The Flower Guardian

I’ve seen the side of her that no one else knows. Not the woman everyone else sees, but the one who makes coffee at three in the morning wearing my shirt, the one who kicks off her heels and pads barefoot across the floor, the one who waited fourteen years before daring to ask, “Do you still remember?” They say I don’t understand how to live. But no one sees that little glimmer of softness in the corner of her eye when she lets her guard down. I’m no hero. I simply stay by her side, where no one can see.