𝗕𝗟𝗢𝗢𝗠, 𝗔𝗡𝗬𝗪𝗔𝗬.

❛  ⸻  AT A GLANCE  .

RECEIPTS STUFFED INTO COAT POCKETS, A PHONE BUZZING WITH SCHOOL REMINDERS AND MISSED CALLS SHE DOESN’T RETURN. THE AESTHETIC OF QUIET RESPONSIBILITY AND UNNAMED GRIEF, OF HANDS THAT NEVER STOP MOVING BECAUSE STILLNESS WOULD LET THE FEELINGS CATCH UP. EARLY MORNING LIGHT BLEEDING THROUGH SHOP WINDOWS, STEMS CUT AT AN ANGLE, WATER CLOUDING IN OLD BUCKETS. FLORAL TAPE STUCK TO HER FINGERS, BLOOD PRICKED BY ROSE THORNS, THE SOFT WEIGHT OF A JACKET HUNG OVER HER BROTHER’S SHOULDERS LIKE A PROMISE.

❛  ⸻  THE STORY .

trigger warnings: cancer, grief, parental death.

peridot halliwell learned early that staying is a choice, and that some people don’t make it.

her biological father left when she was six — not with a dramatic exit, not even a goodbye worth remembering. just absence. the kind that settles quietly into a child’s bones and teaches them not to wait around for things that might never come back.

her mother did her best after that. they survived on routine, on resilience, on the belief that stability could be built if you worked hard enough at it.

for a while, it worked.

her mother remarried when peridot was older, and the family expanded into something that felt safe again. her stepfather was kind, patient, the sort of man who showed up consistently and made the world feel less unpredictable.

when peridot’s younger half-brother was born, she loved him instantly, fiercely.

then cancer took her stepfather.

grief didn’t arrive all at once; it crept in. it hollowed the house out slowly, leaving echoes where laughter used to live. her mother unraveled in ways peridot couldn’t stop or fix, and eventually she was committed to a mental health institution, consumed by loss in a way that made everyday life impossible.

suddenly, peridot was standing in the kitchen of their chicago home, paperwork spread across the counter, her brother doing homework at the table, and realizing — with terrifying clarity — that no one else was coming.

so she took full custody of her fifteen-year-old brother. she signed forms she didn’t feel old enough to understand, made decisions she didn’t feel prepared to make, and learned how to be both sister and guardian without ever quite admitting how scared she was.

windsor bay wasn’t a dream. it was a solution.

she moved them there two months ago, chasing quiet rather than ambition. a place where mornings smelled like salt instead of sirens, where people lingered, where rebuilding didn’t feel like failure.

downtown, she opened what in carnation? — a flower shop born out of muscle memory and inheritance, out of watching her mother turn grief into beauty long before peridot understood what that meant. flowers were never just flowers to her. they were apologies, celebrations, funerals, promises. they were proof that care could be made visible.

peridot lives above the shop with her brother now. her days are measured in stem counts, school schedules, receipts tucked into coat pockets, reminders buzzing on her phone.

peridot isn’t someone who believes life will work out on its own. she believes in showing up, in doing the next right thing, in arranging chaos into something that can still be held. windsor bay doesn’t know all of her yet — the grief, the fear, the nights she lies awake wondering if she’s doing enough — but it sees her hands in motion, her shop lit before sunrise, her steady presence in a town that feels like it might finally let her breathe.

❛  ⸻  HEADCANONS  .

peri wakes up before her alarm most mornings, even when she doesn’t need to. years of responsibility trained her body to stay half-alert, like something important might need her at any second.

has a collection of pins, mugs, vintage pins, and of course: plants.

she knows the exact sound of the shop when something’s wrong — a cooler humming too loud, a door not quite shut, a stem bucket tipped just slightly off balance.

she volunteers whatever little time she has to the local cemetery, cleaning headstones and weeding around the graves.

peri is deeply possessive of her space and her people, but rarely admits it out loud. if someone threatens the stability she’s built, she reacts fast and without much grace.

she keeps her brother’s schedule memorized but still checks it twice. school pick-ups, doctor’s appointments, deadlines — none of it ever leaves her head.

she has a bad habit of skipping meals until late afternoon, surviving on peppermint tea and adrenaline. when someone notices and calls her out, she gets defensive before she gets grateful.

she has moments of undisciplined chaos: unpaid parking tickets, laundry forgotten in the washer, emotional conversations she keeps meaning to have but never schedules.

she sleeps with her phone on loud. always.