A Rose to the Fallen (2008) (edit title/settings)

Bridget Monahan has always been comfortable with her auburn hair and pale freckled skin. Growing up in Sacramento, California with two supportive parents, they kept her grounded and encouraged her to be ambitious. As their only child, the last thing she wanted was to disappoint them and she’s always stuck by the rules. After graduating college, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as an elementary school teacher.

Tall, blond, and handsome, Tristan Hathaway is a modern-day Adonis. Born and raised in Brighton, England, he traveled to Los Angeles as a teenager with a dream of becoming an actor. In the land of beautiful people, his good looks worked to his advantage. He had the makings of a Hollywood heartthrob and never had any trouble attracting the opposite sex. But for all of his many sexual conquests, he’s never been lucky in love because his heart desires something promiscuity cannot fulfill.

The love story of Tristan & Bridget begins when Bridget comes home from teaching her fourth grade class and receives a phone call from her best friend Autumn Taylor. On this particular day, Autumn says she believes one of her friends is Bridget’s soul mate. She’s having a party at her apartment the following night and wants Bridget to meet him. Bridget is a skeptic when it comes to finding love, and she’s cynical about Autumn’s ability to find her a boyfriend because she hasn’t been a successful match-maker in the past. She becomes even more reluctant to this blind meeting after Autumn inadvertently reveals her soul mate is a “man-whore”. But after her best friend’s relentless persuasion, and her own curiosity, she finally agrees to meet this mystery guy.

When Bridget first meets Tristan, she’s attracted to his good looks and British accent. Cautious with her heart, she puts up a carefully guarded exterior, but Tristan’s natural charm and genuine kindness easily break her defenses. They begin to open up to each other, and Tristan confesses he has a desire to fall in love. Later he reveals the true reason behind Autumn’s insistence with their meeting and why she believes her two friends are destined for each other. Bridget learns that Autumn had a strange dream where she encountered Tristan as a child pleading for “the red hair girl” to soothe his heartache.

As Tristan and Bridget begin their romantic relationship, an intense passion develops between them that neither can resist. He has the ability to seduce her unlike any man she’s ever been with, and they both admit they have a sexual addiction to each other. Bridget has always been timid with intimacy, but Tristan’s influence and lustful appetite awaken a sexual liberation inside her. Together, they live out their secret fantasies and Bridget begins to lose her inhibitions.

Tristan calls Bridget his “pretty red rose”. A special woman who comes along only once in a man’s life. She is not easy to get for roses have thorns, but she’s the loveliest of flowers and should be cherished. It’s a lesson he learned from his estranged father and believed to be true the moment he met Bridget. Tristan reminds Bridget of a fallen angel. A beautiful yet troubled being not born of our world. In her heart she believes that is his true self and Tristan is unaware of what he really is. Tristan has reason to be skeptical of her belief because he was born from human parents. And unlike a conventional angel, he sports tattoos, he’s fond of profanity, has a criminal record, smokes cigarettes, and would never turn down the opportunity to get into a fight. He enjoys racing his Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle, having beers with his “mates” and taking advantage of everything L.A.’s nightlife has to offer.

Despite Tristan’s bad-boy tendencies and dangerous lifestyle, Bridget then starts to believe he’s her soul mate and wonders if perhaps soul mates are supposed to be opposites. There’s no denying the earnest love they share, but no relationship is perfect because Tristan’s jealousy, possessiveness, and obsession threaten to tear the couple apart.

As their relationship progresses, Bridget begins to notice Tristan has extraordinary abilities. He has an unexplainable emotional and mental connection to her that begins to scare her, especially when he reveals he can hear some of her thoughts. Tristan doesn’t ease her fears when he says the longer they’re together, the stranger he feels. On a night of intimate confessions, he tells her, “I feel like something wants to break out of me; it wants to be free.”

Bridget teaches children as her profession, but she unknowingly becomes the student in her relationship with Tristan. He teaches her how it feels to love someone irrevocably and the true meaning of a soul mate. Though in the end, learning to trust her heart may be the biggest lesson of all.