The room was aggressively white.
White walls, white floor, and a single, stark white stool placed in the center of a blinding circle of light. It felt less like a television studio and more like an interrogation chamber.
Rev perched on the edge of the stool, her black denim-clad knees pressed together, feeling like a crow that had mistakenly landed in a snowdrift.
Across from her, a producer named Brenda smiled, a gesture that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Brenda held a clipboard like a weapon, her pen poised. “Alright, Rev. Let’s just have a chat. Nice and relaxed.”
Rev knew what this was. She’d watched enough reality television to recognize the “confessional,” the segment where carefully edited soundbites were harvested to build a narrative of drama and conflict.
She was determined not to be the villain, or the fool.
“So,” Brenda began, her voice a syrupy confection of false intimacy. “First challenge. You landed right in the middle. How did it feel to see Julian take the win with such a… traditional piece?”
The bait was so obvious it was practically glowing. Rev forced her hands to unclench in her lap.
“Julian’s work was technically perfect,” she said, choosing her words with the same care she’d use to wire a delicate clematis vine. “The judges clearly responded to that level of precision.”
“But your style is so different,” Brenda pressed, leaning forward. “Wild. Untamed. Some might say… chaotic.”
There was that word again. Chaos. Julian’s silent judgment, now given voice by a producer hungry for a catfight. A spark of defiance flared in Rev’s chest.
“I see it as telling a story,” Rev countered, her voice gaining a little of its usual conviction.
“Nature isn’t perfectly symmetrical. It’s got thorns and shadows, things that wilt and things that fight their way toward the sun. I’m interested in that narrative. The untamed beauty.”
“A ‘divinely gothic’ narrative,” Brenda quoted, a sly gleam in her eye.
“Magnifico loved it. But the other judges felt it wasn’t commercially viable. Do you think Julian’s work, his adherence to classic, safe choices, lacks a certain… soul?”
Rev’s jaw tightened. They wanted her to say it.
They wanted the clip of her, the wild-haired florist with dirt under her nails, calling the golden boy of botanical design a soulless technician.
She could almost see the promo material now: Classic vs. Chaos. Tradition vs. Soul.
She took a breath, letting it out slowly. “I think every artist has to be true to their own voice,” she said, looking directly into the camera lens, past Brenda.
“Julian’s voice is one of pristine, classic beauty. Mine is about finding the beauty in the unexpected. The world is big enough for both.”
Brenda’s smile flickered, a brief moment of disappointment before the professional mask was back in place. “Interesting take,” she murmured, making a note on her clipboard. “Very… diplomatic.”
The interview wound down soon after, a series of blander questions she answered on autopilot. When the lights finally dimmed, Rev blinked, feeling drained.
As she pushed open the door to the studio, she nearly collided with the person waiting to go in next.
Julian.
Of course. He stood tall and straight, his posture as impeccable as one of his arrangements.
He was wearing a crisp linen shirt that probably cost more than her entire wardrobe. He offered her a tight, polite smile.
“Rev,” he said, a formal nod. “I trust it went well.”
“It was a chat,” she said, shrugging. The air between them was thick with the memory of his win and her middling finish.
He was everything she wasn’t—polished, celebrated, a disciple of the rules she loved to break.
“They just want to understand our process,” he said, his tone earnest, almost naive. He genuinely believed this was about the art.
He didn’t see the gears of the production machine turning, hungry for conflict. “It’s a chance to articulate one’s philosophy.”
He walked past her into the white room, and the door clicked shut behind him. Rev stared at the closed door for a moment, a strange mix of irritation and something that felt dangerously close to pity.
He was walking into the lion’s den armed with nothing but his sincere belief in the purity of his craft.
***
Later that day, the main studio, affectionately dubbed the “Bloom Room,” was a hive of activity. The air was thick with the scent of cut stems, damp earth, and the faint, sharp perfume of floral spray.
Contestants buzzed around their workstations, prepping for the next challenge, the details of which were still under wraps.
Buckets of fresh flowers were being hauled in, tools were being cleaned, and the low hum of competitive anxiety was palpable.
Rev was methodically stripping the thorns from a bundle of deep burgundy roses, her mind still replaying the producer’s questions. She glanced across the room.
Julian was in his corner, a sanctuary of order amidst the general creative mess. He was hunched over a small tray, his focus absolute.
