Chapter 16. here in the garden

The tent's fabric swayed in slow rhythm, the incense of flowers and earth wafting in lazy spirals.

And there she was, Lucy—still smiling.

But not the smile of a girl reuniting with her love.

No. This was the smile of someone who had already cried.
Already accepted the truth.
And chose, still, to smile.

Her lips curled sweetly. But her eyes—those pale albino reds—shone with the wet shimmer of understanding.

She looked at Ydoc the way a child might look at a wilted flower, still beautiful in its way, but not something that could bloom again.

He looked back, confused. Caught between memories that didn’t exist and feelings that hadn’t yet formed. His shoulders were rigid, his chest unsure. He did not move closer. Did not reach for her hand.

And that—
That was enough for Lucy.

She didn’t flinch. She didn’t press. She simply nodded softly, eyes never leaving his.

“I missed you,” she whispered. And it wasn’t a plea. It was a funeral bell wrapped in sugar.

Outside the tent, the music had changed.

It wasn't strings. It wasn't fiddle or lute.
It was... something strange. Something synthetic and unnatural. A humming, pulsing rhythm—like metal remembering how to cry.

(Here in the garden, let’s play a game. I’ll show you how it’s done…)

It came from nowhere and everywhere. A speaker? No, too rich. Too dreamlike. It vibrated in the bones, like a forgotten toy singing in the attic of the world.

Lucy stepped aside, gently motioning for Ydoc to enter the full space of the flower tent.
Her arms brushed her sides, those tattooed eyes smiling, though she wasn’t.

(Here in the garden, stand very still. This will be so much fun…)

The air was heavy with pollen and some other scent—ozone? Like a storm had passed through the flowers. It didn’t match the scenery, nor the energy.

Ydoc’s lips parted, but no words came.

And that’s when he arrived—cutting through it all like a spotlight.

Edwards.

He threw open the tent flap with a flair that was only a few sparkles short of a parade. His voice came with it, rich and grating and oh so terribly pleased with himself.

“At last!” he boomed, wrapping his arm around Ydoc’s shoulder as if he were best man at a wedding. “My two favorite disasters in one place!”

Lucy blinked. Her smile faded just slightly—but she didn’t object. She simply folded her hands in front of her.

Edwards beamed like a sun with no heat. “Ydoc, you remember Lucy, don’t you? The Princess of Herb and Trash! Goddess of patchwork jackets and underground shows!”

Ydoc flinched slightly at the name. His tongue felt like cotton.

(And then when she smiled, and that’s what I’m after. The smile in her eyes…)

Lucy chuckled, soft and broken. “You're not wrong, Eddie.”

Edwards turned to her, theatrically dropping his voice into a drawl. “Darling, you look like a paper cut in the shape of an angel. Just tragic.”

She laughed again—but only once. A tiny, breathy sound.

(The sound of her laughter…)

It faded too fast.

Ydoc watched the two of them. He didn't speak. Didn't smile. He just stared at Lucy’s eyes, and saw what was left behind there.

She wasn't waiting for him.

She wasn’t hoping.

She had loved him once.
Maybe she still did.

But she would not ask him to love her back.

That kind of love is rare. And it hurts.

And the music kept humming.
----
[Is this how it works?]

The hum was louder now.
Not a crescendo, but a tightening. A coil pulling, string by string.

(Happy to listen. Happy to play…)

The sound drifted in the air like static laced with heartache—machine love, crumbling at its edges.

Inside the flower tent, the colors didn’t feel beautiful anymore.
They felt staged. Like offerings at a wake.

Ydoc opened his mouth slowly. His throat ached, unsure.

“…W-what’s your name again?”

The words slipped out like a fracture.

And in that moment, Lucy’s expression didn't break—it dimmed. Like a flame quietly accepting the wind.

“…Lucy,” she said gently. “Just Lucy.”

Her hands, tattooed with watching eyes, tightened around one another. But her smile—that stupid, sweet smile—remained.

