Chapter 68
Lauren
Valentine’s Day at Muse had been… a lot.
All pink drinks and ironic heart-shaped cookies and Sage yelling “SELF-LOVE” every time someone walked past the photo wall. The Divorced AF spread was blowing up online, and clients had flooded her inbox with inquiries.
She didn’t realize how tense she was until she turned onto her street and her shoulders finally dropped an inch.
The porch light glowed golden against the falling dusk when she pulled into the driveway.
For a second, her heart stuttered.
Tom’s car was there.
He was here.
Her fingers stayed wrapped around the steering wheel even after she turned off the engine.
The house looked the same as always—familiar lines, familiar windows—but everything inside it felt different these days.
The idea of Tom being back in their kitchen, in their space, made her chest ache in the best and strangest way.
Her phone buzzed in the cupholder. She saw Tom’s name on the screen and her heart did that useless little lurch.
She answered. “Hey.”
“Hey.” His voice was warm and a little rough. “I, uh… I’m inside.”
She looked up at the softly lit windows. “I figured.”
He exhaled, the sound warm and intimate in her ear. “Before you come in, I need to say this. If you open the door and you hate it—what I’ve done in here—tell me. I’ll take it all down. No questions, no arguments. I promise.”
Her throat tightened.
He was giving her an exit. Before she’d even seen it.
“Tom…” she said softly.
“I mean it, Lo,” he said. “If I got this wrong, you just say the word.”
She swallowed, fingers tightening around the phone. For a moment she just listened to him breathe, the quiet hum of the line between them.
“I’m coming in,” she said at last.
There was a pause—just long enough for her to hear the hope in his silence.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “I’ll be in the living room.”
She stepped out into the cold, the air sharp against her flushed cheeks, and walked up the path. Her keys felt heavier than usual in her hand.
The second she opened the door, she knew something was different.
Music floated from somewhere deeper in the house. Christmas music.
“Hey,” she called, her voice catching halfway between wary and breathless.
“In here,” Tom answered.
She stepped out of her boots and moved toward the sound.
The hallway was dark, the only light a faint, glittering glow spilling out from the doorway ahead.
Lauren’s steps slowed. Her heart began to pound.
She stepped through the doorway.
And stopped.
“Tom,” she said. “What did you—”
Christmas had exploded in her living room.
Lights looped around the curtain rods in sparkling chains. Her crocheted garlands framed the bookshelves. Every surface held something familiar: hand-painted angels, wire brush trees, the glittery snowflakes with their bespoke photo cutouts.
Her tree—her busy, beloved plastic tree—resurrected in the corner, fully dressed. Ornaments crowded the branches. Ribbons cascaded down the sides like frozen waterfalls. The Elvis jumpsuit hanging in pride of place.
The room glowed.
Not tasteful. Not restrained.
Warm. Wild. Christmas.
Her throat closed.
She took a step forward, then another. Her stocking. His stocking. The chain of peppermints she’d glued.
It was all here. Every bit of love she’d thought she’d thrown away.
She didn’t realize she was crying until her vision blurred and a hot tear slid down her cheek.
“Tom,” she whispered.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he said, voice shaky but sure.
She turned to look at him. He stood in the middle of the room.
“And Merry Christmas.”
She laughed, a wet, incredulous sound. “You decorated for Christmas on Valentine’s Day.”
“I wanted to make it as magical for you as you make it for me,” he said simply.
She stared at him. At the room. At everything she’d once made with her own hands, now assembled with his.
“It’s perfect,” she whispered.
He looked like she’d handed him the sun.
“There’s more,” he said softly.
Her heart thudded. “More?”
He stepped closer, reaching into his pocket.
For one terrifying second, her brain threw her back to Christmas—to the check.
He must have seen something flicker in her face, because he paused.
“It’s not money,” he said quickly. “I swear. I learned that lesson.”
He drew out a small box.
Her breath lodged in her throat.
“I, uh… made you something,” he said.
“Made?” she echoed, stunned.
He nodded, swallowing. “Third attempt,” he admitted. “The first two looked like a kindergarten project. This one… I’m weirdly proud of.”
He opened the box.
Inside, nestled against cotton, was a necklace. The chain wasn’t quite even, and some of the beads were a little off-center, but the colors were unmistakably her—deep red, pale gold, a soft, surprising teal that made the others pop. In the middle sat a tiny, slightly wonky heart charm.
“Tom,” she breathed. “You… you made this.”
“I tried.” He huffed out a breath. “Linda’s craft room will never recover. I bent so much wire I think I insulted the concept of metal.”
She let out a choked laugh.
He lifted the necklace gently from the box.
“I kept thinking about how you must have felt,” he said quietly. “How scary it is to try, to risk it being ugly or ‘too much’ or not good enough. I never did that for you. I always stayed safe. Above it.”
He stepped behind her; she felt his breath ghost along her neck.
“I don’t want to stay safe anymore,” he murmured. “May I?”
Her eyes stung. “Yes,” she whispered.
