POV: Callum | Parliament steps, then RookeriesFive years.The Parliament steps on the anniversary have a certain weight to them, the kind that places take on when they've witnessed something you carry with you. To everyone else, they're just stone steps under the midday sun. To me, they're something else entirely. The steps haven't changed, but I have.I come every year. Not because I decide to each time, but because I made a promise to myself in the first year after, and some promises you keep because keeping them is the only way to honor what was lost. It's an acknowledgment that Valentina existed, that she was here, and that both those things matter enough to mark.Dante comes with me. That started in the second year, when we both showed up on the same morning, discovering we'd independently arrived at the same ritual. We've been coming together ever since.The flowers are always white—Dante's choice. I've never asked why, and he's never explained. That silence between us has beco
Ler mais