Chapter 4 - The Fragile Bridge
Her name was Maya. She was the daughter of the city’s chief developer—the same man who was currently planning to bulldoze the district Leo called home.
They met in the garden every Tuesday. Leo would tell her about the tunnels and the way the city looked from the sewers, and Maya would tell him about the books she read and the suffocating perfection of her life above. She brought him bread, clean socks, and the occasional stolen book.
"You’re hiding here, Leo," Maya said one day, watching him prune a vine. "But they’re going to tear this whole district down in the spring. You can't stay in the shadows forever."
"The shadows are safe," Leo insisted. "Up there, everything is just another storm waiting to happen. People leave. They die. Buildings burn. Down here, nothing changes."
May you like
"That’s not living, Leo. That’s just waiting to be buried."
For the first time, Leo felt the sting of reality. He realized that the garden, his beautiful, impossible secret, was on a collision course with the city’s greed.
