“You’re just a baby with no money,” ten-year-old Rose Hawthorne said, her arms crossed, peering down at Daphne ying in the park’s wood chips. The two girls standing behind Rose sneered at Daphne.

  “You shouldn’t even be here,” one girl said, flicking her hair.

  “Your mother should be disqualified as trailer trash,” the other girl said, spitting on the ground near Daphne’s hand.

  Eight-year-old Daphne shrank back from the girls. All I wanted was to py. Watching the gardening competition is boring. She had been overjoyed when her father had pointed out ot her that there was a park nearby that the children from the competitors often pyed at.

  But now this girl and her posse were trying to push her out.

  “I bet your mom spends every penny you have to come here,” Rose said, her elegance exuding from her steps as she walked closer to Daphne. Rose put her shoe on Daphne’s left hand, pinching her fingers into the wood chips. Daphne winced, but didn’t try to escape.

  I shouldn’t have come. I should have just stuck it out like I usually do.

  One of the girls in Rose’s posse ughed maliciously. “My dad’s a judge,” she said. “And so is yours, Rose. We should tell them that it wouldn’t be good sense to allow commoners to win at these competitions.”

  Daphne’s heart dropped in her chest. Will Mom really lose because I came here? She swallowed hard, unsure of what to make of the threats.

  “You’re right,” Rose replied with a bright grin. She took her foot off of Daphne’s hand. “Such a thing will put both her and her mother in their pce.” She sneered down at Daphne.

  “Now, now, children,” an older gentleman said, coming up to the small group. “We can all get alone, can’t we?”

  “Grandpa!” Rose excimed, her face lighting up as if she’d just been given a gift on Christmas morning. “What brings you here?” she asked.

  “It’s lunchtime,” he replied with a wrinkled old smile, holding up a picnic basket.

  “Lunch time?” one of the girls said, looking horrified. “I gotta go!”

  “Me too,” the second girl said as they both started to run off, back towards the gardening tent.

  “Why don’t you come sit with us, young one?” Grandfather Hawthorne asked Daphne.

  “Grandpa!” Rose excimed. “Why would you ask her to eat with us?”

  Daphne’s stomach growled. She knew that even if she went back to the tent, there would be nothing for her to eat. The one thing that Rose and her posse had gotten right was that her mother had pretty much spent all of her father’s money for the month just to enter the contest.

  “Would you like to come sit with us, child?” Grandfather Hawthorne asked Daphne.

  Daphne took one gnce at Rose’s scowling face, and despite the hunger and her desire to eat, she knew that this girl would only bully her more in the long-run.

  “No thank you,” Daphne replied, doing her best to sound polite, the same way Maggie had taught her. “I’m not hungry,” she added.

  The grandfather did not look as though he quite believed her, but he nodded his head in acknowledgement of her answer. Rose’s face was covered in self-satisfaction.

  “Grandpa!” a boy’s voice called out from a nearby park bench. “Over here!” The boy was waving wildly.

  Daphne turned away from the happy family and grabbed one of the bars of the merry-go-round. She started running, managing to get herself and the spinning circle going so fast that she almost felt like she was flying.

  If only I could fly away from here. She jumped up on the merry-go-round that was inevitably slowing down.

  What wouldn’t I give to be a bird? She looked up at the bright blue sky. There were only a few cottony tufts of cloud in the sky, and the early summer was beginning to make the air warm and slightly swampy.

  The merry-go-round slowed down to a halt, and Daphne deftly got off it and began running with the bar in her hand again to speed it back up.

  If I was a bird, no one would judge me for being common. And I could fly away to where I am wanted.

  She jumped back up on the spinning circle again, the brightness of the sun reflecting off the metal of the device. If I was a bird, I’d be free.

  “What are you doing, Asher?” Rose’s voice excimed. “Get back here!”

  Daphne looked over in the direction of the picnic table and saw a young bck haired boy walking up to her. He disappeared from view and reappeared as the merry-go-round slowed down.

  “Hey,” Asher said, stopping the merry-go-round with one hand. The sudden stop caused Daphne to lurch a little, nearly losing her bance and biffing it into the warm metal. She managed to grab ahold of one of the bars fast enough.

  “Hey,” she murmured.

  Have you come to finish your sister’s work?

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Daphne,” she replied with a pout.

  “Just like my mother’s favorite flower,” he murmured softly.

