Page 118 of Veil of Smoke

We stop at the edge of the pier. The lake opens in front of us like a promise. The wind brushes past. She tilts her face toward it and closes her eyes.

There’s dirt on her knuckles. A faint scar on her temple. Her hair’s tied back but messy. And I’ve never seen her look more holy.

Not because she’s been saved.

Because she never needed saving.

“We could’ve ended up ashes,” she says, voice low. Not broken. Just honest.

I nod. “We did.”

The mist parts just enough for the moonlight to kiss the water. The whole lake glows in pieces.

“And we built something from them,” I finish.

She looks at me then. Not like she’s searching for a future. But like she’s already living it.

I study the water, the sky, her profile drawn in soft blue edges. I try to remember who I was the first time I stood here.

That man had a gun in his belt and a death wish in his bones. That man didn’t think peace was a real thing. Not for people like us.

But peace doesn’t come in waves. It comes in steady hands and open doors. In coffee shared on crates. In peonies blooming in windows no one thought would be repaired.

We didn’t kill the world to get here.

We just survived it.

And maybe that’s enough.

I turn toward her. Watch the way the wind pulls strands of hair loose. How she doesn’t bother fixing them.

She meets my gaze. Holds it.

And I know—we weren’t ruined by the fire. We became something new inside it.

She doesn’t need to say it back. I see it in her eyes. The truth of it. The full circle of it.

And for a moment, it feels like the city holds its breath just to let us have this.

We don’t kiss. We don’t need to.

We just stand there—hands brushed, eyes open, the lake before us and the wreckage behind.

Not saints.

Not clean.

But together.

Epilogue – Viviana

I stand behind the counter of Ash & Bloom, late morning sunlight pouring through the clean front windows. One year later, the shop hums with life, not noise, a steady pulse I’ve grown into.

Fresh flowers bloom in galvanized steel buckets along the walls—peonies, ranunculus, roses, eucalyptus—their colors soft but bold. The air smells of jasmine and old wood polish, a scent that wraps me like a second skin.

A young couple steps up, flushed with nerves and excitement. The bride fidgets with her sleeve, her groom hovering close. “We just want something simple,” she says, her voice bright but shy.

I smile, pulling color swatches and bloom cards from under the counter. “Simple is a myth,” I say, my tone warm, teasing. “But elegant, we can do.”

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