To A Garden of Belonging

By Arnab Haldar

The day it happened, David stood in the cafeteria line, tray cooling in his hands. Two boys

laughed at something over his shoulder — not to him, never to him — before turning away.

In that moment, he felt less like a person than a hollow space the world had quietly learned

to look through.

His days unfurled like brittle film — frames missing, colors drained. At home, the air

seemed to hold its breath. His parents were there, yet adrift in the private rooms of their

minds. He moved through the house like a shadow, anchored to nothing.

School was worse. Not fists or kicks — just whispers, eyes sliding past as if he were

transparent. Love was a word from someone else’s language. He tried: a joke, a shared

lunch, a brave smile. But it was like cupping water in his hands; whatever warmth he

caught slipped through.

And then Emma arrived.

She didn’t look past him. Her gaze stayed, steady as a star, soft as early rain. She asked

questions and waited for the answers. Her laugh was sunlight spilling into a locked room.

Emma carried her own shadows. Her brother — a gentle soul — had been dimmed by

cruelty, and she had promised herself this: to be a light for anyone left in the dark.

One rainy afternoon, under the shallow shelter of a bus stop, David spoke. Not much at first

— then everything. The loneliness. The weight of days that felt like endless winter. He

braced for the silence that always came after truth.

But Emma’s voice didn’t falter. “David,” she said, “I want to show you what love

is.”

“Why?” His voice cracked like dry earth.

“Because you deserve it. Everyone does. And I won’t let anyone be treated the way my

brother was.”

She didn’t promise forever. She planted seeds.

At lunch, as autumn leaves burned gold, she sat beside him — her laughter a warm

counterpoint to the restless wind. She walked him home, listening while he spoke of

constellations and the quiet stories he imagined the stars told each other. She noticed how

he flinched at sudden noises, how his eyes lit when speaking of the universe.

Still, he wondered — would this light fade too?

One afternoon, a group of boys closed in, their grins sharp. Before fear could finish its

climb, Emma stepped forward. Her coat sleeve brushed his arm. “Leave him alone,” she

said — steady as the North Star.

They left. And something fragile took root.

Winter deepened. On a hill above the sleeping town, the stars burned cold and clear.

David’s voice was almost a whisper. “I used to think love was someone fixing me. But

it’s not, is it?”

“No,” Emma said, her breath clouding the night. “It’s about being seen — all of you

— and still being wanted.”

He met her gaze. “You see me.”

“I do,” she said. “And you’re worth seeing.”

He realized then: love wasn’t rescue. It was a slow-growing garden — stone by stone,

seed by seed — built in the quiet moments when someone chooses to stay.

Years later, David stood in a lecture hall, his voice alive with the wonder of the cosmos. In

the crowd, Emma’s smile shone — a small, constant galaxy in a room full of strangers.

And he remembered the boy who once drifted through life like a ghost. The greatest

wonders weren’t always written in the stars. Sometimes, they bloomed here on Earth —

in the tender soil of kindness, in the roots that grew when someone first looked and truly

saw.

By Arnab Haldar