  “Do you know what it means?” she asked, her ears perking up. Her mother had always refused to tell her the meaning of her name, assuaging her desire by suggesting she was too young to understand.

  “No, do you?” Asher asked, his brown eyes meeting hers.

  “No,” Daphne replied, slouching.

  “Are you hungry?” Asher asked, holding up half of a cut sandwich towards her.

  “Don’t give her that food!” Rose shouted, beginning to run up towards Asher and Daphne.

  Daphne reached out and took the sandwich from Asher, almost as if she was mesmerized. She took an enormous bite out of it.

  “How could you feed our enemy?” Rose shouted, panting, coming up behind Asher.

  “Our enemy?” Asher asked, his eyes wide and his eyebrows disappearing into his bck bangs.

  Rose pointed a finger at Daphne. “Her mother is trying to steal the competition from our mother.” Rose’s lips were pushed together in a thin line.

  “That doesn’t mean she shouldn’t eat, Rose,” Asher replied back, tapping his sister on the top of her head.

  “That’s absolutely what it means,” she replied, tossing his hand off of her head and sneering at him.

  “Every kid deserves to eat,” Asher said. “Mom says so all the time.”

  Rose growled at her brother. “While you’re at it, why don’t you just marry her then?” she asked, jumping onto the merry-go-round, kicking at Daphne to get her off. Daphne complied, still inhaling the sandwich. “Push me,” she commanded her brother.

  “What’s it to you if I marry her?” Asher asked, starting to run with the merry-go-round bar in hand.

  “You deserve better than someone who eats your scraps,” Rose replied snottily.

  Asher stopped running and grabbed the bar of the merry-go-round to stop it. “It’s none of your business who I marry or like,” Asher said.

  From the sudden force of the stop, Rose tumbled onto the merry-go-round bars, banging her head in the process. She let out a shrill scream, and Daphne saw blood trickling out of her nose as she sat up.

  “I hate you, Asher!” Rose screamed. Daphne saw their grandpa coming over, and Asher not looking guilty in any way.

  She giggled a bit, finishing off the sandwich. Her heart felt like a balloon filled with helium in her chest.

  He defended me. She looked over at the young boy in admiration. I wasn’t invisible to him.

  ~

  Daphne grinned as she saw the elevator’s number ticking upward. I wonder if that was the merry-go-round incident he was talking about when we got lunch a while back. Is it any wonder that I’ve always had a thing for tall dark and handsome? Daphne let out a little squeal just before the doors opened to let her out onto the floor of her office. Rose is still the same person she was back then, too. Still as bratty and entitled as she was back then.

  Daphne let out a little chuckle and shook her head. And just as he did in the past, Asher defended me from his sister recently, too. I wonder why I didn’t notice Asher the first time through this life? Did he make a move and I rebuffed him? Did he ever try to make his presence known to me before? Was I really that into Gary?

  She shook her head at herself. All I know is that I’m grateful for this second chance, and this opportunity to get to know Asher this go around. The elevator doors dinged open, and she walked out. Still, it’s surprising to me how different he and Rose are from one another. How is it even possible? They act like they came from two entirely different families; not like they shared a womb together. Daphne shook her head.

  Nonetheless, her heart felt warm. While they hadn’t had an opportunity to see one another since their date, unlike Gary, Asher had texted Daphne nearly every day since. He’d apologized about being busy, and told her that the travel for their shared project should be coming to an end soon. It was going to be his first day back into the office in nearly a week and a half.

  Daphne felt a wave of nervousness crash through her as she walked towards her desk. She had made little progress on her murderer, and it was already November third.

  She swallowed hard, trying to clear her head from the darkness that seized her. At least I’ve made significant progress on finding a way to be happy. Next is finding a new job.

  Asher had informed her that he was still working on getting a hold of his contact. Daphne couldn’t help but wonder if this meant that he was unable to get a hold of his friend. She had started to apply again in hopes of not having to rely on whoever Asher’s friend was. If it was anything Gary had been honest about, it was the state of the economy. Daphne felt as though she had been applying to the same few jobs over and over. At this point, she couldn’t help but wonder if all of her applications were being dumped into a bck hole.

  Or this is truly hell after all, and I’m doomed to repeat the st three months of my life over and over to infinity.

  She sighed as she sat down at her desk, pulling open her ptop and starting it up for the day. She was so excited, she could hardly sit still. She knew that there was no way that Asher came in early, but she still found herself craning her neck to look at his cubicle anyway. Her heart sank in her chest when she noticed that he wasn’t in just yet.

