Rhea walked out of a flower shop, with a little porcelain pot in her hands. She walked over the fallen Neem flowers, the shade of Neem and Eucalyptus trees. It had been a week since Ember passed away. She reached her home and found Loraine standing at the zebra crossing before her apartment. She didn't see his eyes but she could tell it was him. He had a white cardboard box in his hand and his eyes were covered by his golden-white bangs. She clenched the flower pot between her fingers, she did not want to see him yet. He turned and looked at her.

They both walked on the footpath, beneath the shade of Eucalyptus trees. Everything about him seemed so oddly familiar to her. They just walked quietly, a comfortable silence and walking home, for a moment, you almost believe you could start again. An intense love rushes your heart and hope. It's unendurable. Unendurable, "Did you really love him?" He asked.

She looked at him and then back at the ground, he wore black shoes, no more red jordans, "Yes,"
"How much?"
"Does it matter?" 
"Why does it not?" He looked at her.

"Because it wasn't enough to make him stay," They stood before her door, "Why don't you come in?" She asked.
"No thanks, I'd rather not," He told her, "Neel told me your dad doesn't like it,"

"No, come in," They heard and turned back, it was Mr Laghari, "Come inside, have some tea,"
Loraine looked at Rhea and she shrugged, "Well, shall we?"
He sat on the sofas and took a sip of his tea, he looked bamboozled, "Wow, I've never had tea like this before,"

"This is called Masala chai," Mr Laghari laughed, "Authentic Indian tea,"
"It's really nice, can you teach me how to make it?"
"Yes! Rhea doesn't want to learn my speciality, you come with me. To the kitchen!" He merrily walked into the kitchen.

Loraine pressed the white box on the porcelain pot in her hands, "What is this?" Rhea looked at the box, it read Hygge. It was Ember's handwriting, "Hygge? What does it mean?"

"I don't know Danish, how would I know?"

She sat on her bed and opened the box. It had a small photo he clicked of them while they were buying the fabric for Jessica, under that Gulmohar tree, a photo frame of a picture of them when they were little, the same one Rhea had in her room, only that his one was better kept. It also had the necklace that Rhea had given him on her birthday, a golden paintbrush, few guitar strings, a blue sweater and a pastel blue camera, with withered petals of forget me not flowers. Rhea picked up the camera and looked at the files inside it. It had a few folders having videos from his childhood, but the one that caught her eyes was "Hygge"

She played the video and Ember sat inside the screen, on his bed.

"Hey Arorhea, how's it goin'? Well, I decided to make it because one, I am bored and yeah, that's the only reason, actually. It's really weird talking to the camera this way, I feel like a Youtuber," He laughed, "I hope no one enters the room otherwise they'll think I'm a freak! Seems like my brain muscles have started depleting now haha. Well, Loraine's gonna slap me to death if he sees what I'm doing-I mean, a goodbye video? Like who does that?

Yep, that's me. Ember Cardilia Helberg! RHEA! You know what, there's this one thing I never told you. Remember I told you that the first time I met you, I was being bullied? Actually, that was the second time I met you, the first time I met you was on a rainy day when I forget my umbrella, so I decided to just go back home without one. I stood there at the train station, without an umbrella, drenched in the rain; people simply passed by, ignoring me. But there was one person who didn't ignore me. Quick quiz! Guess who was it?

Bingo! Correct, it was you, Arorhea! Really, you were so nice that you gave your umbrella to me saying that I needed it more than you did. You were always so kind to others, so you obviously won't remember such petty incidences, but I do because the world has never really been kind to me, so yeah. I am one simple guy. 

Then again, I got "Le photographic memory" too.

But you know what, no matter how "gifted" you are-In the end, you just have to come back where your heart belongs, because home is where the heart is and my home is in you, so I returned back here, to my real home, to India."

A teardrop almost fell from her eyes.

"Looking back at our lives, the unbelievable thing is that despite all the times when things felt so wrong, we still managed to meet at the perfect moment-almost as if by some plan which we were unaware of.

You were my first love and I don't regret anything at all. I just believe I was naive for thinking that you and I would have made it. I wanted you to be the one for me but I know I'm not the one for me. 

So, no matter how hard we tried, it would have never worked out between us. The thought of you with someone else makes me sick to my bowels! Oh! I forgot I don't have a bowel, haha...

When I first met you, I wanted you to be mine only. I told myself that I would never lose you and I lost you. Sometimes I don't think of you and the other times you cross my mind like waves. I can't help but wonder if you're alright if you're thinking about me too as you watch this.

I'll never forget the morning when you and I were walking down that flower way in the hospital's garden and you started crying when we talked about me. I felt so pathetic,"

'Yeah, I remember that too' Rhea thought as she paused at the video 'I was so scared of losing you, tears began to flow from my eyes. You told me that no matter what, you'll always be there.

I am sitting on my bed right now, and you're not here. It's funny how we humans make such risky promises that will eventually be broken. We don't know what will happen. We just go on day by day in hopes that life works in our favour somehow.'

He took a deep breath and looked straight into the camera,

"I'm sorry I left when you needed me the most. You're the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me. You got roses to my barren land and I left them there with you to die. Now, all I can do is look down on myself. And I hate what I see. You still have me and I hate it. I don't hate you but I hate how you still make me feel. I hate how I still cannot unlove you. And I hate how you hold my heart while I...

I can't even touch it,
I can't touch your heart."

. . .

It was a summer morning. Like always, people were shouting and running for their school. As the sunlight penetrated through the room's window, it lit up all the books kept inside the room on the shelves and the table. But Rhea wasn't there. She was paddling down the streets, with canvas boards on her backseat, they were lighter than his body. She looked around and suddenly caught sight of a roadside stand. They were selling old, paperback editions of books in fifty. Rhea decided to check them out and buy some first Ember. In the bundle of books, she found a book on gardening.

She read the title and knew she had to buy it. It read, 'How you grow your sweet autumn clematis,'

The white flower pot now had small saplings growing from it, but then what followed it was vigorous growth. Growing and spreading, Rhea looked into the book,

"Sweet autumn clematis is a weed that can grow in every season but blooms only in spring. It smells like wet almonds. The most unique property about this weed is that it can sprout again after ten years of disappearing. Yet, care must be taken while handling this weed for Clematis is highly poisonous,"

Loraine paddled her bicycle while she sat behind him, looking at his blonde hair and pink skin. They reached the graveyard and walked to Ember's grave. The tablet was of a soothing lilac colour. It was surrounded by dried flowers. She pressed a bouquet of Autumn Clematis flowers on his grave. Rhea pressed her hands over the cold grave.

"It's really weird," She said, "We have a hundred, thousand memories together. But all I can remember is the day you left."
Then, she smiled as the Gulmohar flowers fell over her brown hair, "But in the end, we all become stories,

Not all stories have another chapter,"

 "I really want to live, Rhea,"

The End