I Gave Him Ten Years, He Said I Didn’t Get Art Chapter 06

I Gave Him Ten Years, He Said I Didn’t Get Art Chapter 06

Jenna’s voice shook with unbridled rage.

“She survived three months on nothing but discounted sandwiches, her hands covered in raw frostbite-all just to buy that stupid block of lumber for you!”

“And what did you do with it? You carved it into gifts to curry favor with another woman!”

Thomas froze where he stood.

“That… that was her own choice,” he defended himself flatly, devoid of emotion.

“Sure, she chose to be blind back then. But she’s woken up now.”

“She’s gone. She walked out of your life with the divorce papers you signed.”

“What signature? When did I sign anything like that?!”

Thomas raised his voice sharply, panic spiking through him.

“Check the trash bin by your carving bench.”

The line cut dead.

Thomas sprinted to his workbench in a blind frenzy.

The bin was filled with discarded wood shavings and worn sandpaper sheets.

He dropped to his knees, ignoring splinters piercing his fingertips, and scrabbled wildly through

the debris.

At the very bottom, he found a crumpled ball of paper.

It was the copy he’d mistaken for a gallery authorization form that night.

His hands trembled as he smoothed it out.

A duplicate of the Divorce Agreement. The original was long gone with me.

Scrawled boldly across the bottom right corner was his signature: Thomas Hill.

The date was clear as day beneath it.

He stared at his own handwriting, a deafening buzz ringing in his skull, as if a heavy sledgehammer

had struck his head.

“Impossible… this can’t be happening…”

He sank heavily to the floor, his elbow knocking the pile of scrap lumber beside him.

The two broken halves of the hair clip tumbled out, coated in thick dust, their surfaces cracked and

dry from years of neglect.

This was the trinket he’d sworn to repair for me.

A flash of memory hit him: the night before, I’d stood behind his bench and asked if he could fix it.

He hadn’t even glanced over his shoulder, only muttering, “Tomorrow.”

Ten years. He’d handed me countless empty “tomorrows,” never once keeping a single promise.

He stumbled unsteadily to his study and wrenched open the safe.

At the bottom of an old storage box, he pulled out a yellowed pawn ticket dated ten winters prior.

Item: One solid gold bracelet.

Pawn value: Twelve thousand dollars.

Exactly the price he’d paid for that red sandalwood slab all those years ago.

Thomas squeezed the pawn ticket so hard his knuckles blanched white.

Images flickered through his mind: Mabel running her fingers over the wooden snake, eyes glowing with admiration.

“This lumber has such beautiful natural oil grain!”

That rich luster had come at the cost of my mom’s last heirloom, traded away for three months of

discounted sandwiches.

A violent wave of nausea crashed over him. He lurched for the bathroom and retched over the toilet bowl, unable to bring up anything but bitter bile burning his throat.

He splashed cold water over his face and lifted his gaze to the mirror.

His eyes bloodshot, his features hollow and defeated. Not a trace remained of the poised, celebrated master artist everyone admired.

He bolted out the front door and raced straight to my office.

“Holly? She handed in her resignation the day before yesterday,” my supervisor stared at him,

confused.

“She quit. Said she’s relocating out of state to start over.”

He drove straight to Jenna’s apartment and banged furiously on her door.

No answer.

A neighbor stuck their head out to snap at him. “Quit pounding! She’s out of town on a trip!”

He roamed the city aimlessly, a lost man without direction.

Once upon a time, I’d always waited for him somewhere in this city, visible the second he turned

around.

Now he had no clue where I’d vanished to.

Night fell. He parked his car along the riverbank and dialed Mabel’s number.

“Hey Tom! What’s up? You didn’t even show up to the exhibition celebration dinner tonight.” Mabel’s voice stayed sweet and sugary as always.

“Mabel,” Thomas’s voice came out raw and hoarse. “I want the wooden snake back. And the carved

pedestal.”

A beat of silence hummed over the line.

“Tom, what are you talking about? You can’t just pull finished exhibits out mid-show-and besides, you gifted those pieces to me.”

“Give them back.”

He ground each word out between clenched teeth.

“They belong to Holly.”