“What are you doing?” she murmurs, flattening her small frame to my side. The scent of roses fills my nostrils and I breathe her in, engraving her to memory. She’ll always be my lone rose—the resilient rose that I’d pluck from the side of the road over and over again, even if her thorns caused me to bleed. She’s my rose. Her thorns as well as her exotic scent are mine and mine alone.
