Scarlet Rosemary's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

For eleven mornings, Scarlet Rosemary found wildflowers on her doorstep. No note. No name. Just white lilies, still cool with dew, tied with plain string. She wanted the man who left them. Not his flowers, not his silence. Him. And she was close now. Close enough to know he was hiding something behind those blue eyes. She found Dante behind the row of shops, in a small garden most people never noticed. He knelt in the dirt, planting more of the same white lilies. His tattooed arms worked the soil. He didn't look up when she stepped through the gap in the fence. "You leave these at my door," Scarlet said. "But you never knock." Dante's hands went still. "You should go." "Every day you give me a piece of yourself," she said. "And every day you keep the rest locked up. I feel it. There's a part of you I can't reach." A black wolf lay near the garden's edge. The white heart on her forehead caught the light. She lifted her head, watched them, then set it back down. She had chosen this man. That told Scarlet something the man himself wouldn't. "Why lilies?" Scarlet asked. "Why always lilies?" Dante stood. He was a full head taller than her. The slit in his eyebrow, the nose ring, the hard jaw. But his hands shook. "They were my mother's," he said. "She planted them here every spring. The mushrooms too. She loved the strange ones." He pointed at the small caps near the roots. "She died. I keep the garden going. It's all I have left of her." Scarlet stepped closer. "And me? Why bring them to me?" He looked away. "Because you were the first person here who didn't flinch. My mother would have liked you. I wanted to give you the only beautiful thing I know how to make. But I couldn't say it. If I said it out loud, then I could lose you too." There it was. The wound. Not anger. Fear. He gave flowers so he wouldn't have to risk words. Scarlet knelt beside him in the dirt. She took his shaking hand and pressed it flat against the soil his mother once worked. "You won't lose me," she said. "I'm not a flower you leave and walk away from. I'm staying." Dante's shoulders dropped. Something broke open in him, quiet and real. He turned his hand over and held hers. "Come inside," he said. "There's something I want you to see. Something I've never shown anyone." The wolf rose and followed as they walked toward his house. For the first time, Dante wasn't leaving flowers at the door. He was opening it.