Steemit Challenge - Season 28 Week-3 : Hope Grows Like Spring

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Ronny heard the new colleague before he saw her. A quick burst of laughter broke the office hum.

At the manager’s desk stood Nina, notebook in hand.

“If I keep asking questions, just reboot me,” she joked.

People laughed. Ronny looked back at his screen. Since Sameera left, he had trained himself not to notice beginnings.

At lunch, the only empty chair was across from him. Nina arrived with a tray and a small plant in a mug.

“You look safe enough,” she said. “Can I sit?”

He nodded.

“What’s with the plant?” he asked.

“This is Basil,” she said. “My rule this year: if I keep one thing alive, I have to keep hoping.”

Ronny thought of the park tree the gardener had insisted would bloom again. It had, turning from black sticks into a cloud of pink.

“I kill plants,” he muttered.

“Then you drown them or ignore them,” she replied. “Both fixable.”

The word “fixable” stayed with him all afternoon.

A few days later they left the office together.

“You take the bus?” Nina asked.

“I walk through the park,” he said.

“Can I join?” she asked. “My route is just concrete and one suspicious pigeon.”

In the park, they reached his usual bench under the reborn tree.

“Nice,” Nina said. “Feels calmer than it has any right to.”

“In winter it looked dead,” Ronny answered. “The gardener swore it would come back. I didn’t believe him.”

Nina sat, elbows on her knees.

“I used to think nothing comes back,” she said. “Last year my little brother was in the hospital. The doctors kept saying, ‘By spring he’ll be better.’ Spring turned into a deadline.”

“He didn’t make it,” she finished.

The leaves clicked above them.

“I’m sorry,” Ronny said.

“Me too,” she replied. “For a while I hated spring. The world got brighter while we stayed dark. Then I thought, if life keeps going anyway, maybe I should too.”

Ronny stared at the bark.

“I chose the opposite,” he admitted. “Sameera left. I decided: no more love, no more big feelings. If nothing begins, nothing can fall apart.”

“And now?” Nina asked.

“Now it’s quiet,” he said. “Too quiet.”

“Numb isn’t safety,” she answered. “It’s just pain without a pulse.”

He let out a breath that was almost a laugh.

“Sometimes I compare you to her,” he confessed. “It scares me.”

“Then don’t compare,” she said. “You don’t owe me romance. We can just be two people who survived something, sharing a tree.”

After that, days filled with small routines. Shared coffee. Bad jokes in chat. Quick reports on Basil.

“Still alive,” Nina would say. “Unlike your social life.”

Weeks later, the gardener stopped Ronny near the bench.

“You looked broken under this tree once,” the old man said. “Good to see you standing straighter. If you ever want to plant something, here’s a spot.”

He pointed to a bare patch of soil.

That evening Ronny arrived with a small sapling wrapped in paper.

“Plotting a forest without me?” Nina’s voice called.

He turned.

“Thought you were working late,” he said.

“I escaped,” she replied. “What’s this?”

“A test,” he said. “To see if I can put something in the ground instead of walking away.”

“You know it might die,” she said.

“And it might live,” he answered.

They lowered the sapling into the soil together, fingers brushing as they pressed the earth.

“So what are we planting, exactly?” Nina asked. “Besides a tree.”

“A truce with tomorrow,” Ronny replied.

She smiled.

“Good,” she said. “Tomorrow and I haven’t been talking either.”

They sat on the bench, shoulders almost touching. The old tree swayed above them; the new one trembled beside them.

Ronny breathed in soil and distant rain. His chest no longer felt like a locked room. It felt like a window cracked open.

He didn’t know if he and Nina would ever call this love or stay simply friends. The future was still unwritten.

But as he watched the small tree stand its ground, sharing earth with the one that had seen his worst days, he understood: hope isn’t the promise that nothing will break again. It’s the decision to plant anyway.

Like spring, it returns quietly.

This time, Ronny let it.

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Thank you very much for reading, it's time to invite my friends @sualeha, @drhira, @shiftitamanna to participate in this contest.

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@kouba01