Chapter 2: Conversations in Bloom

The cherry tree had begun to shed more petals now.

Rhea noticed it the moment she returned to the courtyard the next morning. The same soft carpet of pink had thickened overnight, like the sky had wept poetry in silence.

She wasn’t sure why she came back. She told herself it was for the quiet. For the view. For the shade.

Not for him.

And yet… there he was again.

Aarav sat like he always did, leaned slightly forward, pencil tucked behind his ear, sketchbook half open on his lap. He looked up when she approached—not surprised, not expectant. Just calm, like he somehow knew she would return.

“You’re back,” he said, sliding a little to make room.

“Just passing by,” Rhea said, but sat down anyway.

She liked how this spot made everything else fade. The buildings, the chatter, the feeling of being new and unsure. Here, she didn’t have to smile if she didn’t want to. She didn’t have to explain herself.

For a while, neither spoke.

Birds hopped near their feet. A girl passed by crying on the phone. A professor shouted something about class rosters.

“Do you always draw?” Rhea asked, watching his fingers move on the page.

“Mostly,” Aarav said. “When I can’t say things out loud.”

She glanced at the sketchbook. He turned it slightly toward her without hesitation.

It was a pencil drawing of the cherry tree, delicate and detailed—branches twisting like veins, petals scattered like broken memories. But what struck her most wasn’t the tree. It was the two figures sitting beneath it. Tiny silhouettes. One hunched, cautious. The other open, at ease.

“It’s us,” she said quietly.

He gave a small shrug. “You sat here. So I drew you.”

“No one’s ever drawn me before.”

“Then they weren’t paying attention.”

Rhea didn’t know how to respond to that. Compliments unsettled her. She filed them away like receipts—proof that something happened, but not meant to be kept forever.

A soft breeze passed between them, carrying the scent of old rain and fresh beginnings.

She looked up at the branches. “It’s strange, isn’t it? How something so soft can survive every season.”

Aarav followed her gaze. “Maybe softness is strength.”

His voice held no weight of flirtation. It was just an observation. But it lingered longer than it should have.

Rhea hesitated. Then said, “My brother used to say that. Before he...”

She stopped herself.

Aarav looked at her, really looked.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to say anything.”

But she already had. Just enough to feel the ache in her chest again. Grief didn’t need an audience. But it also didn’t like silence.

“He passed away last year,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “It changed everything. Even how I breathe.”

“I get it,” Aarav said. “My dad died when I was sixteen. After that... I built walls. Good ones. Beautiful ones. But still walls.”

And just like that, a thread tied them together.

Grief had a way of recognizing itself, even when buried beneath years or jokes or pretty sketches. It reached across benches and whispered, me too.

Rhea let out a slow breath.

“I didn’t come here to make friends,” she said.

“Neither did I.”

“But this… whatever this is... feels different.”

Aarav nodded. “Then let’s not call it anything yet. Let it just be.”

The bell rang in the distance.

Students rushed by. Some looked at them. Most didn’t.

But the cherry tree above, the petals below, and the bench between them felt like its own little world. And for the first time since her brother’s death, Rhea didn’t feel entirely alone.

She stayed a little longer.

So did he.

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