The support group I attend calls it “readaptation.” I go once a month to sit with other survivors of spiritual abuse. The room isn’t big but there’s always donuts and enough chairs for anyone brave enough to sit and share their story. It brings me peace to know I’m not alone. Vox often comes with me, his big hand wrapped around mine while we listen to others and the guidance the organizer gives. So yes, readaptation is still ongoing. Healing is slow, but it’s happening.
I answer Vox’s text, then head back to the main room. The front of the shop glows with morning light, streaked through the glass and softened by the condensation. Cut flowers wait in tall buckets, stems submerged, petals open to the day.
“Three funerals, five anniversaries, and a dozen others, wait…” Olga steps closer, sliding on her glasses, which hang around her neck on a pearl chain. She squints at the paper on the wooden desk. “This one’s wrong, it’s supposed to be red tulips, not peach.” I pull the small notebook and pen from my apron pocket and write,No problem, I’m on it. Anything else?
“All good, love. If you handle those, that’ll be perfect. I’ll open in ten. Tea?” I nod with a smile. It’s our Monday and Tuesday ritual. A cup of green tea before the doors unlock and the world walks in. Pulling back a strain of hair, I then glance over the personnel messages from the orders Olga gave me.
With love, Thomas
For Grandma and Grandpa, Lola
My condolences, Henry
Good luck on your new job, Margie
To the love of my life, Jack
The steam from the cup warms my fingers as I read them. All these people, living lives as tangled and fragile as mine. None of us spared from loss. None of us spared from joy. Everyone is fighting their own invisible battles and carrying mountains of grief in their chests. Being a tiny gear in this big, strange, beautiful machine of life feels like being a little fairy, crafting a small treasure for a stranger somewhere to hold. I put extra care into the arrangements meant for funerals. It’s my way of trying to brighten the edges of someone’s hardest day with as much dignity as I can. Olga watches me from the corner of her eye.
“Rose, I think, um, you’re done with that one love,” she says gently, but I shake my head. Some things just need more love and attention. If I were the one grieving, I would have appreciated it.
The day unfolds in a soft ballet of customers. The doorbell chimes, footsteps echo on the wooden floor, and the shop gradually empties and refills. Plants hang from the ceiling in ceramic pots, leaves brushing the air when the door opens. On the left, dozens of different flowers stand in tall vases so people can compose their own bouquets. On the right, small potted plants crowd the shelves, a miniature forest of green. I listen to Olga chat with customers while I work, doing my best to make each bouquet as beautiful as possible, adding velvet ribbons andtiny wooden butterflies. Hours slip by until Olga calls out, “Rose, darling, look. Your man is here.”
Lost in sorting tulips by color, I look up and see him. My tall, dark knight stands outside the glass, hands clasped behind his back like a soldier on guard. The gray sky behind him makes his black clothes appear even darker, his tattoos hidden under leather and cotton. Electricity shoots through me, sharp and sweet. I wipe my hands and clear my space as fast as I can, wave goodbye to Olga, and hurry to my fiancé. He opens the door for me as I step outside and, with one arm, lifts me from the ground. My toes barely brush the tiles as he presses a reverent kiss to my lips.
“Finally,” he breathes. “Waited hours for this.”
I grin. “Me too,” I mouth.
“Waffles?” he asks, and I nod, almost giddy. It’s only five, and we have the rest of the evening ahead of us. Some nights, he doesn’t make it home until I’m asleep, and I only feel the mattress dip, his body sliding in behind mine, his apologies whispered into my neck. The club needs him. I understand. So I savor every minute we get. There was a time when working at a flower shop and having him pick me up after, just to go eat waffles, existed only in my imagination. A fragile daydream I used to cling to when despair wrapped around my throat. Now it’s my reality. Something solid I can touch and wrap around myself. Hand in hand, we walk through the streets of Seattle like any normal couple. The air smells like rain and fried dough from a nearby food truck. Neon signs begin to flicker awake as the sky darkens. Freedom tastes like strawberries melting with chocolate, and calloused hands on my skin.
We pass a newspaper kiosk on my right. Vox’s hand is warm around mine, his thumb tracing slow circles over the back of it. A shiver brushes my nape.Is someone watching me?I search the crowd, my gaze landing on my right, where a newspaper staresback at me with the face of a girl I can’t quite place printed across the front page. A long brown dress, a tight braid, her skin pale as a ghost. My blood turns to ice.Why is she so…familiar?I dig through memories I often wish I could erase and finally find it. She was younger than me. A freshman at the Institute. I saw her in the corridors, always walking with her head bowed. We never spoke. My gaze drops to the headline.Survivor of the Faithful Lambs, a local cult from Tennessee: read her story. Page 12.
“Angel, everything okay?” Vox asks, but I don’t respond, pinned by the haunted look in her printed eyes. I tug at his hand and point at the newspaper.
Vox
What the hell is this?
I step toward the kiosk and grab the paper, sliding a bill to the old man behind the stand. All I want is to shield Rose from whatever this is. Protect her from the parts of her past that still sink their teeth into her. Only I can’t. Not this time. I open the newspaper, scanning the article fast, dread crawling up my spine like a warning. I already know she’ll read it. I already know I can’t stop it.
Back when she first escaped, Rose spent months researching the Faithful Lambs. She stayed up late on my laptop, combing through every corner of the internet, desperate for proof that someone else had made it out alive. She found nothing. Only propaganda. Praise written by the same people who trapped her. Sothisis the first real thing. The first voice that mirrors hers.Could it hurt her to read it?A weight pushes on my chest, almost unbearable. Still, I hand her the paper. Inside, the article reads:
“I was cut off from the real world and forced to marry a man three times my age. Until recently, I had never used theinternet or even seen a television screen. My food was rationed, and I suffered malnutrition and irreparable damage to my bones and health. I escaped before getting pregnant. I couldn’t live with myself if I had brought a child into the cult. When our Leader died, I…”.I stop reading, wishing her past was behind her and not here, an article away, in my bare hands.
“You sure?” I ask, even though I already see the answer in her eyes. Fear and resolve resting their hands on her shoulder. As she reads, I search her face for any sign she’s slipping back into those shadows. Her skirt moves in the wind, her hair brushes her cheek, but she stays rooted in place, holding her ground like she refuses to let her past shake her again. A tiny crease forms near her eye. My girl's lips tremble before handing me the article back.
“I need to…meet her,” she signs. Her hands don’t waver. Every protective instinct in me screams no. My brain fires off every nightmare scenario, traps, manipulation, trauma, dragging her under again.
“I support you no matter what, but-” I run my palm on my face. “Just… give me a sec. What if- what if it’s a trap?”
“A trap?”
“To get you back?”
“I don’t think so,” she signs. “It wouldn’t make sense.”
“Maybe not. But…what if it was and they took you back and?—”
