Primrose
He was just a boy—freckled, slightly clumsy, with a haphazardly tied tie and shining eyes that looked at her as if no other girl in the world existed. Spring had only just begun. Snowdrifts melted in the schoolyard, and tiny yellow flowers peeked shyly through the thawing earth.
“This is for you,” he said, holding out a small bouquet. Primroses.
“Will you be my bride?” he whispered, so soft it seemed he feared the wind might hear him first.
They weren’t close, though they sometimes exchanged small talk. He often walked past her house, calling out just to wave.
She laughed—from surprise, from embarrassment.
All around her, girls in class bragged about roses. Some brought carnations from home, others had grand bouquets of tulips. And then there was her, with these odd, humble flowers no one called beautiful.
“Primroses?” Her friends muffled giggles into their palms. “Couldn’t he afford proper flowers? How cheap!”
She didn’t know what to say, so she tucked the bouquet into her bag. Said nothing. Ran off with her friends. Didn’t even glance back, though she wanted to. What if they noticed?
He stopped walking past her windows. She waited—though she’d never admit it.
She avoided him after that, dodging his gaze before he could call out.
She regretted it later, if “regret” was even the right word.
Then he was gone. His family moved to another town. She heard from those same friends. She never saw him again.
Only sometimes, on warm spring evenings, she’d swear she still heard his voice—”Will you be my bride?”—and saw those tiny yellow petals in his hand.
Years passed.
The girl became a woman—elegant, self-assured, clever. She studied at art school, then university, and one day attended a lecture on English porcelain.
The lecturer placed a delicate cup on the stand, its gilded rim framing soft yellow flowers.
“Royal Albert’s Friendship collection, 1970s,” he said. “These are primroses. In the language of flowers, they symbolise friendship, the first warmth of affection, a bond time cannot fade. Only a rare soul gifts these—because if given with love, their golden light stays with you forever. Like sunlight touching your heart.”
Her chest tightened. That morning flashed before her—the schoolyard, the boy’s awkward smile, his warm hand offering a little bouquet no one else valued.
She closed her eyes, smiling through tears.
“Where are you now, in some far-off town…?”
Gazing at the cup’s yellow primroses, she understood: that little boy had given her something no one else ever could.
His small bouquet had become an invisible thread, glowing across the years.
And for a moment, she imagined him somewhere far away, beyond strangers’ homes and roads, sipping tea—remembering the girl he’d once handed a piece of spring sunshine. Maybe… his cup had primroses too.
One keeps a primrose. Another remembers a daisy. A seashell, perhaps, or a smooth pebble. Things no fortune can buy, no hand can truly recreate—only cherish, quietly, for as long as memory lingers.
