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He flinched at the name—for Ava. The implication was clear. He knew exactly why I had saved them: not for nostalgia, but for contrast. For proof that sweetness had once been possible, if only in fragments.
He leaned back on the couch, his breath shallow. “Your mother used to make things like this,” he said suddenly. “Frames, cards… she’d leave them for me on the kitchen table. I never… I never understood why it mattered to her.”
He let out a humorless laugh. “I didn’t know what to do with love. Never did. So I pushed it away. You. Her. Everyone.”
Ava touched his arm gently, the way only a child can—without judgment, without expectation. “You can still be nice,” she whispered.
