A Love Restored

Morning bled into a haze of exhaustion. Felix remained unseen, his absence a hollow echo in the mansion. Guilt gnawed at me, sharper than hunger. 1 couldn’t ignore him anymore, not like this, I was consumed with the physical need to see him, to see his face. To meet him.

I looked out the window, and I saw a peek of him in the garden. Was he gardening?

Determined, I stepped out into the crisp morning air. The garden was silent. It was too early for anything to be happening. Even the noise of transport was absent. But I could hear birds chirping and the sound of crickets.

My heart hammered against my ribs as I called Felix’s name, the sound swallowed by the rustling leaves.

A flicker of movement near the old shed caught my eye. Hope surged through me like a tidal wave. I nished towards it, pushing past overgrown vines and prickly rose bushes.

There he was, hunched over a workbench, hammering nails into weathered wood. My breath hitched as I saw Felix sprawled on the damp grass, hunched over while he worked on the wood.

Relief mixed with a pang of guilt. He’d been worried sick after our fight, a fight triggered by my refusal to tell him about Dad’s threats. His silence, a thick wall I couldn’t penetrate, had felt like another betrayal.

But seeing him now, vulnerable and alone, I knew I had to mend the rift. Descending down the garden, leaves crunching under my feet, I stopped before him, the scent of damp earth and woodsmoke rising around us.

“Felix,” I murmured, my voice barely a whisper.

He didn’t look up. His broad shoulders slumped, hands clenched into fists. My heart ached.

“I didn’t know you do wood work now,”

He still didn’t say anything back. Well, I understood.

I stood there for a hit, watching him. Sunlight, splashed gold across the sawdust–dusted air, catching on the sharp lines of Felix’s focused face. No sult today, no phone leach on his ear. Here, he was stripped bare, wearing only a simple t shirt, and work boots.

This was so… attractive. The way his muscles flexed as he worked. The way he was crouched over, the way his hands moved swiftly with the axe and other tools I could not name. It was so…manly.

A birdhouse, simple yet profound, its roof slanted just so, walls thick enough to offer safe haven from the world’s storms. But in Felix’s hands, it became more than shelter. The way he smoothed the edges, a tenderness in his calloused grip, spoke of a gentle side I didn’t know he had now.

Felix. I still couldn’t believe the changes in him.

He held up the unfinished birdhouse, the sun a halo around his head. He looked at it himself, but maybe he was showing it to me, too.

“Beautiful,” I wh

I whispered, the word surprising even me. “But… it needs something more.”

He turned around too look at me, his expression sour. He raised an eyebrow

He put the unfinished piece inside the shed and carefully shut the door behind him. He wiped his hands on his jeans and started walking awny, thumping away in his heavy work boots. I followed him.Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

“Felix, wait!”

He didn’t stop for me.

“Please,” I pleaded, running till I was beside him. “Let me explain.”

The silence stretched, taut and suffocating. Finally, he turned his head, choked with barely contained anger.

hit eyes burnin

burning like molten stone. “Explain what, Fkra?” His voice was rough,

My throat constricted. How could I tell him about Dad’s monstrosis secret, the truth that stained my pant and threatened my future? How could I share the burden of that monstrous act, the unspoken terror that haunted my every step?

“It’s complicated.” I stammered, the words like ash in my mouth. “I can’t just….

“Can’t just what?” His voice rose, a growl slicing through the night. “Can’t trust me? After everything?”

Shame washed over me, bitter and hot. His eyes, usually warm and welcoming, were now glaciers, cold and unforgiving. He deserved the truth, deserved to know the monster 1 was keeping him at bay from.

But the words wouldn’t come.

1. ne. The fear tightened its grip, silencing my tongue.

He stood abruptly, his shadow blotting out the moonlit sky. Then forget it, Flora. Why did you even come to me right now? With that, he tumed and stalked away, leaving me alone in the garden, the weight of his words hanging heavy in the air.

I thought of our interaction the entire day. He thought I didn’t trust him. I did

d trust him. More than anyone else in the world. More than myself, even

It was Dad I didn’t trust. Who I was afraid of.

I went to see Felix in his office again. Discomfort had settled I my body, and I felt like I couldn’t function properly till 1 mended things with him a little. My stomach hurt and my head spinning.

When I didn’t find him in his office, I went up to his room. He was on his bed, seated

“Felix,” I croaked, and his head snapped up.

His e

eyes, when they

y met mine, cold and distant. But beneath the anger, I saw a flicker of pain, a reflection of the shit I was putting him through.

“Flora,” he said, his voice tight with barely contained hurt. “You’re here again. What do you have now? More excuses.”

I swallowed hard, guilt a leaden wo

weight in my stomach. “I… I needed time. To think.”

weave more elaborate lies?”

