Chapter 41: Delicate Flower (Part 3)

The following day, Pete made his way to the clinic, his stomach twisted into tight, aching knots. Each step toward the familiar building felt heavier than the last, as though the path itself were resisting him.

The moment he stepped inside, he felt it—the change. The clinic, once a place of gentle quiet and steady warmth, felt hollowed out. Cold. The sunlight that filtered through the windows seemed weaker somehow, dim and reluctant, stretching long, thin shadows across the wooden floor. Even the air felt different, thick with something unspoken.

Pete paused just inside the doorway, his hand still hovering near the frame. "She knew," he realized. "She knew I was coming."

The silence pressed in on him, heavy and expectant, and for the first time since arriving in Mineral Town, Pete wondered if this was a place he could no longer hide in.

At her desk, Elli sat sifting through a stack of patient charts, her movements precise, almost mechanical. Her expression was carefully neutral—too composed, as if feeling anything at all might cause something fragile to break. She didn't look up when Pete entered. She didn't tell him to leave, either. That small mercy was the only thing keeping his nerves from unraveling completely.

Pete swallowed hard and took a hesitant step forward, the sound of his boots against the floor unnaturally loud in the quiet room.

"Elli… can we talk?"

For a long moment, she didn't respond. The rustle of paper continued, slow and deliberate, stretching the silence until it pressed against his chest. Then, with a quiet, weary sigh, she set the folders aside and folded her hands on the desk, finally lifting her eyes to him.

She said nothing. She didn't have to. Taking her silence as permission, Pete drew in a shaky breath and forced the words out. "I—I wanted to apologize. For last night," he said, his voice low, careful. "I never meant to hurt you."

The words hung between them, fragile and exposed, as Pete waited—unsure whether he had just taken the first step toward healing… or toward something that could never be mended.

Elli didn't answer him right away. She simply studied his face, her brown eyes searching—measuring him against a memory only she still carried. Whatever she was looking for, Pete had the sinking feeling he no longer possessed it.

At last, she spoke, "What happened to you?" Her voice was quiet, but it carried weight, the kind that pressed against his ribs and made it hard to breathe. "Why did you change?"

Pete opened his mouth, but no sound came. The truth hovered on his tongue, sharp and impossible. How could he tell her that the man she loved—the Pete who had laughed with her, proposed to her, planned a future—was gone? That he was a stranger wearing familiar skin, with no memories of whispered promises or shared dreams? That every smile she offered him was a reminder of a life he had never lived?

So he reached instead for something safer. Something smaller. "I… I've had a lot on my mind lately," he said finally, his voice unsteady. "Things feel different. I don't know how to explain it, but—"

Elli shook her head, already turning away from his words. That wasn't it. That had never been it.

It wasn't his growing presence around Mineral Town that hurt. She wanted that—wanted him to belong, to be seen, to build connections beyond the clinic walls. Even if it meant less time with her. Even if it meant learning to share him with the town.

What she hadn't expected was this. Not distance. Not silence. It was the loss of their bond. Loss of their promise, their plans for the future. A future that she didn't fit in.

She drew in a slow breath, steadying herself, her fingers curling against the edge of the desk as if anchoring herself to something solid. When she looked up again, her eyes were glossy but resolute.

"Pete…" she said, hesitating, as though afraid of the answer she was about to invite. Then she met his gaze fully, her voice barely above a whisper. "Do you still love me?"

The question hung in the air between them—fragile, devastating, and impossible to take back. Pete felt his throat close. His heart slammed against his ribs, not with warmth or longing, but with raw, disorienting panic. He searched for the word that was supposed to come next, the one she needed to hear.

I love you.

But it wouldn't come. He couldn't say it. Not to her. Because the truth—cruel and unmovable—was that he didn't love her. He barely even knew her.

With Popuri, the words were effortless. Back in Flowerbud Village, love had grown naturally, rooted in shared childhoods and quiet moments that stacked into something unbreakable. Even after losing her in his original life, fate had granted him a second chance—a life where they grew up side by side, built a home together, dreamed of a family that felt earned. That love had been real.

