“I never watered, nourished, or waited for a spring—then how could I ever be grateful for the flowers?”
Miller leaned back slightly, his voice carrying both apology and clarity.
He looked at the bouquet in Daisy’s hands and shook his head.
“No, Daisy. I don’t deserve these flowers. Not even at my funeral.”
“Oh, please.”
She laughed, softly brushing hair from her cheek.
“Miller, not all flowers bloom in your garden. You can’t always be responsible for their growth. You can still… cherish their scent. Their presence.”
He nodded. A hesitant smile touched his lips. He opened his mouth to speak, but she interrupted.
“We all do that. That’s how the world works.”
Something in him shifted—like a truth, long buried, had just bloomed behind his eyes.
“With that, we owe it? Without a drop for the seed?
No shade in the sun… no warmth in the winter…
Yet we stay hungry for the spring?”
He looked at her, and for the first time, not as someone who gave him flowers, but someone who gave him grace.
“Don’t you see it? Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I see too much through it.”
He paused, looked down, and then—
“I’d rather lie beneath wild grass grown from nothing… than bask in a garden I never earned.”
Daisy blinked. Something in his words cracked her stillness.
“I… I didn’t know,” she whispered.
“That accepting a bunch of flowers could carry words as deep as your grave.”
A silence fell between them—thick, but not empty. A wind brushed across her cheek like a thought she hadn’t dared to finish.
He noticed.
“Hey. Are you okay?”
She hadn’t expected that. Not from him.
“Yes, I am. It’s just…”
She looked at the bouquet. Then back at him.
And placed the flowers gently beside him—not in surrender, but in understanding.
⸻
“Will we meet again?”
Daisy asked, her smile carrying a kind of quiet pain.
“Umm…”
“What? What does that mean?”
Her voice had an edge, but her eyes were only soft — concerned.
Miller didn’t answer right away.
His silence wasn’t cruel — it was crowded.
And aren’t we human?
Would it be too much to ask for what once felt safe —
something that held a flicker of promise?
Something that didn’t ask for guarantees, only presence?
She’s not clinging. She’s reaching.
And maybe I… maybe I’m just afraid to reach back.
“Maybe… when we’re both comfortable with our silences,” he said at last.
He couldn’t lie to her.
He knew — had he said yes, she might’ve shown up with wildflowers. That’s just who she is.
And that’s the thing about them: both wild, both free.
But the wind — or maybe the season — wouldn’t let them hold each other’s scent.
⸻
As they leaned in for a hug, something old and aching swelled between them — the kind of longing that asks not to be named.
She smelled faintly of eucalyptus — like the morning they found the cliff path after the rain.
“Aren’t we all victims of temptation?”
She whispered to his right ear.
“We don’t have to hold, Miller…”
She wasn’t clinging. She was letting the moment decide.
And with a breath softer than resolve, she added:
“At times, we shall surrender to what we feel.”
He held her arms gently — not to stop her, but to steady himself.
Then he leaned back just enough to see her clearly, eye to eye.
“I can’t disagree,” he said.
“But when we understand and foresee everything…
do we still need to dive into the wreck?”
It was never about the flowers,
or the garden,
or the grave,
or death.
It was always about the ache before bloom.
And how he’d keep walking —
carrying her scent like a ghost in his lungs.
——
