Chapter 32
Tom
This couldn't be that hard.
He was an architect. He designed entire structures from the ground up.
A craft project? Easy.
The room was packed with options. Bins of yarn. Shelves of paint and brushes. An entire drawer system filled with what looked like every possible crafting supply known to mankind.
He could work with this.
Tom pulled open drawers methodically. Glue guns. Ribbon. Stencils. Stamps. Decorative paper in every color and pattern.
His eyes landed on a wooden picture frame. Unfinished. Waiting to be decorated.
Perfect.
He'd make Lauren a frame. Something personal. He could paint little scenes around the border. Simple images that would show her he understood now. That he saw what she'd been trying to give him.
How hard could it be?
He flipped open the notebook and looked at the pathetic checklist he’d made.
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.
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 risked this. This exposure. This vulnerability. This crushing possibility that what she'd created with love might be dismissed as inadequate.
And he had dismissed 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.
This was what Lauren had risked when she presented him with her quilt. She'd made something with her whole heart.
And when she'd shown him—when she'd been hopefully and sweet, pointing out each carefully crafted square—he'd dismissed it. Acted like she'd embarrassed herself.
Tom set down the frame.
His throat felt tight.
She had been brave enough for that. Tom would have to be brave too.
This wasn't about technical skill.
It was about making something imperfect and offering it anyway. About putting your heart into fabric or paint or thread and hoping desperately that the person you love sees the love instead of the flaws.
Lauren had done that. Had stood in front of his parents, glowing with joy, offering him the gift she’s made with her own hands.
And he'd made her feel small.
Tom looked at his pitiful frame.
He felt small now too. Exposed. Like he was holding up something deeply personal and it wasn't good enough and everyone could see.
Lauren had created something wonderful and personal and full of love.
He had been a fool. Such a fucking idiot.
By the time the paint dried, the flowers were streaky and uneven, blobs instead of lines. The end result looked like something a child had made.
He looked from the frame to the quilt.
The difference between them was staggering.
She’d made mistakes—he could see them if he looked closely—but she’d worked through them. She’d redone what needed fixing. She’d kept trying until it was right.
He’d do the same. Until he made something good enough for her.
He touched the second square in the sequence, let his fingers trace the stitches. A red door. Their first apartment together.
He remembered the day they’d moved in. Lauren had bought flowers and he’d put them in a rinsed-out pasta sauce jar because they didn’t own a vase yet. They’d eaten pizza straight from the box, sitting cross-legged on the floor because their furniture hadn’t arrived.
The apartment had been small, the radiator clanked, the neighbors fought at 2 a.m., and they had to drag their laundry down to the coin-op every Sunday morning.
But Lauren had loved it fiercely. Had painted the bedroom walls a soft yellow without asking the landlord's permission. She’d sewn curtains from clearance fabric and hung them herself.
They’d been poor. And young. And completely happy.
That red door had been the threshold to their beginning.
She'd stitched it for him. Square by square, she’d presented him with their entire life together in fabric and thread. And when she'd finally shown him he'd folded it up and set it aside.
He imagined being brave enough to give her the frame he’d painted. And then he imagined her looking annoyed, throwing it aside. A band seemed to tighten around his ribs, squeezing until he could barely pull in a full breath.
Lauren had been offering him her love. And he’d rejected it.
Tom looked at the blank squares at the bottom of the quilt. The ones Lauren had left empty for their future.
Babies. Anniversaries. Christmases yet to come.
She'd been willing to be with him forever.
Until he’d ruined it.
The shame of it settled in his stomach like lead. Heavy and cold and inescapable.
He'd done that to the woman he loved.
Tom pressed his palms against his eyes.
She'd given him five years of effort and love and devotion. She'd given him everything she had.
And he'd acted like it wasn't enough.
Like she wasn't enough.
Tom ran his hands over the quilt. He let his fingers brush their story laid out in crooked stitches and mismatched fabric.
Lauren deserved better than him.
She'd always deserved better than him.
Tom let his fingers brush the stitching around the red door.
He'd keep trying anyway.
Because giving up was unthinkable to him.