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“But honestly, it’s a little creepy,” he said, still pretending to study. “I mean, I love you and all, Pop, but the whole twisted together part is gross.”
“Yet another reason why it failed, I guess,” I said, covering the piece again. I must have felt the mistakes without being able to articulate them.
“Yeah,” he said, “It’s too sexual.”
“Ew, Chris,” I said, walking back to the worktable. “Don’t ever say that word in front of me again.”
He shrugged. “It could work for a wedding gift for Rowan and Cal if you trim it down to two trunks with separate roots.”
“I don’t want to think about Rowan and Cal’s sex life either,” I said, rolling the clay in my hands again.
My fingers started to work and before I knew it, I’d created a rough version of what Chris had described, except the two trees had split in half before twinning together. Two fragile pieces finding strength in each other. I could leave the broken parts bare and add leaves to the sections of the trees that supported each other.
I grabbed a sheet of drawing paper and started sketching the image in my mind. I’m not sure how long I worked before I sat back and stared at the page. At some point, the trees had morphed into actual people, their shadows images of the damage they’d left behind to be together.
“That’s incredible,” Chris said over my shoulder. “But that’s not Cal.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s Theo.”
“You have to make that, Pop. I’ll bring a sleeping bag and camp out here if you need me.”
“I know you would, but I want to do this on my own. Plus, if Theo was going to come out here, he would have by now. You can head home.”
“Great, because that chair is really uncomfortable.”
Chris pulled me into a hug before he slipped out the sliding door. Just because I wasn’t ready to see Theo, didn’t mean I couldn’t show him how I felt. It’d be tight, but if I skipped a ton of sleep and the handmade cards I’d planned, I might be able to finish a clay model and ice all those damn hearts-and-flowers cookies before Valentine’s Day.
Chapter thirty
Poppy
My entire body relaxedas I stood back from the table. After working several long days decorating and sculpting, I’d pulled an all-nighter to finish the cookie bouquets. As the sun rose, I’d snuck into the studio to complete what I hoped would be the first model of the sculpture. I’d either be back at some point making a cast of the piece or leaving it, and Theo, behind.
I cried a ton while I sculpted the embracing figures because I knew Theo and I could have a beautiful life together. He just needed to see it as clearly as I did. When I began work on my shadow self, my thoughts focused on all my imperfections. But the longer I worked on the piece as a whole, the more I came to realize that I was enough, flaws and all. I didn’t need to be sweet like Rowan, or perky like Cammie, or citizen of the year like Lauren to deserve the love I wanted. Rowan had inspired Cal to leave his fuckboy lifestyle, but only after she’d ended their casual relationship when she wanted something more. To be with her, he’d had to work through all the reasons he’d been afraid to commit to someone.
I’d pressed every ounce of pain, hope, and love into the clay, adding more and more details because I wasn’t ready to leave. It’d taken hours of sculpting to finally accept Lauren’s advice. If Theo couldn’t heal himself enough to love me the way I wanted, I had to let him go. Because no matter how much I loved Theo or he loved me, only he could do the work he needed.
I’d sculpted without music since I didn’t want to wake him, but as the hours stretched into mid-morning, I started listening for him. Eventually, I heard the thud of boots and the front door close with a finality that made my heart ache. Afterwards, I’d blasted my music and kept working long after I initially thought the piece was complete. Each detail felt like a piece of us I was letting go: Art discussions and shared sushi, my sassy mouth and his kind eyes, our friendship and our passion. The sun had already begun to sink behind the mountains when I finally put down my chisel.
“That’s incredible,” Mom said, making me jump a foot. The music was so loud I hadn’t heard her come through the slider. I turned off my speaker while she leaned close to the sculpture, her nose almost touching the clay.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “The shop must be slammed.”
Mom waved me off like it was any other day and not the evening before the second-busiest day of the year for florists. Only Mother’s Day surpassed the chaos of the next twenty-four hours at Red Blossoms. “I’m here to help. I see you’re all packed up.”
“Yeah,” I said, glancing at the boxes of art supplies. I’d packed in fits and spurts whenever I needed a break from sculpting, leaving only a handful of tools on the table.
“This is the best work you’ve ever done,” she said giving my shoulders a squeeze.
Whatever happened, I felt a surge of pride while I studied the piece from all angles. No question, it was my best. I’d hacked the shadow figures into pieces then replicated the lines on the entwined figures in the middle, making sure any missing parts that remained were in places where Theo’s figure and mine entwined. It was a little Jerry McGuire “you complete me,” but it was the truth. Plus, I’d left it up for interpretation if we filled each other’s gaps or simply shielded them from the rest of the world.
“Wow,” Chris said, running into the room through the open slider. “That looks great, but I have a paper to finish, so can we move this along?”
“I didn’t ask either of you to help me.”
“No,” Chris said, stacking two boxes and lifting them. “But we figured you didn’t want to move out while Theo was here, and it’s getting late.” He took off without another word, almost running into Lauren.
“I’m here,” she said, breathing hard like she’d sprinted all the way from Karma. “I have ten minutes, so load me up.”