The Flower That Grew from Ashes novel Chapter 177

"Cold."

She heard herself answer, her voice carrying a dry, hollow edge.

"Like plunging into a hole cut in the ice. Frozen solid from head to toe."

Through this steady rhythm of questioning and mapping, the therapy progressed.

Dr. Collins acted as a seasoned guide, leading Annelise back into the thorny, swampy ruins of her memories.

But this time, Annelise wasn't a helpless, isolated victim.

She was armed with a map and a machete, ready to hack her way through the underbrush.

During those sleepless nights, Annelise no longer stayed in bed wrestling with the darkness and her past.

At three in the morning, she would promptly get up, get dressed, and head out alone to her sanctuary—the flower shop.

She would turn on the warm yellow work lamp in the back room and switch off the lively daytime music.

The shop in the early hours was so profoundly silent that the only sounds were the faint gurgling of hot water cycling through the heating pipes.

And the sharp, crisp *snip* of her floral shears slicing through stems.

She realized that the arrangements she created in the dead of night were entirely different from the ones she made during the day.

Her daytime pieces were crafted to delight customers, tailored for business and bright, uplifting emotions.

But her midnight creations existed solely to appease herself.

They were more introverted, more somber, carrying an intense emotional weight that defied verbal description.

Using decaying, dark-spotted rose petals and twisted, broken, lifeless branches, she created an installation called 'Wither.'

Using a massive bundle of wilted sunflowers that were meant for the trash, turning all their heavy heads toward the floor, she made a piece called 'Mourning.'

She photographed these deeply personal, night-born creations on her phone and posted them to her Instagram.

She titled the series with a specific tag.

'Midnight Blooms.'

To her surprise, this collection dripping with gloom and sorrow garnered levels of interaction and discussion several times higher than her bright, sunny daytime bouquets.

Someone commented under the photo of 'Wither': "I feel like I'm looking at myself. Thank you for making me feel like I'm not entirely alone."

Under 'Mourning,' another wrote: "I never knew grief could look so beautiful."

Reading the empathetic messages from strangers across the world, Annelise felt a strange, stirring sensation in her chest for the very first time.

Scars, it turned out, could be acknowledged.

Pain, it turned out, could be shared.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify