Wounded soldier

Chapter Ten — What We Choose to Keep

I didn’t sleep much the night after her note. I kept reading it, over and over again — not because the words were complicated, but because of how simple they were.

Come by the shop tomorrow. I want to show you something.

Just that. Yet it felt like an invitation to something more than a visit — like she was offering me a window into the quiet spaces of her life.

Morning came with a soft drizzle. The kind that paints the air gray but never really falls. The earth smelled clean again, and the fields shimmered faintly under the weight of the mist. I walked to the shop slower than usual, not because I was tired, but because part of me didn’t want to rush whatever was waiting.

When I got there, the door was already open. The small bell chimed as I stepped inside, and there she was — Lena — sitting by the counter with her sketchbook open, pencil in hand. The light from the window fell gently across her face, softening everything. She looked up as soon as she heard me.

“You came,” she said, smiling.

“I told you I would,” I said. “Curiosity is a dangerous thing.”

She laughed quietly. “Good. I was hoping you’d be curious enough.”

I took a seat at the table near the window, the same one where I’d sat so many times before. “So,” I said, “what did you want to show me?”

She hesitated for a moment, closing the sketchbook slowly. Her eyes met mine — calm, but there was something behind them today. Something heavier. “Before I show you,” she said softly, “I need to tell you something first.”

I leaned forward slightly. “Alright.”

She took a breath, then looked down, fingers tracing the edge of her sketchbook. “You asked me once if I ever stopped missing the people I lost. I told you no — that I learned to live beside the missing. That was true. But there’s more to it.”

Her voice was steady, but quiet — the kind of quiet that feels like it’s holding back a storm. “My brother, Adam… he didn’t just die. He took his own life.”

The words hung there, fragile and raw. For a long time, I didn’t know what to say. The sound of the rain against the window filled the silence between us.

“I’m sorry,” I said finally, and the words felt too small, too thin.

She shook her head gently. “Don’t be. For a long time, I blamed myself. I thought maybe if I’d seen it sooner, said the right thing, been there that night… maybe it wouldn’t have happened. But grief teaches you how powerless you really are. It took me years to stop asking why and start asking how — how do I live with it? How do I carry it without letting it destroy me?”

Her eyes lifted then, and I saw a glint of tears she refused to let fall. “That’s what the shop became for me, Evan. It’s not just flowers. It’s memory. Every bouquet, every color — they’re stories I couldn’t say out loud.”

I swallowed hard, feeling something stir deep in my chest. “You built beauty out of pain,” I said softly.

She smiled faintly. “Maybe that’s the only way to survive it.”

There was a long pause before she reached into a drawer behind the counter and pulled out a small wooden box. She placed it on the table between us. “This is what I wanted to show you.”

I looked at her, then slowly opened it. Inside were old photographs, folded letters, and a single silver chain with a small charm — a guitar pick, worn at the edges.

“He played,” she said quietly. “Every night. Our mother used to say his music could make the house breathe again. After he was gone, I couldn’t listen to a single song. It hurt too much.”

She took the charm gently from the box, turning it between her fingers. “I couldn’t throw it away, though. Some things you keep, not because they make you happy, but because they remind you that love was real. Even if it ended in pain.”

Her words struck something inside me that I hadn’t been ready to face. I thought of the things I’d kept — the photograph in the drawer of a woman who broke me, the watch that stopped working the night of the accident, the letters I never had the courage to burn.

I realized then how much of my life I’d built around holding on to pain instead of letting it go.

“You’re brave,” I said quietly.

She shook her head. “No, Evan. Just tired of pretending I wasn’t broken. Sometimes that’s all healing really is — honesty.”

I looked at her, and something shifted in me — not admiration, but understanding. A recognition. We were both carrying ghosts, just different names.

Without thinking, I said, “I lost someone too. Not to death — to choice. She left when I needed her most. I told myself I was fine, but the truth is… I never forgave her. Or myself.”

Lena’s gaze softened. “Do you still love her?”

I hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe not her — maybe just the memory of who she was before everything fell apart.”

“That’s still love,” she said gently. “The kind that doesn’t end, it just changes shape.”

Her words hit me like a whisper and a wound all at once. I exhaled slowly, as if letting out something I’d been holding for years.

She stood then, walked to one of the shelves, and picked up a small pot — a clay one, faintly cracked but holding new green sprigs. She brought it over and placed it in front of me.

“This plant’s called Resurrection Fern,” she said. “When it dries up, it looks dead. But give it a little water, a little light, and it comes back to life. That’s why I wanted to show you this — because I think you’re a lot like it.”

I looked down at the tiny green leaves, delicate but determined, and something deep inside me broke — not in pain this time, but in release.

“Why are you being so kind to me?” I asked quietly. “You barely know me.”

She smiled, soft and unguarded. “Because someone once was kind to me when I didn’t deserve it. And it saved me.”

Her words lingered like a breath in the air between us.

We didn’t talk much after that. She went back to sketching, and I sat there, watching the rain ease into sunlight. The shop filled with that quiet, golden glow again — the kind that feels like forgiveness.

When it was time to leave, I stood, unsure what to say. She looked up from her sketchbook and said, “Keep the fern. Let it remind you that things don’t stay dead forever.”

I nodded slowly, taking it with both hands. “Thank you, Lena.”

“Don’t thank me,” she said. “Just don’t give up on yourself.”

⸻

That night, I placed the fern beside the daisies on my windowsill. The two white flowers had started to fade, but they looked peaceful next to the new green life.

For a while, I just sat there, watching the shadows move across the room. Then I opened my journal and wrote:

“Today, she told me what love looks like after loss. Not perfect, not whole — but still reaching for the light.

She keeps her pain in boxes, her hope in soil. And somehow, both of them bloom.”

I paused, looking at the page. Then added,

“Maybe I can bloom too.”

The house was silent except for the soft rustle of the wind. I closed my eyes, and for the first time in years, the memories that came didn’t hurt as much.

They just… existed.

And maybe that was enough.