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Chapter 41 - Chapter 41: The Garden with Thorns

"It's easy to love someone's flowers —

the harder part is staying

when you notice the thorns."

Dear Diary,

I always thought of him as sunlight.

The soft kind.

The kind that sits on your skin and hums instead of burns.

But today…

I saw the part of him that casts a shadow.

We were walking through the back roads behind his house,

the ones lined with broken fences and forgotten weeds.

I was humming a tune from the radio,

something soft and silly.

Then his phone rang.

He picked it up —

and I watched the change happen

like a curtain being drawn.

His voice dropped.

His eyes hardened.

He said almost nothing.

Just

"Yeah. Okay. I'm not coming back."

and ended the call with a tired kind of silence.

I asked, gently,

"Was that your mom?"

He didn't answer.

Just kept walking.

So I didn't push.

But later, under the tree,

he looked at me and said:

"There are parts of me you probably won't like, Wunor.

Not everyone who raised me knew how to love gently."

And I think that was the moment I loved him

not just for the softness,

but for the jagged edges he trusted me to see.

Because maybe love isn't about ignoring the thorns.

Maybe it's about choosing to sit in the garden anyway.

I didn't say anything poetic.

I just took his hand.

And he didn't pull away.

Till tomorrow,

Wunor 🌫️🖤🌱

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