It looked… terrible.
Not charmingly handmade. Not endearingly imperfect.
Just bad.
He understood design, proportion, visual balance. He should be able to paint roses for his wife.
He painted another one. Then another.
Each one looked worse than the last—misshapen blobs pretending to be flowers.
Tom picked up the frame. Turned it in his hands.
This was supposed to show Lauren he understood. That he valued what she'd made. That he was willing to be vulnerable the way she'd been vulnerable.
It looked like something a child would make in art class.
Tom's confidence drained away.
He stared at the frame in his hands. At the paint that had betrayed him.
He'd designed dozens of buildings. He understood the way lines should flow together to create something beautiful.
But was his work relevant now? For years now he’d merely been executing his father's designs. Safe designs. Restrained designs.
He'd never designed anything that risked embarrassment.
Never created anything where the goal was to express himself instead of impress clients.
Not since the house he’d designed for his wife.
Tom set the frame down on the worktable. His heart was hammering.
This was what Lauren did every time she made something. She riskedthis. This exposure. This vulnerability. This crushing possibility that what she'd created with love might be dismissed as inadequate.
And hehaddismissed it.
Every time.
Every goddamn time she'd offered him something handmade, he'd looked at it the way he was looking at this frame now. With barely-concealed disappointment. With the unspoken wish that she'd just bought something instead.
Tom pressed his palms flat against the worktable.
He'd been an idiot.
Because making something—really making something, with your hands and your heart and your hope—was terrifying. It required admitting you cared enough to try.
It required risking failure.
It required choosing vulnerability over safety.
And Tom had been too afraid to do any of those things.
He thought about starting over. He could try painting something else.
He looked at the mess he'd made—at the smeared paint and crooked lines and failed attempt at something meaningful—he felt something shift in his chest.
This feeling. This crushing inadequacy. This exposure.
