(First-Person POV)
The rain stopped sometime before dawn.
When I stepped outside, the world smelled like clean earth and regret.Dew clung to the grass behind the apartment building, glittering in thin ribbons of light. The little patch of soil I'd claimed days ago looked half-drowned, the seedlings drooping like soldiers after battle.
I crouched down and pressed my fingers into the dirt. It was still cold, still slick. Still alive.
That was enough.
I needed something living to remind myself that I still was too.
I worked quietly—pulling weeds, fixing stakes, patting soil into place—trying not to think about the man asleep upstairs, or the way his scent still clung to my skin no matter how many showers I'd taken.
Every scraper of my trowel against the earth was a heartbeat I could control.
For a while, it worked.
Then I heard the sound of footsteps behind me.
"Do you ever rest?"
His voice. Again.
I turned. Leonardo stood by the steps, jacket in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other. The early sunlight made the dark strands of his hair gleam like polished ink.
"I could ask you the same thing," I said, brushing dirt from my palms.
He smiled, faintly. "I don't rest. I just pause between disasters."
"Comforting."
He came closer, crouched beside me, the scent of cedar and smoke folding over the air between us.
"Your garden's drowning," he said after a moment.
"I noticed."
He handed me his jacket without a word.
I blinked. "You'll ruin it."
"It's already ruined. You should worry more about yourself."
"I'm fine."
His eyes drifted to the faint marks on my neck—heat scars that hadn't quite faded. My cheeks burned.
"Fine," he repeated softly, as if testing the word and finding it false.
I dug the trowel back into the soil. "You didn't come out here just to supervise my gardening, did you?"
"Maybe I did."
"Leonardo."
He sighed, the sound low and almost tired. "I needed to think. You're easier to think around than most people."
I didn't know if that was a compliment or an accusation.
We worked in silence after that. He loosened the harder clumps of soil with his bare hands—careless of his expensive clothes—and I pretended not to notice how close he was.
At some point, he asked quietly, "Why a garden?"
I shrugged. "It's simple. It grows if you care for it. Dies if you don't. No games. No power."
He hummed, thoughtful. "That's why I can't do it. I tend to kill what I try to control."
Something in the way he said it made me look up. His eyes weren't on the soil anymore. They were on me.
"You're not controlling me," I said before I could stop myself.
His lips curved. "Aren't I?"
I dropped my gaze. "No. You're just… letting me breathe."
He didn't answer right away. Then: "Maybe that's new for me."
The morning air hung heavy with things unspoken. For a few minutes, all I heard was the rustle of leaves, the distant hum of the city waking.
When I finally stood to stretch, he was watching me again—really watching, like he had in the kitchen days ago, but softer now.
"What?" I asked, self-conscious.
"Nothing," he said. "You look… different."
"Because I'm covered in mud?"
"Because you're smiling."
I hadn't realized I was.
It hit me then—that fragile, impossible thing blooming between us, rooted somewhere between guilt and mercy. It wasn't trust, not yet. But it was close.
And it scared me more than anything else.
By noon, the sun had broken through the clouds.He left before lunch, muttering something about meetings and councils.
When the door closed behind him, I let out a breath I hadn't known I'd been holding.
The garden gleamed under the light, rows of green and brown and hope.
I knelt among the seedlings and whispered, "Grow."
Because if they could—maybe I could, too.
That night, I found a note on the kitchen counter. Just a single line in neat handwriting:
Don't forget to eat.
No signature. No command. Just that.
I smiled, even though I shouldn't have.
Because I knew what it meant.
He wasn't done with me yet.And maybe, neither was I.