The Daffodils of Destiny [Part 3]

"Zico, hurry up! We have to find her!"

"Alright, alright. No need to rush."

I stopped and turned back to Zico whom I slugged in the arm. "No need to rush? Did you see how mad she was? She's going to do something really stupid and then come crying to the both of us!" When he didn't respond, I said, "At least do me a favor and call her boyfriend on stand by, will you?"

The clock chimed seven times. It wouldn't really start to get dark until around eight o'clock as the Summer season had just started, but just because it was getting dark didn't mean that it was getting any cooler. I wiped the sweat from my brow as Zico took of his hat, shook his hair out, and then replaced it before taking out his cellphone to dial Rick.

Zico kept up with me at a rapid pace, following close behind as we walked around the city center; everyone was either going out for dinner or going home, so there were plenty of people out and about trying to go their own ways.

"Yeah, we'll check at his house," I heard Zico say as I peered around the corner at Talia's favorite ice cream shop, hoping that she was there but finding it filled with other people instead. "You go search where you know best." Zico hung up as I sighed. "Rick says that he'll check where he thinks she could be. Let's go to that toolbag's house and see if she was there."

I put a finger to my lips and said with a warning. "You better be glad she wasn't here when you said that. She would have killed you."

He raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, I'd like to see that puny kid try. Gets hurt because Rick made a joke about not seeing her as a chick and she runs off to her ex's house. She's a piece of work alright."

I didn't know how to vouch for my friend's situation anymore, so I just grabbed Zico's arm and pulled him along. "Whatever, let's just go!"



The infamous Asia Buckyfield lived in an expansive apartment complex; to many people, it would be a house. But for his standards, it was most definitely an apartment. I dragged Zico to the front door of my friend's ex, and then I took a breath, trying to figure out what to say and how to say it without sounding weird. How exactly does one knock on the door of somebody else's ex and ask if they had been here prior myself?

Knock, Knock.

I turned to Zico, eyes wide in horror. "What are you doing?" I said between my clenched teeth. "I don't even know what to say yet!"

Zico shrugged. "What is there to say? Just say it."

"I can't! I don't know what to say, you idiot!"

"Well that sucks, doesn't it?"

"You stupid - "

The door flung open and a very tired looking Asia bundled out of it. He saw me and immediately said, "Ah, and the sheep arrive not long after. What do you want?"

"So she was here then? Talia was here?" I asked, without a moment to spare.

Asia sighed and looked at his nails."Yeah, what of it?"

"How long ago?"

"I don't know. I like to forget moments where uninvited people invite themselves over to my property." He used his forearm to push me back off his doorstep, to which Zico snapped and stepped forward.

"Hey, hands off you uneducated idiot!" Zico pushed me back so that he was standing face to face with Asia, who had just now noticed this newcomer on his doorstep. "Where're your manners?"

Asia widened his eyes. "Who are you?" And then he lowered his eyebrows and motioned to the both of us. "You her body guard?"

"I'm her boyfriend," Zico said with much confidence which made me turn as red as a beet.

"Yeah, well she did really good with you," Asia said, rolling his eyes. He looked over at me. "Where'd you get this kid? From the dump?"

Asia laughed at his own joke while looking at the Louis Vuitton wallet he had in his hand (to possibly show off his riches to us) until my supposed boyfriend said, "What, does your wallet tell jokes?"

Asia stopped laughing and stared at Zico blank faced. "I was laughing at you, you - "

"If laughter is the best medicine, then I guess your face is just curing the world."

Asia's face turned more red than mine, and I knew that it was on now. I had never expected today to be the day that Zico and Asia would be flinging sarcasm embodied crap at each other...especially not like this. But I wasn't going to lie; I really liked this show of sport. "Also," Zico added. "If you're going to be a smartass, you need to be smart first. Otherwise, you're just an ass."

"You wanna hear a real joke, you prick?" Asia said, moving towards us as Zico didn't move an inch.

"It's okay, you're already one yourself."

"You a comedian? 'Cuz you're not all that funny."

"I guess I'm a poet. Here's my latest work: Roses are red, violets are blue, I have five fingers, and the third one's for you." And with that, Zico in all of his confidence and glory flipped Asia off, and Asia immediately turned pale and seemed to have lost his breath.

"Uh...uh..." I grabbed Zico's arm and dragged him away from the house as the two gorillas continued to throw insults and curse at each other until we were out of sight.



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"What were you doing, you idiot? We didn't even get to ask him which way Talia went!"

"What difference would it have made, really? Wisen up, Selena. He wouldn't have told us the truth even if I threatened to throw him under the bus."

