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“Your husband is going to love this.” Carlos smiles at the florist as she hands him his purchase, gripping the Terra Cotta pot tightly in his hands.
“I hope so,” He says, shakily taking a deep breath in before thanking her profusely for helping him find what he was looking for.
After driving around for three hours, visiting all of their local flower shops and all of them not having what he was looking for, he didn’t think he would find it; but he wasn’t going to give up. He would drive around the entire state of Texas and beyond just to get his hands on one.
Luckily, he didn’t have to look far — it was only forty minutes away from the loft.
He looks down at the familiar plant, having grown up with it hung in the living room of his parents’ house.
He hadn’t paid much attention to it, until today when he was visiting his mother, had he actually taken the time to ask her about it.
—
“String of Hearts,” She had answered with a smile as she set a third plate down at the table.
After realizing what she’d done, her smile had dropped, an expression on her face one would only wear when they’re reminded of everything they’ve lost, an emptiness that could never be filled.
“Your father gave it to me — when you were just a baby.”
He raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “¿Papí?” She nodded with a knowing smile. He never would have thought. His father never so much as glanced at a plant from what he could remember.
“¡Yo se! I was just as shocked as you; but we were going through a hard time. He was barely home and when he was home we were arguing because he spent so much time at work and he was keeping secrets from me which I never liked.” She had reached over to serve Carlos, but he stopped her, instead serving her before himself. She had smiled at the gesture, her hand squeezing his gently. “A lie may take care of the present but it has no future, and I always knew when your father lied.”
He swallowed the lump in his throat as he recalled the argument he and TK had earlier, painfully similar to the one his parents had.
“Then one day he comes home with this ugly plant and gives me this whole speech about what this plant symbolizes and how we’re going to take care of it together.” She shook her head as she laughed, the retelling of the story bringing a light to her Carlos hasn’t seen in a while.
“We took such good care of it, too. So much the thing wouldn’t stop growing!”
She had gestured towards where the plant hangs from a pot attached to their ceiling, vines delicately brushing the floor. It was like looking at it in a new light, being reminded of all the memories he has of his parents’ love — the way they always found time to dance with each other whenever music was playing. The gentle warfare between them. The silly, harmless pranks and jokes, the only times he recalls his father genuinely laughing. Sometimes he found himself wishing he was the one to make him laugh like that. It’s a sound he’d give anything to hear again.
He faintly remembers the way his mother took care of his father during those dark days, a darkness that unfortunately comes with the job. Carrying that darkness and bringing it home despite trying hard not to, unable to forget what you’ve seen, the ones you couldn’t save. His father never showed he was struggling, always kept a brave face when he was in front of Carlos and his sisters, but he always let that mask crumble with his mother.
He was too young to realize it, but now he does; and he feels lucky enough to have witnessed it.
It made him think about TK, the way he’s been waiting with his arms wide open, ready to catch Carlos the moment he falls, and he realizes that’s what you do when you love someone.
“If you love someone you also let them in,” He silently chides himself.
“What does it symbolize?”
—
He quietly shuts the loft door behind himself as he looks at where TK is curled up on the couch, his favorite throw tucked tightly around his body.
“Hey,” He says softly, setting his keys down on the counter before slowly making his way towards him.
He hears him take a shaky breath in, shoulders tensing as if preparing for another fight.
“Hey.” It’s small and sad, a sadness Carlos has caused and it makes him falter in his steps. As he looks at his defeated husband, he can’t help but feel he’s been a terrible one.
“How did you do it, Papí?” He wishes he could ask him, once again finding himself wishing Heaven had a post office, visiting hours, phone calls — anything , so he could get a response. Of course, it isn’t that easy. If it was, Carlos would know who his murderer was, and he wouldn’t have to live in fear. He wouldn’t feel like he’s let his father down every moment his murder remains unsolved. “You and Mama were always so happy. You took care of her so well. How did you do it?”
Carlos spent all this time trying not to be his father, to now wishing he was — to be a good and loving husband.
“I’m sorry,” He blurts, and TK shifts his gaze towards Carlos, his usual bright green eyes dulled with sorrow.
“I vow to be the caretaker of your wild heart.” He had promised to the person who makes him happiest on the happiest day of his life. How could he have broken that promise?
“Whenever I see you and whenever I’m with you I feel whole.” TK had so vulnerably stated, teary eyes looking into Carlos’ own with so much love and trust and admiration. This amazing man who let down his barbed wire fence and handed Carlos his heart and trusted him enough to take care of it.
How could he have been so careless with it?
TK’s attention drifts to the plant held tightly in Carlos’ sweaty hands. “Is that for me?”
He watches as his face lights up the same way it did when he brought Lou-Two home, and for the first time in a while, he feels a genuine smile tug at his lips.
