forget me not.

ii. mon coeur t'appartient

CHAPTER TWO
'my heart is yours'

school is over and esmeralda is just thinking to herself while slumped down on the couch in her mother's office. with an instruction from estella, the driver drove her to her mother's main company building instead of home.

"esme, darling," estella calls out with a soft smile after getting up from her office chair and walking towards where esmeralda is. "since it's a new year for you, is there anything new that you'd like to try?" she asks her.

esmeralda stays quiet for awhile, seemingly thinking of an answer.

"you already know that i want to be one of the people that wear your clothes." esmeralda looks up at her mother, her emerald eyes meeting with forest ones. "but there's something else." she adds and estella does not talk.

she wants esmeralda to talk about it herself without needing for her to ask. estella has already figured that it must be something that she found interesting in her time in england.

"i want to do cycling." esmeralda finally says and estella's eyes widen.

cycling wasn't new to their family. estella herself, even when living in paris, has been influenced by her brother mark, who was a professional athlete, to atleast practice it as a hobby. he's even encouraged shelly to do it.

it's just that little esmeralda never once showed an ounce of interest whenever mark would tell them stories about his competitions and trainings.

"okay." estella agrees softly, brushing away the stray strands of esmeralda's hair. "we'll find you a great teacher, darling." she smiles and her esmeralda gives a small one back.

it must be that boy, estella thinks. and it was.

esmeralda had thought that a few days after she'd returned to paris that she would be able to forget. to brush her feelings off. because owen was away from her, in england. in manchester.

but all she could think of was him. kids her age would be raving about more than one crush. maybe even just about cartoons or toys. maybe even new hobbies. she didn't think she would become lovesick over a boy she met one summer.

they never even really had a proper interaction!

the best one they had was talking about his feelings, owen's feelings, for shelly who is her cousin. it felt so stupid. she has feelings for a boy who is probably lovesick over her own cousin.

and because of her feelings for owen, she finally finds cycling so interesting after he mentioned that he was better at it than a boys shelly was, or still is, gushing about.

a boy that not one of them had even met.

;

after a long day of school and training, little esmeralda who is so desperate to learn even at her young age, sat on the sidewalk while sipping on her tumbler. they went overtime her training period due to her request.

"young miss, it's really time to go." sir anton, the guard and driver she's had since she was probably a baby, reminds her and she nods lazily.

she was almost dozing off inside the car when her phone rang with shelly's name flashing on the screen. esmeralda answers the call tiredly but still tried her best to answer sounding lively.

"emy! it's summer again soon!" shelly's laugh could be heard and esmeralda can't helo but smile at it. "i heard from dad that you're cycling! he said that you're like a prodigy and that must mean you are like super cool, right?" she asks.