Chapter 18: Written in the Wind

The garden had always been quiet, a place where words weren't needed, where emotions spoke louder than anything we could say. But tonight, the silence felt different it wasn't empty, it wasn't waiting. It was full, heavy with something unspoken, something that had always been there between us.

You sat beside me on the wooden steps of our home, the sky stretching endlessly above, filled with stars that flickered like secrets only we could understand. The wind moved through the roses, carrying the scent of something soft, something familiar, something that had become ours.

I watched as you closed your eyes for a moment, letting the night settle into you. "Do you ever wonder," you murmured, "if love is just a story we tell ourselves?"

Your words lingered in the air, twisting into the wind, but I didn't hesitate. "No," I said. "Because I don't have to tell myself a story when I have you."

You opened your eyes, meeting my gaze, and for a moment, nothing else existed. The world faded, the stars blurred, the wind quieted there was only you.

I reached for your hand, lacing my fingers through yours, feeling the warmth of your touch, the quiet rhythm of your heartbeat against my skin. "If love is anything," I continued, voice low, steady, "it's this. The way you breathe beside me, the way the wind carries your name in ways I can't explain. It's not a story. It's real."

A slow breath left your lips, as if you had been holding it for far too long. "Then promise me," you whispered, "that no matter what, we won't become just a memory."

I lifted your hand to my lips, pressing a kiss to your knuckles, feeling the weight of your words settle into my bones. "We won't," I promised. "Because the wind will always carry us forward, and I will always find you in it."

And as the night wrapped around us, as the stars continued to glow in the vastness above, I knew that some things weren't just moment they were written into the very fabric of existence, carried in the wind, whispered between souls.

And you… you were mine, always.