He nods, sitting down next to TK before handing him the plant. He takes it with careful hands, the same way he cares for everything else in his life, gentle and loving and grateful to be given the responsibility and trust to be the one to care for it.
He strokes the leaves gently, admiring the way they change from green to pink. “It’s a String of Hearts plant,” Carlos begins to explain, hand reaching over to grab one of TK’s. For a moment he’s terrified he’ll pull away, but TK holds on just as tight. “It’s used to represent the bond between two lovers and our unbreakable connection. It also symbolizes our intertwined paths and how our journeys are forever linked.” He watches as TK touches the, although delicate looking, strong vine. “It’s also associated with the concept of growth and development in a relationship… and my way of saying how sorry I am.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It is,” Carlos agrees, although nothing could ever come close to comparing to the beautiful man he’s lucky enough to call his husband. “I was thinking we could take care of it… together.”
“Baby.” TK places the plant down on the coffee table to cradle Carlos’ cheeks gently in his hands, just as carefully as he was holding the plant. “I’d love that.”
“Yeah?” TK nods, a grin lighting up his features. “Good — because I have no idea how to care for a plant so you’ll have to help me with that.”
“I had a ton of plants growing up so lucky you married someone with a green thumb.”
“Of course you did,” Carlos laughs. Then his face turns serious as his eyes flit across TK’s face, taking him in. “Lucky me.”
The sadness from before is gone, replaced with that same look of love, trust and admiration. It knocks the breath out of Carlos, to be looked at in this way even after he’s screwed up so much.
He squeezes his eyes shut as he recalls the way TK’s entire face fell when Carlos raised his voice, for the second time this week. He didn’t mean to, the first time he was terrified, not fast enough to stop TK from opening the door when there was a knock. It was only a package, but Carlos couldn’t help but wonder what if it wasn’t. What if someone was waiting on the other side with a gun pointed towards the door, waiting to fire a bullet into TK’s chest.
“You have to be smart, TK!” He had yelled at him, heart racing in his chest.
“I’m sorry,” TK had only whispered, staring up at a person, who resembles his husband, but he doesn’t recognize.
Carlos hasn’t been the same since his fathers’ death, like a part of him died in that entryway along with him. The old Carlos was stupid — naive. He was soft and trusted people too much.
TK would yell at him and defend the old Carlos if he heard him talking about himself in this way.
The second time he was desperate — desperate to follow a lead and finally put an end to this exhausting nightmare. TK had caught him slipping out the door at three o’clock in the morning, immediately firing question after question, Carlos refusing to answer all of them. Words were thrown, sharp as knives, hurting the one person Carlos vowed to protect and care for.
“I’m sorry,” Carlos sniffles, hands reaching up to rest on top of TK’s. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a terrible husband, baby. I haven’t been here for you, and you’ve been so wonderful and understanding—“
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Carlos rolls his eyes, because of course TK would say that. Whereas TK from three years ago would have barred his teeth and snapped at Carlos for his hurtful words and actions, this person he has bloomed into waits up for Carlos on the couch so they can sit down and have a conversation. He tries to understand and be there for Carlos. He doesn’t hold anything against him, and Carlos doesn’t know how he got so lucky.
“You’re grieving.” TK’s thumb catches a tear that falls down Carlos’ cheek. “What you and your family went through was unimaginable, I don’t expect you to bounce back from it so quickly.”
“It’s no excuse for the way I’ve been treating you, though.” He studies the worry lines on TK’s face and dark circles under his eyes. His cheeks are gaunt and eyes sunken in, a sign he hasn’t been taking care of himself while trying to take care of Carlos, who hasn’t made it easy for him. “We’re a team, and I haven’t been acting like it.”
TK sighs deeply, eyes trailing to the desk where Carlos has begun to keep all of the evidence and documents of his investigation into his father’s murder, locked away in a drawer only Carlos has the key to.
“I just wish you’d let me in. I haven’t been a good partner if you think you’re really alone in this.”
Carlos shakes his head in disbelief, hand moving to tightly clutch the back of TK’s neck, encompassing and protective. “Don’t you dare, for a second, even think that. You’re a fantastic partner, like I knew you would be.”
TK doesn’t look convinced, tucking his chin down, and Carlos quickly places a finger under it to lift his head back up, desperately meeting his eyes to get his point across.
“I was trying to protect you; but what I didn’t realize was that I was actually hurting you instead.” He lovingly strokes the hair back from TK’s forehead, leaning forward to press a kiss there. “I’m done hiding things from you, baby. I realize now that we’re stronger together… and that I need you by my side. I don’t know how I ever thought I could do this without you.”
“No more going behind my back and doing things on your own?” He sees the fear in his eyes, fear that Carlos put there from his previous actions. “Every step we take is together?”