"Like you'd have the guts to do that...."

"There has to be buses still running around, so I'll go back and get 'im."

I laughed as the two of us walked side by side on the sidewalk next to the grand bridge overpass with vehicles driving past underneath us. I realized then that my hand was still firmly grasped onto his forearm and let go almost immediately. Zico noticed and immediately grabbed my arm before I quickly shook it free.

Bumbling with embarassment, I said, "Let's hurry it up! Go find Talia before it gets late! You know the city's not too good at night."

Zico groaned. "Forget her. Rick will come to her rescue."

"You don't know that. You boys are all the same," I said as we walked past the third lamp post on the bridge. "No plan, just action. I swear..."

"Put a little faith in us," he said, unscathed. "You'll be amazed. It'll take days, no- months, maybe years off the wrinkly face of yours."

I glared at him. "Oh really?"

"Really. You need a vacation." He smirked.

"And what about you, Mr. Know-It-All?" I inquired as we stopped walking. "Maybe you should just take a vacation from worrying about what I look like for once and look in your own ugly refl-"

Zico reached for my shoulders, pinned my waist against the railing of the bridge, bent down forward and kissed me. It would have been a nice kiss, if I hadn't been so confused and running wild in my own mind at the time. But still, a kiss with a kiss, and his soft lips left on my own about ten seconds later, revealing my face probably to be just as embarrass as my mind made it out to be.

"That was nice," Zico said, a charming grin on plastered on his perfect face. "Let's do it again. It seems like my technique has already started to take some aging off your face."

"You -!" I hit his shoulder playfully, feeling a cross between embarrassment, anger, and happiness.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" And then he reached forward to tussle my hair and pull me into a warm hug. "St- Stop it already!" I said, turning red. "We don't have time to be playing around, we have to go find Talia first!" But I do admit that he smelled good and a part of me didn't want him to stop holding me. "Not in public....like this..." I grumbled.

"Fine," he mumbled into my ear. "Go find Talia."

"By myself?" I said, my voice in a squeak. "What about you?"

"I wanna go on a date..."

I slugged him in the arm really hard this time. "We can do all that later, you idiot! Now is not the time!"

He broke free from me to sent me a malicious grin. "So you said it then. You said you would go on a date with me."

"I - I - Oh, whatever! Let's just GO!"


And then Zico, leading the way this time with much more enthusiasm, dragged me off the bridge back into City Center.


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Talia stood in the plaza of Little Italy, her head down, picking her fingers as she stared at the plaza's infamous fountain. It was the fountain of lovers; sculpted by an Italian artist and sculptor in the 1800's, a marbled man and a woman stood together with their hands clasped leaning on each other for support. Amidst the water of the fountain stood hundreds of little pennies and nickels on the tile. Whenever Talia came here, she always felt a little better; Each time, she made sure to toss a coin into the water would it would usually sink to the bottom and she would make a wish. It was said that wishes here worked best with another person. And that would explain why each time she made a wish (by herself) it most definitely never worked.

The absentminded girl reached into her purse to pull her out her coin purse and dug in it....only to find it absent of pennies and nickels, and instead a half dollar coin. Maybe this time it was worth....giving it her all and trying?

Talia sighed and and closed her eyes, ready to make a wish. "Please...please..." Please help me to find somebody to be happy with...Please help me find the one...Please help me - 

Someone ran past and knocked Talia over and she fell on her hands and knees, her eyes widening in surprise. A little kid about nine years old looked baffled, bowed his head in apology and ran off after his older sister who taunted him to keep up. Talia smiled at the boy before he ran off before realizing that her half dollar coin was missing. In alarm, she got up and looked all around her surroundings until she realized....

Clink! Clink! CLINK!

Talia peered down into the sewer hole with had metal bars to prevented anyone from getting past it. "My half dollar!" Talia screeched as a couple of people turned heads to give her looks. But she didn't care, that was a whole fifty cents! Fifty cents that could have been used to buy an ice cream cone here in Little Italy. It seemed that today had not been her day after all. Talia wrinkled her nose and tried to stick her hand in between the bars of the metal covering, but was met with no avail. She could not even get her hand between the bars and groaned when she withdrew her hand, without her valued coin. "Today sucks," she grumbled. "First Rick, then stupid Asia and his daft bimbo girlfriend, and now this! Today sucks!" she proclaimed a little louder this time.


"How do you not expect me to think of you as a boy?" somebody's voice called from somewhere else. Talia looked up to find Rick a few feet away, his hands in his pockets, staring at her from afar. "Especially when you're searching through the sewers."