  He’ll be here soon. She smiled, biting her bottom lip, and letting out a heavy breath. It feels like it’s been a month since I’ve seen him.

  There was one thing that made her nervous, though, she had been doing everything in her power not to think about it. Maybe he’ll ask me to be his girlfriend today. She giggled a little as she began making her to-do list for the day.

  She heard someone tsk behind her and turned to see Fiona sneering at her. Daphne, for once couldn’t help herself. She made a face back, rolling her eyes at Fiona, and turning back to her work.

  Her heart started pounding in her chest, wondering if Fiona was going to make her pay for her actions, but Daphne decided to not care all that much in the moment. As long as I get chance to see Asher, I can deal with anything.

  She started working, knowing that she had a lot to get done. Asher would probably want to debrief from all of the traveling he had done, and she wanted to do her best to minimize the amount of work that might get in her way.

  She giggled a little again. This feels entirely different from when Gary and I started dating. At times it had felt as though she was doing a bunch of chores just to go see him. In the moment, it had felt worth it, but looking back, she could clearly see that she hadn’t even been half as excited to spend time with him as she was to spend with Asher.

  Why did I waste some much time with a loser like Gary? What could have possessed me to believe he was so great?

  Finally, she heard the rap of a hand against her cubicle wall. She whirled around, and there he was, her vision filling with the face she had missed the most at work.

  “Hey, Daphne,” he said, his warm smile lighting up his face and his comforting brown eyes.

  “Asher,” she said, giggling nervously, and tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Hey.”

  “Do you have time around four to spend some time with me doing a debrief of the project we’re working on?”

  Daphne slowly turned back to her computer, wishing she did not have to stop looking at him in that moment. Be professional, she chastised herself.

  She opened up her calendar on her computer, and heard him take a few more steps into her office space. The warm, clean scent of his cologne followed, and she had to hold back the urge to take a deep breath of it, filling her lungs with his essence.

  Her heart dropped as she noticed that she had a four o’clock meeting on the books already. “Do you have any other time that works for you?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “Still as busy as ever, huh?” She turned to look back at him, and he looked at her with a boyish smile on his face. “I’m also pretty booked up for the day, so it would be alright with you to meet at five? We can try to keep it short.”

  Daphne felt her heart flutter when he called the two of them a “we.”

  “Sure,” she said, grinning back.

  “Would you be interested in maybe getting some dinner afterwards?” he asked, raising one dark eyebrow.

  Daphne heard herself giggle. She couldn’t keep the dopey smile off of her face. “That would be nice,” she agreed.

  “Alright, we’ll pn for that then,” he said, a foolish grin pstered to his own face.

  “Sounds good,” Daphne replied. “See you then.”

  “See you then,” Asher replied, his eyes meeting her own, and not letting go easily.

  Finally, it seemed as though he was able to pry his eyes away from hers, and he smiled and left her cubicle. Daphne’s eyes followed him as he walked over to his own cubicle. He looked back through the panes of clear pstic, and their eyes met again for a brief moment. Daphne felt her face heat up, and she looked away, back to her work.

  She heard a crash from the cubicle that Landon sat in, and she stood up to make sure he was okay. She noticed that the look on his face was frustrated, and he was gncing over in the direction of Asher.

  “Everything okay?” Daphne asked.

  She saw his jaw clench tightly. “Everything is fine,” he replied shortly.

  She slowly lowered herself back into her seat. Did he overhear our conversation? Her stomach started to form knots. Who am I kidding? Of course he did.

  She shook her head and sighed, her heart feeling heavy under the weight of Landon’s feelings. I wish he hadn’t developed feelings for me in the first pce. How difficult. She chewed on her lower lip. If I don’t want to put my friendship with Landon at risk, Asher and I will need to be more discrete in the office in the future.

  She pulled open the instant messenger and sent Landon a message.

  Are you sure you’re okay? She wrote and hit send.

  She attempted to go back to her work, but she kept getting distracted by Landon’s ck of reply. Eventually, she noticed that he had switched on do not disturb mode.

  Daphne’s heart sunk in her chest. Damnit. She sighed. Why couldn’t we just be good friends?

  Her heart ached at the thought that she may lose one of her close colleagues.

  Looking back up at at Asher through the plexigss calmed her a little. He’s worth it though.