Chapter 20 Where Wild Roses Bloom
Where Wild Roses Bloom
I grip the steering wheel so tight my knuckles turn white, like I’m terrified it’ll dissolve if I loosen my hold.
My car seems to navigate on autopilot, tires crunching over gravel as I turn onto his street.
Afternoon sun catches my rearview mirror, flashing brilliant gold directly into my eyes—like the universe is forcing a decision.
Turn back or keep going? I can feel my pulse everywhere—wrists, throat, ears.
Thump-thump, thump-thump. The rhythm of the most terrifying thing I’ve ever attempted: trusting him again.
His letter sits folded in my pocket, edges already soft from constant handling since I left the clinic. The paper radiates heat against my thigh. Five years of choices, all roads leading back to me. To us.
I slow as his house comes into view. The gray siding looks warm in evening light, oversized windows reflecting molten gold. It appears identical to my last visit for clinic work, but everything means something different now. Not just a house he purchased, but a future he built. For us.
My hands tremble as I park and kill the engine. The quiet feels heavy, waiting. Like the atmosphere before a storm breaks—full of possibilities.
I inhale shakily. “You can do this,” I whisper, flipping down the visor mirror. My hair’s a disaster from anxious touching, and my face shows evidence of crying. I should’ve gone home to change out of wrinkled scrubs and fix myself up. Too late now.
The walk to his door stretches endlessly. My pulse pounds so violently it physically hurts. In novels, this is when the heroine finally surrenders and claims her happy ending. But this is reality. I might end up sobbing alone in my car, or maybe—just maybe—something miraculous could happen.
I raise my fist to knock but freeze. What if he doesn’t want to see me? What if he’s reconsidered?
Enough, Sophie.
I force myself to knock. Three loud raps break the quiet evening. Nothing. I knock again, harder. Still nothing.
The windows remain dark. No movement inside, no lights illuminating the rooms. I step back, studying the empty house, my heart plummeting. He’s not home. Of course he’s not. I ignored him for days, didn’t answer eighteen calls—why would he just sit around waiting for me to appear?
I could call him, but my phone died an hour ago. I could wait on his porch, but that feels pathetic and desperate. I could leave a note, but I have no pen or paper except the documents from his letter, and using those doesn’t seem right.
The sun sinks lower, painting the sky in shades of rose and amber. My gaze drifts toward the path beside his backyard—the trail leading up to our bench on the cliff.
Before I consciously decide, my feet carry me around his house to the trailhead. If he’s not home, I know exactly where else he might be. The place where he once promised forever—where he’s been tending those roses for months, waiting for them to bloom.
The trail feels like running into an old friend I’ve been trying to avoiding.
The dirt path climbs the cliff face, occasionally offering glimpses of ocean between trees.
Wind carries the scent of salt and kelp up from below.
My legs remember this climb, but my breathing grows labored since I haven’t walked this way with Mia in so long.
Every step summons memories. Zayn and me at eighteen and twenty-one, hands intertwined as we hiked.
Racing each other to the top, breathless with laughter.
Sitting together on the bench with his arm around me, mapping out our futures after graduation.
This is where he first said he loved me.
Where we shared our final kiss before he left for Seattle.
I’m panting as the path steepens. The setting sun casts long golden shadows across the trail. My heart races with each step—partly from exertion, but mostly from everything else. Hope. Fear. Emotions I don’t have names for.
I round the final curve, and suddenly there’s the overlook—where the cliff juts out over the ocean with views stretching to infinity. The weathered wooden bench sits right at the edge, gray and worn from years of sea spray and sun exposure.
And there is Zayn. He sits on the bench with his back to me, shoulders silhouetted against the blazing orange sunset.
He’s absolutely still, staring at the ocean like he’s been frozen there for hours.
All around him, roses are blooming in wild profusion—dusty pink ones, deep purple ones, crimson ones the color of old wine, cascading over the rocky ground and clinging to the cliff edge.
The roses he planted months ago, now erupting with color and fragrance in the fading light.
I stop walking, courage faltering. All my rehearsed words evaporate.My bravery starts to fade. For one cowardly moment, I consider turning around, walking away, acting like I never came here at all.
But then he turns around, like he sensed my presence.
His eyes find mine, and everything stops—my breath catches, my heart freezes, time suspends. His expression shifts from surprise to something fragile, breakable. Hope.
“Sophie,” he breathes, my name barely audible over wind and waves.
My feet move of their own accord, carrying me up the final section of path. I’m trembling, and I don’t know if it’s from the climb or from seeing him like this. Probably both.
The bench seems impossibly distant one moment, then suddenly I’m standing right before it. Zayn rises when I approach, but doesn’t approach. Giving me space. He always does.
“I went to your house,” I say, my voice sounding foreign to my own ears. “You weren’t there.”
“I needed to think.” His eyes search mine, looking for answers. “I come here when…”
He trails off, but I understand. I know what this place represents. This is where we come when we’re missing each other. When we need to remember. When everything hurts too much.
The wooden bench is still warm from the sun when I sit down. Zayn hesitates before joining me, making sure to leave space between us.
