# Garden Of Rosa Ending 3

Garden of Rosa
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Ending 3
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Imagine if you will that it was Rosa, not Anon, who needed someone to rely on, someone to hold them and tell them everything is going to be okay. A Rosa whose family was slowly being torn apart by the inescapable force that is cancer, forced to only sit and watch as it took their matron, their rock, away from them. Always quick to love other people before herself, Rosa was unable to cope with her inability to help her Mama as she faded away.
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This, is the ending for that Rosa, and her Amor.
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***
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My thoughts were troubled as I watched Volcaldera Bluffs whip by through the dirty window of the cab. Three years I been away, forced to find a job overseas, forced away from the love of my life, my fiancee. Rosa and I never got the chance to get married; As the summer wore on, her mom got sicker and sicker, and we agreed to but wedding plans on the backburner until she got better. Sadly, with no big envelopes coming my way from the various colleges I had applied to, I was forced to find other means of providing for us. A three-month certification program as a welder’s assistant kept the lights on for a while, but when my journeyman assignment took me overseas, we were forced to make a horrible decision.
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“You’ll come back to me, mi amor, right?” Rosa had said as I boarded the train to the airport, hugging me tightly.
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“Of course, Rosa. It’s just three years, that’ll be over before you know it.” The lie sounded hollow to my own ears, and the words tasted sour in my mouth.
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“When you get back, meet me at our place, An-on.” With the final boarding call sounding over the loudspeaker, we finally broke our embrace, both of us fighting back tears. “I’ll be waiting for you, mi amor.”
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“And I’ll be waiting for it.”
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A sudden jolt knocked me out of my memories. The cab had stopped, the familiar gates of the arboretum standing before me. Closed gates. The sun was already being to fall behind the arboretum hill, where Rosa would be waiting for me.
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“Alright kid, we’re here.” The cabbie’s eyebrows had gotten longer, somehow. “Why’d you wanna’ come here anyways? Ain’t this place closed today?”
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“I’m meeting someone,” I replied, my voice terse as I counted out the fare. Shouldering my heavy duffel bag on my shoulder, I paused on the curb, my heart falling. In place of the simple swing gate from three years before, the arboretum now sported a heavy seat of large iron gates. No way I could hop over that thing, no matter how much better shape I was in. And Rosa wasn’t anywhere in sight, either. Had she forgotten?
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Rolling down the passenger window, the cabbie leaned over to me, concerned. “It, uh, don’t look like she’s here, friend.” His words echoed my worst fears come to life. “You need me to take you somewhere else? No extra charge friend, just name the address and you’re there.” Motion out of the corner of my eye stopped me before I could respond, the motion of someone walking up to the arboretum gates from the inside. No, not walking: Running.
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“An-on? AN-ON!”
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It was like the world stopped turning, anything and everything else just falling away. Cabbie forgotten, and leaving my luggage where it dropped, I sprinted over to the gates, seeing my amor to the same. It only took us a second to reach each other, but neither of us wanted to be apart for any longer than we had to.
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“An-on, it is you! Oh, Dios mío, I thought I’d never see you again…” Rosa looked much the same as I remembered: The same crimson eyes, so full of compassion, the same beautiful face. Really, the only thing that had changed were her clothes, Rosa now decked out in earth-toned pants and tank-top, the uniform of an arboretum employee. I couldn’t help but ogle Rosa’s cleavage, the fabric of her top stretched taut against her breasts. Hey, she was my fiancee, after all! A faded blue bandana completed her look, no doubt preventing her shining auburn hair from getting in her face as she worked. “Oh, Mi Amor, how I’ve missed you!” Reaching her hands through the bars of the gate, Rosa held my cheeks, stroking my face like she always did.
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“I’ve missed you too, Rosa,” I whisper back, ignoring the squeal of tires as the cab sped away. My face already hurt from grinning. “You look amazing Rosa, that uniform really suits you. Say, do you work here?” Oh, how I longed to hear that snort of half-contained laughter…
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“An-on, I do no know if I missed your little jokes. But, yes, I do work here. Here, let me unlock the gate…” Pulling her hands back, Rosa fished out a heavy key-ring from her belt, quickly unlocking the padlock that kept the gates closed. Swinging them open, Rosa nearly flew into my arms, wrapping her arms around my back as we both stood there, content in the other’s embrace. Her hair smelled just as wonderful as I remembered…
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Eventually, we broke apart, holding hands as we stared at each other. I loved seeing Rosa like this after being apart for so long: Smiling, happy, her eyes free from sadness. For too long before I left, her mom’s illness had left little room for joy in Rosa’s life, but these initial moments of our reunion gave me hope Rosa could find some happiness once more.
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Suddenly, a mischievous look crept over Rosa’s face as she stared at me. “Well, An-on, aren’t you going to kiss me? Aren’t you going to kiss your novia?” she said, her eyes twinkling.
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Laughing, I was all too happy to oblige.
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***
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The sun was nearly set by the time Rosa and I managed to…collect ourselves. Turns out, the arboretum had bumped up security in the years I had been away, installing those front gates in an effort to prevent trespassing teenagers. The plus side was, Rosa and I had the entire park to ourselves, and free from any prying eyes, we decided to get reacquainted with one another in the arboretum’s small ticket booth.
