Page 3 of The Lumberjack and the City Slicker

And somewhere along the way, acceptable started to feel fake.

So instead, I embraced the distance that always existed between us.

And when they died what broke wasn’t my heart.

What broke was the last thread of obligation.

The last reason to keep performing.

God, that makes me sound like a shit, but it’s the truth.

Yes, I inherited their money.

Their empire. Their expectations—spoken and unspoken.

But I chose me instead of that life.

And I haven’t looked back since.

Prologue 2: Clara

The first time I saw his work—the Lumberjack Artist—it stopped my scrolling thumb like it had a mind of its own.

That doesn’t happen to me. Not anymore.

In New York City, you learn to keep moving—eyes forward, heels faster, brain always three steps ahead.

You learn how to take in beauty in bite-sized doses.

Like it’s another thing on your calendar between a blowout and a meeting and pretending you’re fine.

But this wasn’t just something pretty. Not just glitter and a TikTok filter.

This was something else. Something felt.

I saw the close-up video on my feed—grainy at first, then sharp, intimate.

A craftsman’s hands holding a strip of leather while a blade kissed the surface, slow and sure.

The lines he carved weren’t simply decorative. They were intentional.

Like he wasn’t etching a design so much as releasing it from the material.

A willow tree. Branches bending, graceful and stubborn at once.

Beneath it, a horizon line that turned into a sunset—burnished gold, ember red—pressed into the leather like a memory.

The caption was vague and irritating, the way viral trends always are.

WHO IS HE???

MYSTERY LUMBERJACK ARTIST ALERT

FOUND IN MAINE??

#MOUNTAINMAN #THELUMBERJACKARTIST #ARTTOK

I watched it twice.