Flowers
Dates
Letters
Like repairing a marriage was the same as troubleshooting a leaky faucet.
He wanted to tear the page out—burn it, maybe. But his eye caught on the margins.
Roses. Dozens of them.
He’d drawn them without thinking. Petals spiraling, stems curving, thorns precise and delicate. Some were simple outlines; others layered and complicated.
His breath stilled.
This part… this part hadn’t been stupid.
Maybe this part had been helpful.
Because when he’d drawn those roses—when his hand had moved on its own—he hadn’t been performing or strategizing or panicking.
He’d just been trying to express something. Something he didn’t have words for yet.
Something like:I love you, I love you, I love you, I’m sorry.
He touched one of the sketched roses with the tip of his finger.
This was what he’d paint for Lauren.
Tom gathered supplies. Acrylic paint. A few brushes. A pencil for sketching. A wooden palette to mix on. He squeezed out paint in small, neat dollops: red, pink, white, green.
He sketched a rose lightly on the corner of the frame—spirals of petals, the curve of a stem.
It looked good. Surprisingly good. Confident lines. Almost… natural.
He picked up a fine brush and dipped it into the red paint.
The first stroke went on thick. Too thick. Gloopy. He tried to smooth it, but the brush left streaks, pulling up the paint instead of evening it out.
He frowned. That was fine. He could adjust.
He moved to the next petal. The paint bled over the pencil line.
He grabbed a paper towel. Tried to wipe it.
It smeared—pink mud across the wood.
Tom frowned. Set down the brush. This was just a learning curve.
He waited for the paint to dry, then tried again—shading, adding depth, tiny leaves.
The detail work was harder than he'd anticipated. The brush was too big. Each stroke looked clumsy, childish. Nothing like the delicate embroidery Lauren had managed.
He switched to a smaller brush.
Better. Sort of.
Tom sat back. Stared at what he'd created.