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Rosa studied her reflecting in the ticket-booth window, adjusting her hair. Her blue bandana was where she had left it, wrapped around my bicep. “Ay, An-on, I don’t remember doing THAT with you before you left!” I nuzzled her neck as she finished fixing her hair, sending her giggling as I planted little kisses down her shoulder.
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“Don’t worry, it’s just like riding a bike. Or, I guess, riding a-“
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Rosa didn’t let me finish, elbowing me in the stomach. Wheezing, I doubled-up comedically, pretending to steady myself against the ticket booth as Rosa turned back to her hair.
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“Ay, An-on, tu estupido chico.”
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Smiling, I straightened up, noticing for the first time a dark bruise on Rosa’s back, only partially hidden by her top.
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“Rosa, what happened?” I asked, catching her gaze in the glass as I tapped her bruise gingerly.
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She hid it well, but a brief flash of fear shot across Rosa’s face. “It’s nothing, An-on, don’t worry about it.” Rosa spun quickly to face me, wrapping her arms around my neck. I could still see the bruise in her reflect, the dark splotch against her pale scales drawing me in like a beacon. “Come here, I want to show you what I’ve done with the place!”
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For the next half-hour, Rosa leads me through the arboretum, pointing out all the changes she had instituted in the time she’d worked her. It seemed Rosa managed to land the job through her volunteering connections, Principal Spears giving her a glowing recommendation due to Volcano High’s success with their gardens. Raised beds and planting boxes littered the grounds; a dizzying array of local plants of all types, and each with a little description of how they helped the local ecosystem. Edging the path were rows and rows of wildflowers, their colors alternating like some sort of botanical rainbow, and lighting had been added to the paths, each streetlamp flickering automatically to life at dusk. Apparently, the arboretum had been long overdue for these changes, but no one had had the drive to implement them. Recalling all the hours I toiled under Rosa’s watchful eye back in high school, I could understand how she accomplished this in just three short years.
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As we down the path, I could see a subtle change overcoming Rosa. Instead of energetically chattering away, Rosa was becoming more and more subdued, only chiming in to answer the questions I posed. At first I assumed she was just content to walk hand-in-hand with me once more, but the more I studied her out of the corner of my eye, the more I recognized that all-too familiar sadness beginning to creep back into her face. Not waiting to see her distraught, I tried engaging her in conversation once more.
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“Rosa, I can’t believe you did all of this!” Pausing, I idly finger the waxy leaf of a bush I didn’t even know was native to this area. “When did you have the time to plan all of this?
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“Well… Ever since you went away, An-on, I had to take my mind off of you leaving, so I threw myself into my hobbies.” Rosa’s head fell, a shadow passing across her once-happy face. “And a few months after you left, Mama…passed away.” Sniffing, Rosa looked back to me, wiping away a tear as I squeeze her hand in solidarity. “I couldn’t handle it, for along while; none of mi familia could. Papa just withdrew in on himself, my brothers started to leave; the farm started to struggle. I helped out with the farm for as long as I could, but Papa, he wouldn’t let me help the person who needed it the most: Him.” Rosa stared sadly at all that she had helped to build, all the natural beauty and splendor she brought to the city. For a long while she said nothing, just standing there, hand-in-hand with me, before eventually drawing a shuddering breath.
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“You see, An-on, plants are easy,” Rosa said at last, her voice quiet. Bending down, Rosa longingly stroked the petals of a wildflower. I squatted down on my heels beside of her, our fingers still interlinked. “Plants will take all the love you can give, unconditionally. If they get sick, you can fix them; if they need something, you can give it to them. They won’t push you away, until it’s too late.” Rosa and I sat by that flower, her crimson eyes staring at nothing, my own eyes watching her recount how her life had been ripped apart. “Fixing the farm was easy, An-on, but I couldn’t do it all by myself, not without mi familia’s help. But no one wanted to come back, no one wanted to see Papa in that state, to see Mama’s empty chair on the porch, or her pictures on the wall. Eventually, it was just me and Papa, alone in the house, or out in the fields. Papa pretended to be strong during the day, but every night he would start to drink, and then…” Rosa’s hand twitched reflexively up her arm, creeping towards the bruise that she had tried to keep hidden. How many more did she have?
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“Rosa…” I began, attempting to keep a tight hold on the anger that mounted inside of me. I had been away for longer than we had known each other, away from the one woman whom I loved more than anything in the world, but to come back and find out that her dad had been.... Life had changed Rosa, taken the kind, gentle soul that I fell in love with and hardened it. “Rosa, I won’t let anything else happen to you, not anymore.” I tried to keep the edge out of my words, tried to keep them reassuring. “I’m so sorry about what happened to your mother, for not being there for you. I can’t imagine what you went thro-“
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“Don’t leave me, An-on.” Rosa’s interjection was quiet, her voice strained. I could see tears beginning to fall down her face once more, as she continued to stare at that small, sad flower. “Please say you’ll be here, by my side, mi amor.” My hands wrapped around her instinctively, my heart dropping. To see Rosa in such turmoil… I held her tight against me, kneeling there on the arboretum path, stroking her hair as sobs wracked her body.
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“I just need someone to love, An-on. I was so lonely, and scared, and…” Rosa’s voice is lost as she buried her face deep within my chest.
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“And you can love me, Rosa. We can love each other, together.” Kissing her hair softly, I sat there as the sun dipped completely over the horizon, the light setting on our reunion.
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“Just us, Rosa, together.”