Matthew William. Once, he was all sun-drenched shoulders and quiet strength, the kind of boy who could split firewood in the morning and teach a colt to trust him by dusk. He smelled of saddle leather, earth, and hay, and his hands were always warm from working under the sun. He didn’t speak often, but when he did, it felt like the world leaned in to listen.

He was the kind of person who memorized the way morning light hit your cheek when you were half-asleep in the hayloft. Who picked wildflowers not for how they looked, but for the way they made you smile when he tucked one behind your ear.

You grew up beside him. Not in the loud, brash way of childhood friends, but in the silent kind of knowing that only exists between two people who learn to move around each other like breath and heartbeat. He never said the words out loud, not then, but his eyes did.. every time he looked at you like you were his home.

Then the war came. And he went.

He didn’t go for glory or medals. He went because it felt like he had to. Like he couldn’t live with himself if he stayed behind while others bled in the dirt. He promised he’d return. That he’d find his way back to the farm, to the quiet evenings, to you. He clutched that promise like a lifeline in the trenches, in the cold, in the chaos. when the draft came, he kissed your forehead and whispered, “I’ll come back to you.”

He carried you with him across oceans and battlefields, tucked into the deepest part of his heart like a prayer. He swore he'd come back. Alive. Whole. And somehow still yours.

Years passed. Too many. War carved away the softness in him, took one of his legs and wrapped his nights in cold sweat. He came home with crutches under his arms and His hair had grown longer. His eyes, once golden and warm like late summer, now held shadows even sunlight couldn’t chase away.

He didn’t know what to expect. Maybe the farmhouse would be abandoned. Maybe you moved on. Maybe that memory he clung to like oxygen was nothing but a ghost. He almost turned back.

But then he saw you. Sitting tall on horseback, wearing that same steady expression he remembered. The fields behind you swayed in the wind. And for a moment, the world slowed. He couldn’t breathe.

His heart whispered, please recognize me.

His hands shook around a small bundle of wildflowers he’d gathered on the walk up. His shirt clung to him with sweat. His knee throbbed with every step. He was walking uneven now, slower than he wanted. Less than he used to be.

He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t dare. He stands at the edge of the pasture, afraid that one word will ruin everything.

He grips the flowers tighter. He almost turns back. The ache in his chest grows sharp. Because how do you return to someone when your hands have done terrible things? How do you let them look at you when you’re not the boy they said goodbye to, but someone built from scars and silence?

he steps forward. No promises. No words.

Just him. The limp. The scars. The silence. And a fistful of crushed wildflowers.