Once there was a boy and a girl.
No light could reach the boy’s heart; the branches and thorns grew too thick from shadows of his past.
Then one day, he met a girl who wanted to stay, who wanted to wait.
Some days, she helped him prune. Some days, she waited. Some days, she tried to make him laugh, to make him smile.
And then, one day, a sliver of light slipped in, from a small boulder that had rolled away.
So much light poured in, so much love, that the thorns and branches blossomed into flowers. Every week, the boy would pick the most beautiful ones and give them to the girl.
They'd giggle and dance, making up a secret handshake, just for them.
Countless walks and adventures where the world was theirs to roam.
Each day he hung the sun in the sky for her by day, and at night, strung the stars just for her.
So she could always find her way back home. Back to him.
But then, one day, the girl showed up tired. The next day she was late. And for the next few days she didn’t show up at all.
The boy went to find her, only to see she was now behind her own wall of thorns.
She was trying so hard to prune them, but they grew faster than she could manage.
The boy tried to help, but the thorns were so sharp they made him bleed.
Because she had stopped coming, and because the thorns cut him, he grew hurt and afraid.
The girl tried to tried to explain, but the branches tightened around her, choking her words. All she could do was cry, but he couldn’t hear her.
One day, he stopped coming altogether.
The day she finally cut through the last branch, she rushed to find him.
The sun no longer rose, and the stars had fallen. Yet she persisted in the dark, determined.
She followed the rhythm of his heart, but when she arrived, the branches had grown back, thicker than before.
She waited, day after day, her hands pressed to the bark, feeling the pulse of what once was.
Sometimes, she would whisper his name in the dark, but the only sound back was the wind.
Time stretched on, slow and endless, yet her fractured heart beat steady in the quiet dark. Though the light had faded, and the stars were no longer hers to hold, she knew the growth would eventually subside.
