Strawberry and Lavender

Lavender and Strawberries

Before he even opened his eyes, his senses reached for her. But something was different. The familiar trace of lavender and strawberry was missing.

Still in that soft space between sleep and wakefulness, he let memory take over. She never wore perfume, she’d told him that. Yet she always carried the scent of lavender and strawberry. He assumed it was her body wash or shampoo; after all, no one simply smelled like flowers. But the warmth she exuded—that quiet radiance that reminded him of sunshine, had always been unmistakably her.

He remembered the first time he held her. She had nestled against his chest with a trust so complete, it silenced every voice of doubt in his head. She fit there as if she had always belonged. He hadn't known what to expect, but when she melted into his arms, something shifted in him. His chest tightened, not with anxiety or fear, but with a fierce pride and a tenderness he hadn’t known he could feel.

She had wrapped herself in his embrace with certainty. And even though he had been unsure, she wasn’t. She surrendered to him with quiet confidence, unshaken and whole.

He recalled the war within him before he finally let himself hold her, clutch her to his chest, and rest his chin gently atop her head. When he finally breathed her in, it was like exhaling after years of holding his breath. The lavender, the strawberry, the stillness, it wasn’t just a scent. It was a revelation.

His arms had instinctively tightened. His guard had lowered. And in that moment, he knew: he was the only one allowed to be this close, to breathe her in, to carry her essence within him.

He knew he was losing himself in her.
But somehow, being lost in her was the only time he ever truly found himself.

She had slipped past walls he thought were unscalable. Without warning or noise, she had made a home inside him. He often wondered why. Why she chose him, of all people. Why she gave her heart to someone so uncertain, so afraid of breaking something as fragile as love. But he remembered the exact moment he first inhaled lavender and strawberry. He knew then: he would love her with a devotion the world had never seen.

And now, lying beside her, that scent was gone. But he didn’t feel the sting of absence. There was no sadness, no confusion. Because today, she didn’t smell like lavender and strawberry.

Today, she smelled of musk and cologne—his cologne.

He opened his eyes and drew her closer, until their bodies blurred into one another. He breathed her in once more, and his chest tightened again, not with fear, but with a love deeper than ever before. Fiercer. Certain.

She was his. Entirely, irrevocably his.

And if she no longer smelled like lavender and strawberry, then she would smell like him, like musk and cologne, forever.