Heavenly | H.S

100 | The Cherry Blossom Tree

Harry Styles

There are some places in the world that seem incapable of changing, no matter how much time passes or how completely everything else falls apart around them.

This forest had always felt like one of them. It welcomed me in the same way it always had, with the same path that only I seemed to know, the same long grass that hid the twisted roots that pushed through the earth and the cool breeze that carried the scent of the water on the other side. Somewhere ahead, I could hear it, hidden behind the dense woodland that was like a maze to someone that didn't know it this well, the waterfall hummed through the sound of birdsong. If I closed my eyes, it felt like peace, like the world wasn't capable of being so cruel.

It felt like I was making my way back to her after wandering a little too far into the trees.

I hadn't returned here since the last time we'd stood beneath these trees together.

That afternoon, all those months ago, drifted through my mind with an ease that surprised me. I remembered how we had left my parents' house, both of us exhausted from spending hours laughing until our cheeks hurt. I'd watched my mum pull Winter into a hug before we'd left, as though she'd known her for years instead of days, while Dad had promised she'd always be welcome here, that she always had a safe place to go if she needed it.

She'd laughed the entire drive back, teasing me mercilessly about the framed photographs Mum had insisted on showing her, and the stories she'd told from my childhood, and I didn't think I'd ever seen her smile quite as freely as she had that night. There hadn't been fear in her eyes, or suspicion, or that instinctive need to watch every exit whenever she entered a room. For those few precious days she'd simply been happy. Entirely, undeniably happy.

I'd brought her here afterwards because neither of us had wanted the day to end, and we'd sat beneath the cherry blossom tree until dawn, saying almost nothing at all because there hadn't been anything left to say. The silence had been enough. She'd rested her head against my shoulder while pale pink petals drifted lazily around us, and I remember thinking that if time had chosen to stop right there, I wouldn't have minded in the slightest.

We'd made love under the cherry blossom, I'd held her close and had never wanted her more. I'd had to refrain from telling her just how much I loved her at that moment. Because I'd felt it, the aching in my heart that was as though the world had made sense. That my life had only begun the moment she walked into it.

The memory lingered with me as I followed the familiar path deeper into the forest. It was quieter than I remembered, though perhaps that was only because my own thoughts had finally learned how to be still. I didn't have anything to terrify me anymore.

The ache in my ribs pulled gently with each breath, a reminder of everything my body had yet to forgive, but it became more distant every day, a soft pain that grew only whenever I walked a little too far or forgot to take things slowly.

According to the surgeons, I should have been grateful to feel anything at all. One of them had admitted that they hadn't expected my heart to keep beating long enough for me to reach the operating room. The bullet had come impossibly close to ending everything, and somehow it hadn't. Somehow, against every prediction they were willing to make, I'd survived. They called it remarkable. But to me, in those first moments after waking, there had been nothing remarkable about waking up with half my life missing.

That was until they told me I was breathing, and she was too.

The waterfall revealed itself slowly through the trees until sunlight caught the spray rising from its base, scattering it into shimmers in the afternoon light. Nothing had disturbed it. It was always as peaceful as the last time I'd seen it. Water still poured endlessly over the rocks before disappearing into the pool below, where mossy stones glimmered beneath the surface in the way they always had. The cherry blossom tree still stood proudly beside the water, its branches stretching elegantly over the scene as though trying to shelter it from the world beyond the forest. Like a protector. Something for us to hide beneath. The blossoms were in full bloom now, far more vibrant than I'd ever seen them before, and every passing breeze sent another gentle sea of pink petals dancing through the air until they settled across the grass like the remains of a snowfall.