Edwards laughed. Too loud. Too sharp.

“Don’t remember your girlfriend!?”

Ydoc flinched at the word. He turned to Edwards with hollow eyes, already fumbling.

“I—I’m sorry—wait, were we—?”

But Lucy cut in.

“Friend.”
The word rang clean, like a note struck on glass.
Her voice was firm—not angry—but final. “I was his friend.”

Edwards blinked, lips curling in a sneer. “Oh come on, Luce. You think he doesn’t remember how you kissed him under that dumb bridge? Or when you danced barefoot at the ghostlight bonfire? The boy was yours, sweetheart.”

Lucy didn’t respond to him. She only looked at Ydoc.

He, in turn, stared at the ground. Confused. Small. “I… I’m sorry. I… I don’t remember any of that.”

(Happy to let her drift away…)

His voice cracked near the end.
He didn’t mean to hurt her. Gods, he never meant to hurt her.

And yet, her expression remained steady.
Not a flicker of pain—just that sad, infinite patience.

“Ydoc,” she said softly, reaching out a little but not touching him, “it’s okay. You’re not supposed to remember. You were sick. You were lost. That doesn’t mean you need to be sorry for being hurt.”

“Yeah, but you loved him,” Edwards spat, arms flaring out. “You said you’d wait! You said—”

“I was young,” Lucy snapped, but her voice stayed calm. “I said a lot of things when I thought love was like ownership. I don’t think that anymore.”

Ydoc tried to interrupt. “I really am sorry—”

“You don’t have to keep saying that,” Lucy said, more sharply now. “You’re not doing anything wrong.”

(Counting the seconds standing alone… as thousands of years go by…)

And now the tension tightened like thread over skin.

Edwards growled. “You’re just gonna pretend none of it mattered? You don’t want him back? Really?”

“I want him to heal, you selfish prick,” Lucy hissed, and it was the first time her voice cracked. “I want him to find peace. Even if it’s not with me.”

(Happily wondering, night after night… is this how it works? Am I doing it right?!)

Ydoc’s hands trembled. His eyes flicked between them, helpless. Like a child in a burning house with no idea where the door went.

“I—I just wanted to say hello,” he whispered, his voice shaking with guilt. “I thought maybe I was being rude…”

“You’re not,” Lucy said gently, brushing a white strand behind her ear. “You’re not rude. You’re just new. And that’s okay.”

“I don’t feel new,” he mumbled. “I feel… unfinished.”

She smiled at him, lips soft and lips cracked.

“So do I.”

Edwards took a step back, rubbing his temples. “Gods above. You two make me want to gag.”

The music in the air continued to twist and cry.
It sounded like a heartbeat run through wires.
A voice pressed through metal.

A ghost screaming through a modem.

The tension remained in the tent. Dense. Unspoken.

Lucy did not try to reach for his hand.
She did not say “do you remember me now?”
She just sat on the rug between the flowers, cross-legged. And patted the space beside her.

“You can stay as long as you like. You don’t have to say anything.”

Ydoc didn’t move.
Not yet.
----------
[For people who Don't Care]

Ydoc stood trembling, his hands wrung in front of him like a child confessing some awful truth.
His eyes—half-shut, half-swollen—could no longer hide the pressure building behind them.

“…I’m sorry…”
His voice cracked, thin as paper.
“I don’t… I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know what I did to you—what we were, or what I meant to you… but I know that something was lost.”
His shoulders quaked now.
“I just… I know the dream is dead, and I’m sorry.”

The silence after was deep and horrible.

Until—

“NO!” Edwards screamed, the sound cutting through the tent like a butcher’s blade.

(You keep on turning pages…)

“We can just start over! That’s what we always do!” Edwards shouted, spinning around to them both like a mad conductor. “We always do this! We meet, we kiss, we fight—and then we reset! That’s the story! That’s our story!”

Ydoc flinched back, but Lucy—
Lucy didn’t even blink.

Her lips parted.

And something inside her snapped.