Her hair was already half up; he brushed it aside with careful fingers and fastened the clasp at the back of her neck. The chain settled against her skin, cool at first, then warming quickly.
Lauren lifted her hand, fingers trembling as she touched the beads. They weren’t perfect. The heart was crooked.
She loved it so much it hurt.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, voice thick.
“It’s a little lopsided,” he said.
“So am I,” she whispered.
He made a sound—something broken and full and reverent.
She turned to face him. He was watching her like she was a miracle.
“Thank you,” she said.
He nodded once, sharply, like if he spoke too soon everything would crack.
“There’s one more thing,” he said after a moment. “Then I’ll stop ambushing you, I promise.”
She could only nod.
Tom guided her toward the sofa with a gentle hand at the small of her back. She let him; her knees felt unsteady anyway. The cushion dipped softly beneath her, and he stepped back—just enough to reach for something behind the armchair.
When he turned around, he was holding the quilt.
Her quilt.
Lauren’s breath stuttered. The familiar squares spilled over his arms—first-date coffee cups, their red-door apartment, the church, the honeymoon ocean, the embroidery of their home’s blueprints.
Memories she’d stitched in good faith, before she’d realized how precarious happily-ever-after could be.
Tom lowered himself to the floor. He knelt at her feet, the quilt draped over his forearms like an offering. Slowly, reverently, he spread it across her lap, smoothing the fabric with both hands.
“Tom…” she whispered.
At first she didn’t see it.
Then she did.
A new square.
The fabric didn’t match the originals; the stitching was a little too tight in places, a little too loose in others.
But the image was clear enough: he’d made her into a figure glowing with gold and rose thread, warm and powerful.
Her outline was the brightest thing on the quilt—a halo of stitched light around her. Tom’s shape knelt before her.
“You added a square,” she whispered.
“I did,” he said. “Took… way more tries than I want to admit. Your mom pretended not to watch me swear at fabric.”
She let out an unsteady laugh, wiping at her face.
He took a breath, steadying himself.
“I hate that I pushed you to that,” he said. “I hate that I made Christmas—the thing you loved most—hurt.”
He knelt in front of her, hands braced lightly on his thighs.
“But I am so, so glad you kicked me out,” he said.
Her head snapped up. “What?”
“I’m glad,” he repeated. “Because if you hadn’t?” His mouth twisted. “I would have stayed exactly who I was. Safe. Cowardly. Hiding behind my parents’ taste and calling it maturity. I’d have kept… holding you down, holding you back.”
His voice broke. He swallowed hard and kept going.
“You saved yourself,” he said. “You saved me too, even if I didn’t deserve it.
You drew a line and you said ‘no more,’ and you walked me to the door and you didn’t look back.
This—” his thumb pressed against the stitched halo around her figure “—this is the night you chose you. The night you chose the life you deserved, even if it meant doing it without me.”
Tears spilled over before she could stop them.
“I don’t want to erase that night,” he said softly. “I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen. I want it right here with the rest of our story. Not as the end. As the turning point.”
He looked up at her, eyes dark and raw and unwavering.
“I am all in, Lo,” he said quietly. “I knew from our first date that I was going to fall in love with you. And I did. I’m never moving on. There is no version of my life where I move on from being desperately, utterly in love with you. You’re it for me. You’ll always be it.”
Her heart thudded painfully.
“But,” he continued, voice steady, “if you decide you’re done—if being ‘Divorced AF’ is what makes you happiest—I will still be the idiot in the background cheering every success. I will still tell anyone who’ll listen that you are the bravest, brightest person I know.”
He took a breath.
“I will want you for the rest of my life,” he said. “And if the closest I get is watching you shine from across a room we’re not sharing anymore, I’ll take it. Because I love you more than I love getting my way.”
She made a small, wounded sound. He closed his eyes briefly, like the sound physically hurt him.
“I’m going to keep trying,” he said. “I’m going to keep building things that make space for who you really are. I’m going to keep choosing you over my parents, over my own pride. But you get to choose, Lauren. You always should have.”
He spread his hands slightly, empty.
“So,” he finished, voice rough, “this is me. All of me. Plastic tree in February, messy stitches, handmade necklace, and a heart that is entirely yours. I’m here. I’ll wait. I’m not moving on. Not in here.” He tapped his chest. “That’s yours forever.”
Lauren stared at him. At the tree. At the quilt. She lifted her hand to the necklace lying warm and imperfect against her collarbone. And just like that, the last fear she was holding onto loosened. Unknotted. Melted away until only joy remained—sharp and bright and overwhelming.
She slid off the couch onto her knees in front of him, the quilt soft under her hands.
“Tom,” she said. She cupped his face in both hands, her thumbs brushing the damp tracks at the corners of his eyes he probably didn’t know were there.
She thought of the patchwork heart drying on her dining table. She could almost feel fabric under her thumbs again, the drag of thread through cloth, the weight of that imperfect heart. STILL. A word she was ready to admit out loud.
She leaned in until their foreheads touched, the necklace a cool line between them.
“I love you,” she whispered. “And I am ready for you to come home.”