We don’t speak. The only sounds are waves crashing against rocks far below and wind rustling through the roses.
The air smells like salt water and sweet petals mingling—a scent unique to this spot, where these stubborn little roses thrive in soil that should be too harsh for anything beautiful to survive.
The sun hovers low now, transforming the ocean to liquid gold. It’s breathtaking, but I can barely register it. All I can focus on is him beside me—the rise and fall of his chest, his hands resting on his knees, the tension radiating from his shoulders.
“I read your letter,” I finally say, breaking the silence between wave crashes.
He nods, watching the sunset. Waiting.
“I never stopped loving you.” The confession escapes before I can censor it, more honest than I’ve allowed myself to be since he left. “I just stopped thinking love was enough.”
He inhales sharply but remains quiet, letting me speak.
“When you left…” I have to pause and swallow past the lump choking my throat, trying to voice things I’ve buried for years.
“It shattered something in me. Something fundamental. Something I thought was unbreakable.” My fingers twist together in my lap, restless.
“I built walls to protect what was left. Convinced myself I needed them. That they kept me safe.”
A seagull cries overhead, wheeling across the darkening sky. I watch it instead of looking at him.
“But walls don’t just keep pain out,” I say, finally articulating something I’ve felt for years but couldn’t name.
I reach out and touch one of the purple rose petals.
It’s silk-soft between my fingers, delicate yet resilient enough to withstand storms. “They keep everything else out too. Joy. Connection. Friendship.” I have to pause and breathe. “Love.”
I force myself to meet his gaze. His face isn’t wearing that professional attorney mask he uses to hide emotion. It’s just him—the real Zayn, vulnerable and exposed—and seeing him like this makes my chest ache.
“I was so terrified of getting hurt again that I stopped truly living,” I tell him. “I only dated men I knew I’d never fall for. I worked constantly. I read romance novels instead of risking my own love story.”
He slowly reaches for my hand, moving like he’s giving me every opportunity to pull away. I don’t. When his fingers close around mine, they’re warm and solid. That familiar spark I always felt with him shoots through me, exactly like it did five years ago, like touching a live wire.
“This entire time,” he says, his voice rough and slightly unsteady, “I’ve been hoping you might give us another chance. But I’d understand completely if you can’t.” His thumbs trace gentle circles on my skin. “What I did—leaving you like that—it was unforgivable.”
“No,” I shake my head. “Not unforgivable. Just… it hurt so badly I thought I’d die from it.
” I study our intertwined hands. “We were so young, Zayn. Both of us. You chasing that prestigious career. Me thinking life would unfold like the books I read.” A sad smile tugs at my lips. “We didn’t know any better back then.”
“I know better now,” he says with absolute certainty. His eyes—the ones I still see when I close mine at night—hold mine steadily. “We can take it slow. I’m not going anywhere.”
The sun touches the horizon, painting the sky in shades of tangerine and rose. The ocean below mirrors those colors, turning to molten copper. Light catches the windows of Bellrose down the hillside, the small town we both fled, each in our own way, before finding our way back.
“Five years,” I whisper. “Five years pretending I was over you.” My voice fractures slightly. “And all that time, you were navigating your way back to me.”
“Always,” he says simply. That word from his letters. The promise he made that he couldn’t fulfill then but desperately wants to honor now.
Something releases inside me. Like carrying a crushing weight for so long you forget it’s there, until someone suddenly lifts it from your shoulders. The part of me that’s been waiting for disaster finally lets go.
“I want to try again,” I tell him, my voice steadier now despite the tears gathering. “I might still get scared sometimes. I might need you to reassure me you’re staying. I might raise my defenses when I’m feeling vulnerable.”
“I’ll be here,” he says, squeezing my hands gently. “Every single day. As long as you need. Always.”
I look at the roses surrounding us, thriving in this impossible location.
He planted them as fragile shoots months ago, and now they’re exploding with life and color.
They’ve grown deep roots in rocky soil. They’ve survived ocean spray and wind and dry spells because he took care of them every day, believing they could grow here when everything said they couldn’t.
Just like he believed in us.
The sun finally slips below the horizon. As twilight deepens, I shift closer to him, closing the gap he’s kept between us. He reaches up and brushes away a tear from my cheek that I didn’t even know had fallen.
“I’m still terrified,” I whisper, looking directly into his eyes. “But I’m more scared of not giving us a chance. Of missing this. Of spending my life wondering what could have happened if I’d just been brave enough to trust you again.”
The kiss is tentative and questioning—like he’s asking permission.
His lips barely graze mine, as if I’m something precious that might break.
But then I kiss him back, deeper this time, and something inside me that’s been clenched tight for years finally releases.
Five years of wanting him, missing him, loving him despite everything pours into this kiss.
He cradles my face like I’m made of glass, and I fist my hands in his shirt, anchoring myself to him. Never letting go again.
The stars begin emerging overhead as we break apart, foreheads pressed together, breathing the same air. The roses perfume the twilight around us, and the ocean whispers its eternal rhythm below, and for the first time in five years, I feel like I’ve finally come home.