But Elli… Elli belonged to a life that wasn't his. She was a stranger shaped by memories he didn't possess, promises he hadn't made, affection he couldn't return. She was in love with someone who no longer existed—and now she was standing in front of him, waiting for an answer he didn't have the right to give.

And so, Pete said nothing. The silence stretched, sharp and suffocating.

Tears welled in Elli's eyes, catching the light as she took a trembling breath. She searched his face one last time, hoping—begging—for something, anything, that would tell her she was wrong.

But there was only hesitation. And she knew then there was nothing left to save. "I think…" Her voice cracked, and she swallowed hard, steadying herself. "I think we should end this." The words landed quietly, but they shattered everything.

Pete felt her words strike him like a sudden, icy wind. His breath caught, sharp and involuntary, as his mind scrambled for something—anything—that might undo what had just been said.

He found nothing.

Though he had never truly loved Elli, the finality of her decision still cut deeper than he expected. There was a sting to it, a dull ache that spread through his chest, born not of romance but of loss—the loss of a future that had once existed, even if it no longer belonged to him.

For a fleeting moment, he wanted to protest. To reach out. To say something that might stitch the fracture closed. But what right did he have?

He didn't know her—not really. He didn't understand what had drawn the other Pete to her quiet kindness, or what moments had shaped their bond into something worth promising forever. He didn't know what laughter they had shared, what silences had felt comfortable instead of heavy. All of it belonged to a life he had never lived. And most of all, he didn't know how to save something that had begun breaking long before last night.

Maybe he wasn't supposed to. The truth settled heavily in his chest, undeniable and unkind: he had been coming to the clinic out of habit, out of obligation, clinging to a relationship that had been on life support from the moment he arrived in Mineral Town. Even if he convinced her to stay today, it would unravel again tomorrow. He would only be delaying the inevitable—hurting her more in the process.

So he swallowed the lump rising in his throat, forced himself to meet her tear-filled gaze, and nodded. "…Okay." The word felt small. Inadequate. But it was honest.

Elli searched his face, waiting—hoping—for him to take it back, to fight for her, to prove that she was wrong about everything she feared. When he didn't, her shoulders sagged, the last of her resolve giving way. She wiped at her eyes, then gave a quiet, defeated nod before turning away.

Pete didn't linger. He turned and walked out of the clinic, the door closing softly behind him. Outside, the crisp air of Autumn met him, cool and unforgiving. And for the first time since arriving in this world, Pete realized—truly realized—that he was alone.

As Pete walked home, the world around him felt muted, as though Mineral Town itself had dimmed in response to his thoughts. Each step carried the weight of what he had done—or failed to do—and his mind churned relentlessly, one heavy realization crashing into the next.

He had failed.

No amount of good deeds could soften that truth. He could help repair fences, mend old friendships, ease the wounds of others—but none of it changed the fact that the one thing he should have faced head-on, the one responsibility he could not walk away from, was the relationship he had been thrust into. And that was the very thing he had let crumble.

Elli had deserved better. Even if he didn't love her. Even if he was, in every way that mattered, a stranger wearing the shape of someone else's past. She had still deserved effort—real effort. It wasn't her fault that he had awakened inside a life already in motion, carrying promises he never made and memories he never lived. She had believed in him without hesitation. Loved him without condition. Trusted him with a future he had never truly been able to see. And he had shattered that trust without even trying to hold it together.

The realization lodged itself in his chest, heavy and unyielding. This wasn't the cruelty of fate, or the result of a misunderstanding, or some unavoidable tragedy. This was on him. Entirely. He had chosen hesitation. He had chosen silence. And in doing so, he had chosen to hurt her.

The guilt pressed in, tight and suffocating, stealing the air from his lungs. For all his good intentions, for all his attempts to help others heal, he had left someone broken in his wake. And this time, there was no one else to blame.

As Pete stepped into his home, a familiar sense of safety settled over him like a worn blanket. The farm—whether here in Mineral Town or long ago in Flowerbud Village—had always been his refuge. It was the one place where the noise of his thoughts dulled, where the rhythm of labor could quiet the ache he carried inside his chest.

Without pausing, he reached for the broom and began to sweep, though the wooden floors were already spotless. It didn't matter. The soft rasp of bristles against wood, the repetitive motion of his arms—those things grounded him. As long as his hands were moving, his mind had less room to wander.

