3.
The door closed softly behind him, and Lucian was alone again.
Miss Elen hadn’t said much after assigning him the space, only that it had once belonged to “the lady of the house” and no one had touched it since she passed.
“Try not to get your hopes up,” she’d said.
But Lucian had never relied on hope. Only effort.
He walked the narrow gravel path to the far end of the estate, where ivy clung to faded stone walls and silence pressed like fog. The deeper he went, the more the air changed — less perfumed, more earthy. Untamed.
When he reached the edge of the garden, he paused.
It looked almost forgotten by time.
Wildflowers stood wilted and slumped in brittle beds, their petals browned and curled inward like they’d given up. Vines tangled through cracked pots.
A half-broken trellis leaned against a wall, its paint peeling. The once-rich soil was dry and caked, covered in brittle leaves and the faint trace of long-gone footsteps.
It had been beautiful once.
He could feel it — the faint memory in the air. A place where someone once tended with care. A place full of laughter, maybe tea in the afternoons, maybe music from open windows.
Lucian slowly knelt down by a cluster of withered lavender, his fingers hovering gently above the soil. He didn’t touch it yet. Just looked.
Not because it looked good. But because it still had roots.
He could feel them. Alive. Quiet. Waiting.
He reached for his notebook and scribbled a sentence, then tore the page out and buried it under a small stone near the center of the bed.
“I’ll bring you back. Just wait for me.”
Then he rolled up his sleeves.
He began by clearing the broken pots, brushing away the dead leaves, lifting fallen branches. The first few hours passed in silence — the kind of silence he knew well. The kind that didn’t frighten him.
His hands moved with muscle memory, steady and patient. He didn’t rush. There was no need.
Every time his arms ached or his back tensed, he closed his eyes and remembered:
His grandmother mother coughing into her blanket, smiling anyway.
His little brother waving from the porch, holding the letter Lucian had sent with his last earned coin.
Rune Britton (MC's bro)
I’ll take care of things while you’re gone!
Rune had said, proud as anything.
Rune Britton (MC's bro)
I’ll be the man of the house!
Lucian chuckled soundlessly at the memory. And kept working.
When the sun began to dip low, a soft golden light spilled over the broken trellis and touched the bent stems of the garden. Dust motes danced through the fading air.
But to Lucian, it already felt different.
The wildflowers would bloom again. The soil would turn rich and dark under his hands. And maybe — maybe — this quiet corner of the city would become a place of life again.
He didn’t need applause.
He didn’t need attention.
He just needed to make things grow.
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