Chapter 6

My entire apartment was soon covered in supplies, sketches, flowers, and greenery for the design I was doing for the competition in Los Angeles in two months. For the first few rounds of design, I used silk flowers to save some money, but it really wasn’t the same as using actual flowers. Silk flowers didn’t stand or bend the same way real ones did.

I considered following my dad’s advice and creating a more traditional design. Using an array of pastel-colored roses, I created an arrangement that, although pretty, looked like it had come straight out of a wedding banquet hall. I ended up donating it to my next-door neighbor, my sisters, and even my mailman when my apartment became so full of various arrangements that I couldn’t use my kitchen table to eat breakfast.

My favorite so far was the arrangement I’d done with roses, buckeye, and porcelain vines, but I wasn’t convinced it was enough to win. So I’d started over, confused on how I should proceed.

I was also throwing myself into