This was how he survived. Cleaning. Tending the fields. Fixing fences that didn't need fixing. Picking up hobbies only to abandon them weeks later. Small, inconsequential tasks that filled the empty spaces and kept the silence at bay. He had learned long ago that stillness was dangerous. Stillness invited memories.

Ever since Popuri died, this was all he knew how to do. He had thrown himself into distraction, into endurance rather than living. He left Flowerbud behind, returned to the city, and convinced himself that distance was the same as healing. He never looked back—not until his grandfather passed away, leaving him a farm and a responsibility he accepted more out of obligation than hope.

And yet, no matter where he went, no matter how deeply he buried himself in work, the truth followed him all the same. The world kept moving forward without him.

People fell in love. They healed. They grew. They built lives that continued whether he was present or not. And Pete—no matter how hard he worked, no matter how fast he tried to run—was always just a step behind, chasing a life that isn't possible.

As Pete continued to sweep, the steady swish of the broom against the floorboards offered him a brief, fragile reprieve from the turmoil in his thoughts. He then moved to his room and swept, using the broom to clean under the bed. The motion was mindless, automatic—until the broom snagged beneath the bed with a dull thud.

He frowned and crouched down, peering into the dim space beneath the frame. Something solid sat there, hidden in the shadows. Reaching in, his fingers brushed against dust and rough wood. He tugged, drawing out a small wooden box, its surface dulled by time and neglect.

Pete sat on the edge of the bed and set the box atop the blankets. For a moment, he only stared at it. Something about its weight—about the way it had been tucked away—made his chest tighten. Slowly, almost reverently, he lifted the lid.

Inside were five journals. Their covers were worn, their spines cracked from use. These weren't his. He knew that instantly. And yet, they were—belonging to the life he had inherited, the life of the other Pete. The pieces he had been missing.

His breath unsteady, Pete picked up the first journal and opened it. The ink had faded slightly with age, but the handwriting was cramped and careful, each line pressed tight against the page as if the writer had been afraid of wasting space—or time. As he read, a life began to unfold before him.

Entry after entry painted the picture of a childhood in Mineral Town. A long Summer spent roaming the forest. Climbing Mother's Hill. Laughing with his best friend—Isabella, Gotz's daughter. The pages were filled with warmth and simple joys, with dreams shared between two children who believed the future was endless.

Then the entries changed. He returned home, promising her that he would return the following Summer. Just like his past with Popuri.

Then, Winter came. Pete was at home in the city when it happened. And while he was gone from Mineral Town, a sudden snowstorm swallowed Isabella and her mother whole. They never made it home.

Pete's fingers curled around the edges of the journal, the paper crinkling beneath his grip. The ache he thought he had buried long ago stirred in his chest, raw and familiar. Grief, once again, found him. The pain in these pages mirrored his own—two lives split by circumstance, yet bound by the same loss. The same hollow absence. The same unanswered why.

But as he continued to read, something shifted. Where his own life had narrowed after loss—pulling inward, growing quiet and distant—the other Pete had reached outward. Somewhere in the aftermath of tragedy, he had found a fragile light. A reason to keep moving forward.

Just like in his original life, his grandfather Tony had passed away. The words sat heavy on the page, written with a restraint that only made the grief sharper. In the aftermath, Pete had taken over the farm—not out of passion, nor even hope, but out of obligation. A responsibility inherited alongside loss. He returned to Mineral Town, but he did not truly come back.

He kept to the farm, working the fields from dawn until dusk, avoiding the town whenever he could. He did not linger on familiar faces or notice how the children he once knew had grown into adults while he remained frozen in time, still tethered to the city he had fled to. He realized that Mineral Town forgot him.

But fate, as it always seemed to do, intervened. The journal described it plainly: a simple accident. A misstep on the farm. A twisted ankle that left him limping and frustrated. Pain drove him to the clinic—something he would not have done otherwise.

That was where he met Elli. The handwriting softened when her name appeared, the strokes lighter, more deliberate. Pete read of the warmth in her smile, the gentleness of her hands as she wrapped his ankle, the way her laughter seemed to chase the sterility from the clinic walls. To the other Pete, Elli had been more than a nurse tending to an injury. She had been a reprieve.

