Wounded soldier

Chapter Seven — A Light Beneath the Quiet

I didn’t expect to see her again so soon.

But life has a way of repeating the things it wants you to learn.

Three mornings later, I was walking down the dirt path toward Miller Creek, hands in my jacket pockets, the cold air biting gently at my skin. The mist hung low again, curling around the tall grass and the broken fence line like a secret. I wasn’t thinking about much — maybe that’s why I almost didn’t notice her at first.

Lena was sitting by the edge of the creek, sketchbook open, her feet just touching the water. The soft light of dawn wrapped around her like something sacred. For a moment, I stopped walking and just watched. There was something peaceful about her — the way she didn’t rush the world, the way she let silence have its space. I had forgotten that silence could be shared.

She looked up and smiled, not surprised to see me. “You walk early,” she said, closing her sketchbook gently.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I admitted, stepping closer. “The mornings feel quieter before the world wakes.”

“I like that about them,” she said. “The stillness feels honest.”

I sat a few feet away from her, careful not to break the calm she carried. The creek murmured between us, soft and alive. “What are you drawing today?” I asked.

“Nothing in particular,” she said, turning her sketchbook slightly so I could see. “Just light — the way it falls on the water. It changes every minute, and somehow, I never get tired of trying to capture it.”

Her drawing was delicate — lines so faint they almost disappeared, like whispers on paper. I didn’t understand art much, but I could feel the emotion in her strokes. “It’s beautiful,” I said, quietly.

She smiled, not shy, but gentle. “Thank you. I draw because it helps me remember what peace looks like.”

I looked at the ripples in the water, the way the sun reflected across the surface like liquid gold. “I guess I do the opposite,” I murmured. “I try not to remember.”

She tilted her head. “Does it help?”

“Sometimes,” I said. “Other times, it just makes the silence louder.”

She didn’t say anything to that. She didn’t have to. Some silences don’t need to be filled — they just need to be understood.

We sat there for a long while, saying nothing, just listening to the world breathe. It felt strange, sitting beside someone without feeling the need to explain yourself. Usually, silence felt like pressure — like an empty room that demanded to be filled with words. But with her, it felt like rest. Like maybe it was okay to just be.

Eventually, she spoke again. “Do you come here often?”

“Used to,” I said. “Before everything.”

Her eyes lifted to mine, soft but searching. “And now?”

“Now,” I sighed, “I’m trying to remember how to start again.”

She nodded, looking back toward the creek. “Maybe starting isn’t about moving forward. Maybe it’s about letting yourself stop running.”

That stayed with me. The truth of it was too simple to ignore.

When the sun climbed higher, she stood, brushing the grass from her dress. “I should get back,” she said. “I promised my aunt I’d help at the flower shop this morning.”

“There’s still a flower shop here?” I asked, surprised.

She smiled. “There is now. We reopened it last spring — small, quiet. You should visit sometime. We have coffee too.”

I gave a half-smile. “Flowers and coffee. That’s a dangerous combination.”

She laughed softly, the sound like wind through leaves. “Then you’ll like it.”

She started walking back toward the road, her sketchbook tucked under her arm. Before she disappeared behind the hill, she turned slightly. “See you around, Evan.”

Her words echoed long after she was gone.

⸻

That afternoon, I found myself standing outside the flower shop.

I told myself it was coincidence — that I was just passing through town, that I needed bread again, that it wasn’t about her. But deep down, I knew better.

The shop was small, painted white with blue shutters, and the sign above the door read Lena’s Garden. Bells jingled softly when I pushed the door open. The air inside smelled like lavender and sunlight. It was warm in a way that had nothing to do with temperature.

Lena stood behind the counter, arranging a bouquet of daisies. When she saw me, her face lit up — not with surprise, but with recognition, as if she’d been expecting me all along.

“You came,” she said, setting the flowers down.

“I told myself I was here for the coffee,” I said, smiling faintly.

“Of course,” she teased. “That’s what everyone says.”

She poured me a cup without asking how I liked it. It was strong, earthy, just right. I sat by the window, watching her move around the shop — light on her feet, deliberate in every motion. There was grace in her simplicity, the kind that doesn’t try to be noticed but can’t help it.

“This place suits you,” I said.

She looked up from the counter. “How so?”

“It’s quiet,” I said. “But alive. Feels like… peace found a home.”

She paused, studying me for a moment, then said softly, “That’s what I wanted it to be. A place where people could breathe again.”

I nodded slowly. “You’ve done that.”

For a while, I just sat there, sipping my coffee, listening to the faint hum of life around us — the soft creak of the wooden floor, the rustle of petals as she worked, the distant murmur of the street outside. It felt like the world had finally learned how to whisper.

After a long pause, she said, “You look like someone who’s been carrying too much for too long.”

I stared into my cup, unsure how to respond. “You learn to hold it after a while.”

“But you don’t have to hold it alone,” she said gently.

Something in her tone broke through me — not as pity, but as understanding. She wasn’t trying to fix me. She just saw me. And maybe that was what I’d needed all along.

“Do you ever stop missing the people you lose?” I asked quietly.

She set down the flowers and leaned against the counter. “No,” she said softly. “But you learn to live beside the missing. Like living with an echo — you stop waiting for the sound to end.”

Her words hit somewhere deep inside me. I nodded, unable to speak for a moment.

Lena didn’t push for more. She just smiled — that soft, patient smile — and went back to arranging flowers. I watched her hands move, steady and sure, and for the first time in years, I felt something stir that wasn’t pain. It was small, uncertain, but real. Hope, maybe. Or something close to it.

Before I left, she handed me a single white daisy.

“For your table,” she said. “Every home needs a bit of life.”

I held the flower, surprised at how much that simple gesture meant. “Thank you,” I murmured.

She shrugged lightly. “It’s nothing.”

But it wasn’t nothing. It was the first thing in a long time that felt like something.

⸻

When I returned home, the sky was shifting toward dusk. I placed the daisy in a glass jar by the window, the last of the sunlight brushing its petals. It stood there, fragile and alive — a quiet reminder that not everything beautiful has to be loud.

I sat beside it and opened my journal again.

“Today, I met a woman who carries light the way others carry sorrow — gently, without letting it burn her. She doesn’t talk about healing, but somehow she makes the air around her feel like it’s already happening. Maybe I’m not as lost as I thought. Maybe the world isn’t as cruel as it once seemed.”

I closed the book and leaned back, watching the sky darken outside. Somewhere in the distance, I heard the creek, the faint hum of the wind, and — for the first time in years — the sound of my own heart not hurting.

Lena.

Even her name felt like a breath — something soft, something you don’t force.

And as the night settled in, I realized something:

Maybe healing doesn’t come like a storm breaking. Maybe it comes like this — a stranger’s smile, a shared silence, a flower on your table. Small things. Quiet things. The kind that don’t erase the pain but teach you how to live around it.

For the first time in a long while, I didn’t feel like a wounded soldier.

I just felt like a man who was learning how to be alive again.