Wounded soldier

Chapter Eight — The Weight of Quiet Things

There are days when healing feels almost possible — days when the air is softer, and the memories don’t ache as much when they pass through you. Then there are days when it all returns like a flood — every sound too loud, every silence too heavy.

Today felt like both.

I woke early, before dawn again. The house was colder than usual, the kind of chill that clings to your bones even after the fire’s been out for hours. I made coffee, watched the steam curl from the cup, and thought about Lena’s daisy by the window. It hadn’t wilted yet. Its petals were still open, still reaching for the light even in the dimness.

I envied that. The stubbornness of something so small refusing to give up.

By midmorning, I found myself walking back to the flower shop. I didn’t tell myself any lies this time — I knew I wanted to see her. The path was familiar now, the air filled with the scent of pine and damp soil. My boots made soft impressions in the dirt road, each step a little lighter than the last.

When I reached the shop, the door was half open, and I could hear music playing faintly from inside — an old tune, maybe something from the sixties. Soft, slow, the kind of song that sounds like it’s been waiting its whole life to be remembered.

Lena was there, her back turned, rearranging sunflowers in a tall glass vase. Her hair fell loose down her shoulders, strands catching the light that spilled through the window.

“You should put up a sign,” I said quietly. “Something like ‘Careful, peace at work.’”

She turned, her expression brightening instantly. “Evan,” she said. “You came back.”

“Yeah,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “I figured I owed your coffee another chance.”

She laughed — soft, real. “Is that so? You sure it’s not the flowers that brought you here?”

“Maybe it’s both,” I admitted.

She motioned toward the small table near the window. “Sit. I’ll get you the same as last time.”

As she poured the coffee, I watched her hands move — steady, precise, but gentle, like everything she touched carried meaning. There was something about the way she existed in her space — deliberate yet unguarded — that drew me in.

“You always open this early?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” she said. “I like mornings. The light’s better for the flowers. And for thinking.”

“What do you think about?” I asked.

She smiled, a little wistfully. “Mostly about how people keep trying, even when life keeps taking things away. It’s a strange kind of courage, don’t you think?”

I nodded. “I used to think courage meant fighting through pain. But maybe it’s just about showing up again. Even when you’re still hurting.”

She handed me the cup, her eyes soft. “Then you’re doing better than you think.”

⸻

We talked for a while — nothing deep at first. The kind of small talk that lives between two people who understand the value of quiet. She told me about the locals who came by: Mrs. Holloway who bought roses for her late husband’s grave every week; the teenage boy who bought wildflowers for his mother’s birthday because he couldn’t afford roses; the old man who always came in just to smell the lavender.

Each story felt like a small prayer — people finding ways to hold on to something gentle in a world that often wasn’t.

When it grew quieter again, Lena asked, “You never told me what brought you back here, Evan.”

I hesitated. My instinct was to deflect, to keep the truth tucked away behind tired smiles. But something about her presence made it hard to lie.

“I needed somewhere to breathe,” I said finally. “After the accident, everything… changed. I tried going back to the city, to the noise, but it felt like the world had moved on without me. I couldn’t keep up. So I came back here. To remember who I used to be, maybe.”

Her gaze softened. “And have you remembered?”

I looked down at my coffee, watching the ripples move across the surface. “Some days, I remember too much. Other days, not enough.”

Lena didn’t press further. She just nodded, like she understood the shape of my silence.

After a while, she said, “I lost someone too, a few years ago. My brother. He was… the light in every room. When he died, everything felt hollow. I stopped painting, stopped going out. For months, I just existed. Until one day, my aunt handed me a pack of seeds and told me to plant something. Anything. I did. And I guess that’s how I found my way back.”

Her voice trembled slightly, but her eyes didn’t. There was strength in her pain — quiet, unwavering. The kind of strength that doesn’t shout, but endures.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly.

She shook her head. “Don’t be. It taught me something — that grief isn’t a wall, it’s a door. You just have to decide when you’re ready to walk through it.”

Her words lingered in the air like incense — slow, fading, but impossible to forget.

⸻

In the afternoon, rain began to fall — light at first, then steady. Lena moved quickly, bringing in the potted plants from outside while I stood and watched from the doorway.

“Are you just going to stand there?” she called, smiling. “Or will you help?”

“I don’t usually work for coffee,” I teased.

“You do today,” she said, laughing.

So I stepped out into the rain. It was cold but refreshing, the kind that felt like it could wash the dust off your thoughts. Together, we brought in the plants, our hands brushing occasionally, small sparks of warmth beneath the chill.

By the time we finished, we were both drenched, laughing like children who’d forgotten what sadness was for a moment.

She handed me a towel. “You’re soaked.”

“So are you,” I said, grinning.

“Worth it,” she replied simply.

When the rain finally eased, the shop was filled with the scent of wet earth and flowers. I leaned against the counter, watching drops roll down the windowpane, catching flashes of sunlight as the clouds began to clear.

Lena stood beside me, arms folded, eyes distant. “You ever notice,” she said softly, “how everything smells new after the rain? Like the world gets a second chance?”

“Yeah,” I murmured. “I think people do too.”

For a moment, neither of us spoke. The silence was full — not empty, not awkward, just… enough.

I turned to her then, really looking at her — at the faint freckles near her temples, the strands of hair sticking to her cheek, the softness in her gaze. There was something unspoken between us — not romance, not yet. Something slower. Something sacred.

“Thank you,” I said finally.

“For what?”

“For not asking me to be okay.”

Her lips curved into a faint smile. “You don’t owe the world a version of yourself that’s healed. Sometimes it’s enough just to be here.”

I nodded, my throat tightening. “You have a way of saying things that make the air feel lighter.”

She shrugged gently. “Maybe that’s what the flowers teach you — how to exist quietly and still be beautiful.”

⸻

When I left that evening, the sky was bruised with the colors of dusk — violet, amber, fading gold. I walked home slower this time, not because I was tired, but because I wanted the moment to last. The road shimmered with puddles, each one reflecting the last traces of daylight.

Back home, I placed another daisy beside the one she’d given me before. Two now. Fragile, alive, reaching.

I sat by the window and wrote in my journal again:

“She talks about grief like it’s soil — dark, heavy, but full of the things that make life possible. Maybe she’s right. Maybe everything that breaks us just becomes the ground where new things grow.

Today, for the first time, I didn’t feel like I was waiting for the past to end. I just… lived.”

The wind stirred through the open window, carrying the faint scent of rain and flowers. Somewhere in that soft breeze, I could still hear her laughter, light and unhurried.

And for the first time in years, I realized something simple but profound —

the heart doesn’t heal in silence. It heals in company. In the spaces between words, in the gentle weight of understanding.

Maybe that’s what Lena was teaching me without ever saying it —

that peace isn’t found. It’s built. Slowly, tenderly, between people brave enough to sit beside the ruins and still believe in beauty.