He realizes now that as much as he wants to protect TK, TK wants to protect him just as much.
He hesitates before nodding, because he doesn’t think he can willingly drag TK into danger, and this entire investigation is dangerous.
He would never be able to forgive himself if something happened to TK because of him.
He thinks about the bloodstain in the entryway of his parent’s house. He thinks about the sound of his mothers’ screams and cries as she watched the love of her life die right in front of her, his heart stopping right under her hands.
He thinks about her setting up the dining table for three instead of two, and then two instead of one on days she doesn’t have any company — alone in a house that was once full of family and love and beautiful memories, now tainted by the memory of that one night.
As he looks at TK, he can’t imagine a life without him.
“I can’t lose you, Tyler.”
TK leans forward to press their foreheads together, noses brushing as tears steadily stream down both of their cheeks.
“I’m not going anywhere.” What he doesn’t know is that in Carlos’ dreams he does. In his nightmares he is taken away from Carlos by a faceless dark figure, the same person who has taken his father away, and it’s the reason Carlos is working tirelessly to hunt this person down before they’re hunted again.
They’re newlyweds, and instead of Carlos picturing a future with his husband, he’s picturing a life without him, living in fear every moment of every day of this person taking TK away from him.
“You better not.” Because he doesn’t know what he’d do.
“I love you.” TK lights up like the sun at hearing those words, earlier arguments forgotten and the past few months forgiven.
“I love you, too.”
He doesn’t know what he did to deserve him.
He looks towards the plant, remembering his mother telling him how it also symbolizes healing and growth, how the vines represent the twists and turns of life’s journey, and the resilience needed to navigate it.
He thinks TK is also a representation of that — of what it looks like to so strongly come out of the other side of whatever life throws at you, wounded but alive and even stronger than before. Carlos is amazed at how someone who has been through so much could still smile like that, could still hand his heart over after having it mistreated so many times and trust another person to love and treat it the way it deserves.
”I spent so long feeling like I didn’t deserve happiness, or even a future.” Carlos is going to spend the rest of his life making sure he never feels like that again.
The heart-shaped leaves are a reminder to nurture oneself and others with love and compassion, as well as to open oneself up to receiving love and healing.
As he looks at TK, his soulmate, his miracle and the person he gives his life to, he knows he won’t be able to get through this without him.
So he unlocks the drawer full of months-long work of evidence and his fathers’ secrets. He spreads it out on the coffee table and fills TK in on everything that’s going on. He feels the weight he was crumbling under slowly lift from his shoulders the more he shares, the more he talks about it. It’s a relief, finally sharing a little bit of that weight with his partner.
Although he feels like a part of him died in that entryway along with his father, not all of him is dead.
He can still be the old Carlos, the one who cooked dinner and brought home lizards and did everything in his power to keep his husband happy. The Carlos who was gentle and kind, who was childish and silly, who spent hours setting up the loft for game night and putting together a snack platter.
That Carlos isn’t dead. TK’s Carlos isn’t dead.
So he cooks them dinner and makes sure TK has eaten enough, serving him way more than what he usually eats and smiling satisfactorily when he reaches for a second serving. They make dessert together, and they talk, about something other than what’s been hanging over their heads like a dark cloud these past few months.
Then when it gets late and Carlos is fighting to keep his eyes open TK leads him towards their bedroom. He helps Carlos get ready for bed, washing his hair in the shower while he presses small kisses against his body. He massages his tense shoulders under the warm water and uses lavender soap to wash his body. He sprays Carlos’ pillow with a peppermint scent and tucks the sheets around Carlos carefully.
Carlos allows himself to be taken cared of. He lets TK hold him tightly and rub his back. He focuses on the sweet words he murmurs into his ear, lets them overpower the voices in his head telling him to Get up! You don’t deserve sleep. You need to solve your fathers’ murder.
He ignores those voices and lets himself drift into a deep sleep, because as much as he needs this, he knows TK needs it too.
It’s the best sleep Carlos has had in a very long time.
They put the plant on the shelf in the living room, right next to their wedding photo, and TK decides to randomly name it “Tom.” There’s no explanation for it or significance in the name. “He just looks like a Tom,” He had told Carlos. The absurdity of it makes Carlos laugh for thirty minutes straight, tears running down his cheeks as he tries to catch his breath. Only TK could make him laugh like that during a time he feels like he never will be able to.
They eventually solve his fathers’ murder, together, and over time Carlos heals. During this time the vines grow until they hover just above the ground, long and tangled, much like the journey it took to get where they are. Then it continues to grow, so much so Carlos has to move it from the shelf and hang it up on their ceiling, and as the vines grow even longer they continue to grow with it.