A humorless laugh escaped his lips. “Think? About what? How to wr

Shame burned my cheeks. His words, though harsh, were laced with truth. My silence had become a weapon, wielded against him and myself.

“I can’t tell you,

You, yet

I whispered. He rolled his eyes in annoyance. “I know. You’ve told me that, five fucking times.”

It stung each time he swore at me like this. He never used to.

I took a few steps forward. I swallowed on thin air. “But I’ll tell you

| you,” I whispered, “just…can I have s

some time?”

He stayed silent, his gaze burning. On me, his eyes were settled like a hawk’s gaze. When h didn’t say anything. I spoke again, “1 promise.” My voice was soft and firm, “Just. Some time, please. I don’t have it in me right now.”

He sighed and looked down. When he looked back up at me again, his expression had softened. “I’ve waited five years,” he said, “A little more time.

Sure.”

“Thank you.” I spoke, I gave him a soft smile and began to leave.

“Flora” He called after me. I turned to look at hin

“What does my birdhouse need?”

I pled, “Um, paint.”

He cracked a smile, his eyes lighting up, “Come with me.”

o the garden, to the end, to

I followed as he walked out of the house. His steps were longer and faster, and struggled to keep up with him. He led me to the spot we had met at in the morning.

His hand brushed mine as he pushed open the heavy wooden door of his shed, and a familiar tremor danced up my spine.

Inside, the scent of wood

od polish and fresh paint hung heavy, a comforting aroma that spoke of vation and quiet aftemoons spent in a world beyond

spreadsheets and social gatherings. stolen bunits in his workshop

The golden glow of a hanging lang, sost the unfinished bodhouse, a testament to our

++++

Ready for its final touch Felis asked, his voice rughened by susast and a hint of something else, something warmer. He switched on the lights, and accidentally, a fase in the coret. As the fan soared to life, sawdust spread throughout the air Moth of us began to gmgh. He switched off the fan quickly, and we spent the west two minutes just coughing an ancering the dust out of our lungs aral

I smiled at him, he was still coughing. “As early

The shed walls were lined with shelves, each heavy under the weight a paint pots and lushes in every imaginable volat. Felis rummaged through Then, the sinust of clinking glays a sheriful inelosly. He emerged with bon paintbrushes, Their bristles stiff and new, and two cats of paint, one a vivid

“Blue and white, good he asked, the prostacel a smaller pot of pink. “Mid pink”

My heart skipped a beat. He remembered. My favorite color.

We slipped

rememberest these little details, Just like me, he hasn’t forgotten.

Imusties into the paint, and carefully began to bocathe life into the bare wood. The light blue flowed onto the pool, mimicking the vast expanse of the sky, while the while welded onto the walls, leaving fluffy clouds in its wake.

strokes dames in tandem, minoring cach other’s movements with an unexpected shythm. He’d reach for a different brush, and I’d anticipate his touch, my hand hovering near his without quite asking contact. The am crackles with a silent electricity, the paint–scented air thick with an unspoken yearning.

“Can I do the plosk nove

He sat back, leaving the construction to me. I drew a single pink swirl over the blue. I looked at bins. “Um, you can do it, too…”

As he picked his brush, his hand brushed mine, sending a familiar jolt though iny skus. We both fore, our gares locked across the blue, a question lingering unspoken in the space between us. His thumb skimmed the back of my hand, a Beeting touch that built a pressure in my stomach I couldn’t quite name.

My breath caught in my throat, I stared at him. “This is acally fun.

He nodded.

“When did you start this?”

I

He shrugged, “I got into it recently, I guess I like building things.”

The

The world beyond the shed walls had fades away. All that remained was the scent of paint, the gentle scrape of brushes against wool, and the intense Kare that held the promise of everything and nothing all at once.

Words failed me in that moment. But somehow, the sky blue paint that clung to my fingers spoke voluntes. I traced a trail of it across his wrist, a single

Taint line of azure appearing on his white skin.

His breath hitched, and the air, already thick with unspoken desites, grew suffocating. He tilted his head, his eyes bunning with a newfound intensity. Then, ever so slowly, he lifted his fingers, blue and pink and white lightly dries up on his fingertips. He reached up, and slowly, ever ses slowly traced my

I forgot everything in that moment. Something feral leapt in use. Something I had buried so deep inside that surfaced so violently. The brush slipped from my hand, clattering to the floor with a clinking sond

Felis, his checks flushed with a heat that minores the sunset outside, knelt down and retrieved it. His eyes met mine. “Go” He whispered slowly. “It you don’t want me to fail you on the floor, right now. Leave.”

I wanted him to back me the floor. I wanted him to undress me, to take me. Tu possess me. To drive into me with power and tige and fervor. But i

he said. I cost up and walked away. He watched me till I was out of sight, predator watching pary. He stood up, and be looked like he was trah tu penance on me. I tani diwen ba may naim and left the dau open. Ehoped he wasihi come in.

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