On it sat three of the most exquisite flowers she had ever seen: Phalaenopsis violacea, a rare variety of ghost orchid. Their petals were a translucent, pearlescent white, with a shocking splash of magenta at their hearts.
They were notoriously delicate, imported at what must have been an astronomical cost, and incredibly sensitive to overwatering. One wrong move and their fragile root systems would rot.
They were, in short, perfectly Julian. Precious, beautiful, and demanding of a controlled environment.
Rev turned her attention back to her roses, but a flicker of movement near Julian’s station caught her eye. It was Giselle, a florist from Miami whose ambition radiated from her in sharp, glittering waves.
Giselle’s designs were sleek and architectural, but her personality was all sharp edges. She moved with a quick, bird-like precision, her eyes constantly scanning the room, assessing her competition.
Right now, she was carrying a small silver watering can, ostensibly to mist her own anthuriums.
She passed by Julian’s station, and for a split second, her stride seemed to falter. Her arm tilted.
A stream of water, far more than a “spill,” splashed onto the floor, pooling dangerously close to the tray holding Julian’s orchids.
“Oh, goodness! So clumsy of me,” Giselle chirped, her voice dripping with insincere apology.
Julian didn’t even look up, his concentration so complete that he was deaf to the world.
But Rev saw it. She saw the flash in Giselle’s eyes just before the “accident”—a cool, calculated glint.
It wasn’t clumsiness. It was sabotage. The water was already seeping toward the delicate aerial roots of the orchids, a death sentence in slow motion.
A savage, competitive part of Rev whispered, Let it happen. He’s your biggest rival. A little bad luck for him is good luck for you.
His arrogance about his win still stung. Let him see what happens when his perfect, controlled world gets a little messy.
But then she looked at the orchids. They were blameless in this. They were living, breathing things of impossible beauty.
To destroy that, not in the name of art, but in the name of a petty victory… it felt vile. It was an insult to the craft itself.
Her rivalry with Julian was about philosophy, about opposing artistic visions. This was just ugly.
Her mind raced.
She couldn’t just run over and mop it up; that would be too obvious. Giselle would feign innocence, and Julian, in his oblivious focus, would probably think Rev was the one trying to sabotage him.
She needed a distraction. A big one.
Her eyes landed on a stack of empty terracotta pots near her station.
Without a second thought, she nudged the stack with her hip. The top pot, a heavy twelve-incher, tumbled to the concrete floor with a deafening crash, exploding into a dozen large pieces.
Every head in the room snapped toward her.
“Damn it!” Rev swore, kneeling down as if to inspect the damage.
For a crucial five seconds, every eye, including Giselle’s sharp, assessing gaze, was on her and the shattered pot. In that moment, Rev acted.
She snatched a long-stemmed, de-thorned rose from her workbench.
With a swift, subtle movement, she reached out with the stem and dragged a large, discarded block of dry floral foam directly into the center of the puddle by Julian’s station.
The foam, designed for maximum absorption, immediately began to drink the water, turning a dark, greedy green.
By the time Giselle’s attention swiveled back from the commotion, the threatening puddle was gone, replaced by a harmlessly damp block of foam.
Julian finally looked up, his brow furrowed in annoyance at the noise. He shot Rev a look of mild disapproval before his eyes went back to his precious orchids, completely unaware of the disaster she had just averted.
Rev stood up, dusting her hands on her jeans. She caught Giselle’s eye across the room.
Giselle’s smile was gone. Her face was a mask of cold fury.
She knew. She knew what Rev had done.
Rev simply raised an eyebrow and said, loudly enough for those nearby to hear, “Careful everyone. Slippery floors.”
The message was clear, an unspoken declaration of war that had nothing to do with artistic differences and everything to do with character.
Giselle gave a tiny, sharp nod, her eyes like chips of ice, before turning back to her own station.
Rev let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. The rivalry with Julian felt clean, a battle of ideas fought with petals and stems.
He was her artistic antithesis, the embodiment of a tradition she instinctively rebelled against. But Giselle… Giselle was a threat.
She wasn’t here to make art; she was here to win, and she didn’t care who or what she had to destroy to do it.
Rev looked back at Julian, who was now misting his orchids with the delicate precision of a surgeon. He had no idea she had just become his unwitting protector.
And in that moment, her feelings about him shifted, complicated by this new, dirtier conflict.
He wasn’t the enemy. He was just the other side of the coin.
The real danger, she now understood, was the person willing to flip the whole table.