Page 4 of The Lumberjack and the City Slicker

Then three times.

Then I clicked the profile—one of those accounts dedicated to collecting the work.

Fan pages.

Reposts.

Slow-motion shots of ironwork with silhouettes of willow trees, pines, and mountain landscapes cut so clean they looked like shadows.

Wooden boxes with sunsets burned into the grain.

A belt buckle with a tree line etched into steel, the metal darkened like dusk.

Boots. Belts. Coats. Purses. Bookcases. End tables. Doors.

All of them obviously crafted by the same master. No rhyme or reason to the medium.

Like the artist simply worked the materials as they beckoned him.

Almost every piece bears the same signature motif.

Nature at its quietest.

Maybe at its wildest.

Like he’s the sole witness to some quiet ache I couldn’t name.

And the more I watched, the more I realized something that made my throat tighten.

It felt like home.

Which was ridiculous because I’m not the kind of woman who romanticizes trees and mountains and sunsets.

I’m the kind of woman who knows which rooftop has the best martinis and which subway entrance to avoid after dark.

I’m the kind of woman who owns more designer shoes than winter boots.

I’m the kind of woman who gets engaged to a man who thinks rustic means exposed brick in a penthouse.

And maybe that’s why this man’s mountain and his willow trees hit me so hard.

Because while my life looks perfect from the outside, it isn’t.

Not really.

It hasn’t been. Not for a long time. If ever.

It’s funny what finally breaks you.

Not the big, cinematic stuff.

Not a car crash, or a hospital call, or a dramatic betrayal in front of a crowd.

For me, it was walking in on my fiancé fucking his secretary on the kitchen island he chose for our apartment.

It’s the expensive kind folks like to use to frame reels of themselves cooking for dinner parties. Cold, obnoxious, made from gold-veined marble that cost more than my first apartment.

I walked in unexpectedly—because who has to announce when they’re coming home in the middle of the day.