IN BLOOM

Leah’s POV People say flowers are for beginnings. Weddings. Births. Grand openings. First dates. Apologies wrapped in nervous smiles. They’re the universal language for “I hope” and “I promise” and “Let’s try.” But what no one really talks about is how many flowers are bought for endings. A single hydrangea left on a doorstep when the words “I’m sorry” are too heavy to carry in person. A funeral spray of lilies, white and fragrant, carried into a room full of silence and loss. The tightly bound bouquet of red roses—passionate, desperate—ordered in a last-ditch effort to fix what’s already broken. I've arranged them all. Wrapped them in crinkling brown paper, tied the ribbon just right, and passed them over the counter to customers who avoided eye contact. Strangers clutching stems like they were lifelines, unaware—or maybe painfully aware—that they were handing heartbreak to someone else. And for the longest time, I believed I was immune. I thought that because I surrounded myself with beauty, I was somehow protected from the ugliness of life. As if petals could shield me from pain. As if the scent of lavender and freesia and peony could mask betrayal. As if love, when it finally arrived for me, would be tender. Certain. Whole. I believed that when my turn came, it would be different. And for a while, it was. He said the right things. Held my hand with a steady grip. Made promises in the dark that sounded a lot like forever. I quit my job in the city. Left everything that I ever knew. Started dreaming about a garden wedding and Saturday mornings in bed and the kind of life you only read about in books. I was ready to build everything from scratch—with him. But love, it turns out, is not a promise. It's a risk. A gamble. A leap of faith with no guarantee of soft landings. And mine? Mine ended in a whisper, not a bang.A message.Left at the altar. No explanation. No apology. Just absence, loud and final and cruel. When I saw my friend running to the altar I was annoyed thinking that I can't have my dream weeding without someone trying to prank me by coming before my husband but what I got was an earth shattering news. I stood there in my dress—ivory lace, fitted bodice, illusion neckline—staring at my reflection, trying to recognize the woman who had believed so fiercely in forever. My mother wept in the other room. My best friend offered tequila and revenge fantasies. But I just stood still. Frozen. Like the petals of a flower in early frost—beautiful, but breaking apart on the inside. Love left. Life didn’t. So I did the only thing I could. I came back to my shop. Opened the door. Turned on the lights. Breathed in the scent of eucalyptus and jasmine and tried to remember how it felt to begin again. I water the petals. Trim the thorns. Sweep the floor. Restock the vases. Arrange each bouquet with care, even when my hands tremble. I listen to the soft rustle of stems and leaves, the quiet hum of traffic outside, the distant laughter of strangers who still believe in happy endings. And every day, I tell myself I’m fine. Some days, it almost feels true. I don’t believe in love the way I used to. But I still believe in flowers. In their resilience. In their beauty. In the way they bloom even after being cut. In the quiet way they show up—at endings, yes—but also at beginnings. Especially at beginnings. Even if those beginnings come disguised as loss. Even if they start with letting go. Even if they bloom in the middle of heartbreak. Because maybe that’s what starting over really looks like. A flower growing from the ashes. A shop door opening at dawn. A heart learning to hope again. One bouquet at a time.