Happy Endings

Introduction

With her deceased mother's flower shop knee deep in debt, optimistic realist, Pippa Collins has no time for anybody but the shop, and she especially has no time for a love life. With hopes of getting the family business back up and running, Pippa doesn't see whats coming her way, before it hits her.

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When I was younger, my mother always used to tell me fairytales and stories, where the prince always gets the princess, and the heroes always beat the villains. Well, from my experience, these things never happen. The bad guys walk, and the heroes get buried six feet under. Just like my mother. She used to say that flowers have meanings, and her favourite, the rose, meant love. Love was her happy ending.

When my mother died, I realized that there are no such things as happy endings, because everybody's stories have the same endings. Death. She believed that once you stop looking for your Happy Ending, you'll find it, but after her murder, I stopped believing.

The flower shop was my way of coping after her death. Being surrounded by her work was almost life affirming. As if continuing what she started keeps me with her. I'm not religious or spiritual at all, but it makes me feel like she's still here.

I've never really made time for anyone else but the shop (and my co-worker, Alice,) because it's my life, but I never expected to make time for a little girl who suddenly became my world.