, showing that her life wasn't peaceful. Above that, she was still beautiful, inside and out. Her beauty made me jealous. I knew that, when I`ll be older, I will look awful, an ugly elder. Her body was tiny, but strong nonetheless.

"Erika! Do you hear me?" she asked, waving her hand in front of me.

"Yes..." I sighed and we drank a tea brewed by her, before getting to work.

It was that month of the year that the orders were booming. With Valentine's day, Women's day, Mother's day, we ran out of roses to fulfill the growing needs. It occured to me that only on special occasions, we, as humans, share our feelings with the special ones, which is bullshit. We should share the miracle of love and life everyday in secret, not just on special days on social media. Hundreds of young couples have been in and out of our florist every day from the last day of Christmas, to the last day of Easter; buying flowers and crowns for them or their children.

I always hated Valentine's day, it was the most narcissistic day, when "Love was in the air." Still, it was only "Fakeness everywhere."

With my scissors in one hand and one rose in the other, I proceeded to cut its thorns, when it slipped from my hand and the sharp thorn pierced the skin of my index finger.

Swearing under my breath, my lips revealed a small groan. There was a small blood spot, forming on the place where my finger had been pierced.

I looked at the small spot of red, sticky liquid and, closing my eyes, I found myself somewhere else.

My body was smaller, my hands were different. I looked around and gasped. I knew where I was and I knew it must be a nightmare.

It was twenty-seventh of January, a cold winter day, with lots of snow and crisp air. In front of our gate, footprints were galore. After getting inside the yard, there was an awful smell coming from the kitchen. I didn't mind at first, it kind of smelled like the flower fertilizer that my mother used .

Only that it was more...metallic.

The doorknob was covered in a red sticky liquid that smelled weird, as I put my hand over it, the liquid stained my gloves. After closing the door, I took off my --now red-- gloves and threw them on the floor.

"Mum!" I started calling. "Are you here?" I could hear the kettle that was on and the water was boiling. I took off my scarf and coat, then my shoes and walked to the kitchen.

"Mum?" I asked again, assured that she was in the house.

The door was open and when I entered, it felt like the world had stopped. She was there, laying in a pool of blood that looked endless, her eyes were open, but her face looked as white as the snow. I rushed to her and burst into hysterical crying. I tried to wake her up, but she didn't breathe. She...just lied there. She was lying in front of me, swimming in a pool of blood, with her eyes open and I had no power to change that.

Scared and mostly traumatised, I ran into our neighbours house and screamed for help. Not long after, the police came and covered me with a blanket. I couldn`t stop shaking, part of it was because it was freezing, part because I didn't know what had happened right there.

The officers kept asking me about any other relatives that I might have, to bring me to, but I couldn't think. I was covered in blood, my mum just died and I couldn’t understand why everyone pushed me around, asking me questions that I couldn’t answer.

My uncle was called immediately and came as fast as he could, Beatrice did the same and they talked to the policemen. They looked worried, but I was blanked, looking like a lifeless doll that had no idea what her life was like after this shock.

A thirteen-year-old that just had lost her mother.

Worried about the safety of un underage, pre-teenage girl that was covered in blood, they sent me to my uncle's home, which was the worst decision anyone could take.

It was the decision that changed me forever, with no possibility of getting back to where I were before all of that happened.