(For people who don’t care…)

“You child,” she breathed.
But her voice was rising, trembling—
“You soulless little tyrant.”

“What?” Edwards blinked.

Lucy’s hands clenched, nails digging into her own cheeks as tears fell like salt. Her voice was a wail, primal and stung with truth.

“You selfish, rotten prick! I’ve done this story with you for years! Decades! I’ve waited! I’ve smiled! I’ve withered!” Her claws raked across her cheek, red lines flowering instantly as she sobbed through them.
“I did everything right, and still it never mattered!”

(For people who don’t care… for people who don’t care… for people who don’t care…)

“You don’t want him to remember,” she snarled at Edwards now. “You want him to OBEY. You want him stuck in the cycle, your cycle. The one where you get to be the star, and everyone else just fucking waits for you to be done talking.”

Edwards had frozen. He tried to say something smug—
But it curdled in his throat.

Lucy fell to her knees. Her breath was erratic now, her hands clutching the air like she was trying to hold herself in.

“I want to be free,” she whispered.

Ydoc tried to move forward, but Edwards yanked his wrist.

“Don’t. It’s not worth it,” he muttered darkly. “She always does this.”

“Edwards—” Ydoc protested.

“No,” Edwards growled. “You saw her. She’s gone now. Come on. We’re leaving.”

(…and still it takes you ages… to see that no one’s there…)

Lucy curled in on herself, little more than a shaking mass of fur and grief beneath the flowers that no longer looked like gifts—but graves.

Ydoc looked back. He wanted to stay.
He wanted to say something better.

But his body wouldn’t move.

He was already being pulled.

And the sound behind him—

(To see no one's there… to see no one's there…)
(Everyone's gone on without you…)

—was the machine, crying now.

Crying like it had loved once.

And it remembered what it felt like to be left behind.
------------
[The Final Reset]

The tent was so still.
No voices now. No argument. No breath but her own.

Only the soft shimmer of a disco ball above—
Spinning slowly, painting lazy light across the canvas walls like a fading memory.

Each glint of light flashed like a still photograph.
Moments trapped in glass.

There—
Ydoc laughing, his nose crinkled in that dumb, happy way he used to do.

There—
The moment his pinky reached for hers beneath the blanket.

There—
The dream of a future. A place she could belong.

She shook. Hands curled to her chest. Eyes swollen with salt. Her mouth parted in a soft, broken sob.

(Finally something… about how the story ends.)

The disco ball turned.

And Lucy—
Sweet, strange, ugly-lovely Lucy, with her chipped ears and Led Zeppelin shirt,
Wished she had never agreed.

Fifty-eight.

She had kept count.

Fifty-eight resets.
Fifty-eight starts.
Fifty-eight different versions of the same failing dream.

The first time, it had been romantic.
The tenth, hopeful.
The twentieth, exhausting.
And after that—
It was just work. Just a script. Just waiting for the curtain call that never came.

She was solving a puzzle that wasn’t broken.
Just haunted.

(She doesn’t exist now.)

Her arms curled around herself tighter. Her claws dug into the old blanket he once called "their shared nest."

She should have said no.
Should have walked.
Should have refused to play Edwards’ game.

He never wanted Ydoc to be free.

He wanted a loop.
He wanted control.
He wanted to rewind the tape until the ending was perfect and he won.

(Isn’t that lovely? Isn’t that COOL!?)
(Isn’t it cruel? And… aren’t I a fool to have—)

The disco ball turned again.

She sat there in the patchy blue-purple glow.
She could still feel Ydoc’s hand in hers.

But it was already fading.
That version of him, the one who kissed her behind the firewood stacks—
He didn’t exist anymore.

She didn’t either.
Not really.

She could feel it in her heart like a fault line.
Like the script had written her name in chalk and the rain was coming.

So she didn’t scream anymore.

She simply… watched.

(Happily listen… happily stayed… watching him…)
(…drift… away.)

The page ends in soft silence.

And the disco ball turns one last time.