A quiet, unexpected kindness that asked nothing of him. A chance to feel something beyond regret and routine. In her presence, the weight of the past loosened its grip, if only a little. And for the first time in years, the other Pete allowed himself to believe that maybe—just maybe—life hadn't closed its doors on him entirely.

As Pete read on, the love story of the other Pete began to unfold—slowly, patiently—each carefully penned line revealing a devotion forged not from ease, but from resolve. This was not a man who had fallen into love. This was a man who had chosen it. Chose her.

Page after page spoke of quiet perseverance. Of mornings spent gathering flowers before work, of rehearsed words that never quite made it past his lips. He brought her bouquets again and again, each offering met with the same gentle smile—kind, appreciative, but never inviting. The journals did not resent her for it. If anything, they seemed to admire her all the more.

Elli's life, he wrote, had simply never left room for romance. Her parents had died not long after Stu was born, leaving her to shoulder a burden far too heavy for someone so young. She became a mother before she had ever been allowed to be a child herself. Between caring for her infant brother and tending to her ailing grandmother, Ellen, Elli's days were consumed by responsibility. Love was a luxury she could not afford.

Pete's breath caught in his chest when he reached Ellen's name. In Flowerbud Village, Ellen had still been alive—frail, kind hearted, and always willing to chat with him over apple pie, yet another constant weight pressing upon Elli's already bowed shoulders. Here, in this life, it was no different. Elli remained what she had always been: the caregiver, the steady hand, the one who poured herself out for everyone else until there was nothing left for herself. And the other Pete had seen that.

He had not tried to rescue her from it. He had simply stayed. Waiting. Offering what little warmth and patience he had, never demanding more than she could give.

Pete closed his eyes for a moment, the weight of understanding settling over him. The other Pete had been there for her in ways that mattered. When Ellen passed away, it had been him by Elli's side, holding her when she couldn't hold herself together. He had been her rock, the steady presence she needed to keep going. That was why they fell in love—not through grand gestures or fleeting infatuation, but through unwavering support, through the understanding that neither of them had to bear their burdens alone.

They had spent three years together, their love growing stronger with each passing season. It wasn't perfect; they existed in a world of their own, isolated in a bubble where the clinic and the farm became their universe. But that was what made them work—Pete had always put Elli first, making time for her even when the rest of the town faded into the background. Elli, in turn, had found solace in him, a rare moment of selfish happiness in a life spent giving to others.

Then, at the end of their third year together, Pete had asked Elli to marry him.

Pete's hands tightened around the journal, his pulse quickening as he read the entry. The other Pete had described the moment in vivid detail—how he had gotten down on one knee, how Elli's eyes had brimmed with tears before she even heard the question. He presented her the blue feather. Her happiness and excitement was all over the journal. But the answer had not been the one he had hoped for.

She had turned him down.

Not because she didn't love him. Not because she didn't want to spend the rest of her life with him. But because she still had Stu to raise. She couldn't abandon her responsibility to her brother, not even for the man she loved.

But they had made a promise—to wait. To hold onto their love until the time was right. When Stu was old enough to live on his own, they would finally get married and start the family they had dreamed of.

Pete exhaled, closing the journal as his mind swirled with emotions. This was the love story that had been written before him, a story he had unknowingly stepped into. And now, he had shattered it.

Tears fell onto the worn cover of the journal, the ink blurring beneath the weight of his regret. He had never asked to come to Mineral Town. He had woken up in a life that wasn't his, with a woman in his bed whom he didn't know, and from that moment on, everything had unraveled.

In a single season, he had destroyed what the other Pete had spent years building. A love nurtured through patience, devotion, and sacrifice—gone. He hadn't even tried. Not really. He had spent the Summer keeping himself busy, convincing himself that helping the town would somehow fix things, that throwing himself into good deeds would make up for what he lacked. But it didn't.

His wife, Popuri, was still gone, lost to a fate he still doesn't understand. And now, Elli was gone too—not taken by fate, but pushed away by his own failure. No matter how much good he did for others, the one thing that had truly mattered—the one thing he had been trusted to protect—had slipped through his fingers. Again.