nd its way behind her mother's property, offering solace when troubled thoughts seemed cacophonous. She slip

to more recent ambles steeped in an ominous silence, when unsaid words hung heavy as low-hanging branches. During one suc

ays been this cracked, held together by surface civility alone? Or had stresses accumulated gradually over time like seasonal layers benea

lar organ. Tracing its unique ridges with gentle fingers, Josephine took comfort as nature's calm seeped into frazzled nerves. She leaned

shy smiles exchanged across a candlelit bistro table, Robert's kind eyes watching her with an intensity she found both intimidating and exhilarating. Her ne

o? Or was this painful clarity of hindsight merely skewing memories through a lens of later hurt? All she knew for certain was feeling cherished beyond measure in those early

yet staining fingers dark with promise. One warm night in particular emerged, Robert sneaking her from the c

r had pulled her rapt gaze earthward then, a slow smile creasing his face as he told tales of their unwritten tomorrows in a hopeful tone like balm to h

d blissful young love proven blind, as it must, to harsh realities shadowing each idyll? Sighing, she pressed palms to eye

new home, hardly believing good fortune that every worldly possession might soon share space with his. Mornings waking

had they lingered blissfully untroubled in a cradle of new love, each quietly planning happily-ever-after alongside the other, unfettered

ed her lips, mourning youth's unguarded optimism so swiftly eroded when hardship found every crack to seep within and corrode f

y, cruel hands inflicting terror until escape seemed a dimly remembered dream. Scars had lingered long beneath the surface, only soothed by R

his strength after so long weathering hurt alone? Or had his fervency to heal all past ills blin

xic without care. Josephine hugged herself tighter on the woodland floor, heart leaden under re

ed colours drained darker now as daylight waned amid woodland shadows. She wept freely then - for innocence despoiled, wounds

ls entwined once seemed from strangers yelling hurtfulness across a too-small kitchen under great dur

tion shifts had submerged them so thoroughly in a quagmire neither seemed able now to pull self nor other clear from without deeper injury. Only by explorin