Chapter: The Gardenia Between My Pages

The university was filled with flowers, hugs, and noise. Olivia looked beautiful in her cap and gown, but it was more than that—there was a new calm about her, a soft light in her eyes. She had made it this far, even though there were many days she thought she wouldn't.

Her friends surrounded her, excited, taking pictures, laughing, crying. Alejandra came closer, her eyes shining.

—"Are you okay?"—she asked, adjusting Olivia's cap.

—"Yes... but I feel like something's missing,"—Olivia whispered.

She didn't say it with sadness. It was just a fact. Tom wasn't there—at least not physically. But she knew that somehow, he wouldn't miss this.

After the ceremonies, the speeches, and the applause, Olivia decided to walk alone for a moment. She slipped away from the bustle and went to the garden by the side of the campus, one she used to visit with Tom when they studied together.

She sat on a bench. Closed her eyes. Took a deep breath.

And when she opened them, it was there.

On the bench beside her: a gardenia.

Fresh. White. Untouched.

Her breath caught for a moment. She picked it up gently, as if it might disappear if she held it too tightly.

—"I knew you'd come,"—she whispered, smiling with tear-filled eyes.

Just then, the wind blew softly. Like a caress. Like someone tousling her hair with tenderness. Just like Tom used to do.

Olivia took out the notebook she had brought in her bag—the same one where she wrote her letters. She opened to a blank page and placed the gardenia in the center, pressing it between past words.

And she wrote:

"I made it, Tom. We made it.
Thank you for never letting go.
Thank you for appearing in every garden I thought had withered."

She closed the notebook.

Went back to her friends.

And celebrated—not with an absence, but with an invisible presence... more real than ever.