After the Storm,the Bloom

Ezra's father passed away the day the cherry blossoms bloomed.

It was quiet. Peaceful. The kind of end that felt more like a whisper than a scream. Ezra held his hand until the very last breath, his mother curled up on the other side of the bed, fingers trembling but steady.

Talia wasn't in the room.

She waited outside the hospice ward, hands clasped in her lap, the ring Ezra gave her warm against her skin.

When he stepped into the hallway, his face was unreadable. Not broken. Not whole.

Just… different.

She stood.

He didn't say a word—just pulled her into him and buried his face in her shoulder.

"I'm here," she whispered into his hair. "I'm not going anywhere."

And for a long time, neither of them moved.

—

Grief was strange.

It didn't follow a timeline. It didn't knock politely or announce its presence. Some days, Ezra made pancakes and cracked dumb jokes about pharmacology mnemonics. Other days, he forgot how to speak at all.

And Talia learned not to fix him.

She learned to sit beside his silence, to walk with him through it instead of dragging him out of it. She learned to offer comfort without demand, love without pressure.

And in return, Ezra started letting her into places she didn't even know he'd closed.

Late one night, they sat on the floor of his bedroom, backs against the wall, a record humming low in the background.

"My dad used to call me 'little doctor,'" he said quietly. "Even when I was six. He'd make me check his pulse with my toy stethoscope and then pretend to faint so I'd save him."

Talia smiled. "Sounds like a dramatic man."

"The most dramatic. I think I get that from him."

She nudged his shoulder. "You? Dramatic? Never."

Ezra laughed softly. "He wasn't perfect. But he made me feel like I could be something. Someone good."

Talia turned to him, brushing hair from his eyes. "You are."

"I want to be better for you."

"You don't have to be anything for me. Just… be you. That's enough."

He looked at her like he still couldn't believe she meant it.

But she did.

With everything.

—

Spring melted into summer. Exams came and went. Ezra passed with flying colors—barely studying, but still managing top scores. Talia joked that grief must be his superpower.

"Tragedy and trauma: the new study fuel," he said dryly, and she elbowed him hard enough to make him laugh.

She passed too. Barely. But it was a win.

"I still hate pharmacology," she groaned one night, lying on the grass outside his apartment.

"You hate it because it doesn't flirt back."

"I'd flirt with it if it helped me memorize drug classes faster."

Ezra grinned. "You're ridiculous."

"You love it."

"I really, really do."

She tilted her head up to look at the stars. "Do you ever think we're still broken?"

Ezra lay beside her, lacing his fingers with hers. "Sometimes. But I think broken people can still build something beautiful."

She didn't say anything, but her grip on his hand tightened.

Because maybe she was still learning to trust love.

To trust that someone wouldn't ghost her when things got hard.

To believe that she could make mistakes and still be worthy of someone staying.

But she was also learning that love wasn't a test.

It was a process.

A choice.

And she was choosing him. Every messy, fragile, beautiful day.

—

One evening, after dinner with Sophie and Liam, Ezra surprised her.

He took her to a small community garden near campus—one she didn't even know existed.

There were fairy lights strung between trees, a little wooden bench beneath a cherry blossom tree, and a single candle flickering in a glass jar.

"I wanted to show you something," he said, pulling her toward the tree.

She stared. "Did you… decorate a garden for me?"

Ezra scratched the back of his neck. "Maybe. A little."

She blinked, laughing. "This is either the most adorable thing you've ever done—or the most Ezra thing ever."

"Can't it be both?"

He guided her to the bench and handed her a folded piece of paper.

"What is this?"

"Just something I wrote."

She opened it.

His handwriting, neat but slanted, filled the page.

Talia,

There was a moment, the first week we met, when you yelled at a professor for forgetting a girl's name. I don't think you even noticed that I was watching you. But I did. And I haven't stopped watching since.

You terrified me. You still do, sometimes. Because you're so much light and fire, and I spent so long being quiet in the dark. But somehow, you let me sit next to your flame. You never asked me to be brighter. Just real.

I don't know what forever looks like. But I know I want mine to have your laugh in it. Your messiness. Your mind.

You're it, Talia. You're the thing I didn't think I could have.

And now that I do, I'm never letting go.

E.

Talia looked up, eyes brimming.

"You're such a sap," she whispered.

Ezra shrugged. "Only for you."

She leaned in and kissed him—soft and slow, like a promise.

Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a worn sheet of paper.

"What's that?"

She handed it to him.

Ezra,

You once told me the world keeps spinning. But you're the reason I stopped running.

You held me when I thought I wasn't worth loving. Stayed when I wanted to push everyone away. You didn't fix me. You just saw me. And that saved me in a way I don't know how to explain.

I'm scared sometimes. Of messing this up. Of breaking things.

But if you're still choosing me, I'm still choosing you.

Every single day.

T.

Ezra folded the letter and held it to his chest.

They didn't need any more words.

They had the stars.

The trees.

The promise of tomorrow.

And two hearts that, after everything, had finally learned how to bloom.

Together.