BLAINE
I couldn’t stop staring at it. Minutes had passed, and still, my eyes refused to move from the thing sitting on my desk.
It somewhat looked like the cup my mother made for me when I was a boy.
Not exactly. It was … more now.
Even though it wasn’t the same anymore, I couldn’t look at it without feeling that memory tug at me.
I’d been ten when my father and I had one of our usual fights. He called me soft, accused me of wasting time on feelings. For him, affection toward my mother was acceptable. For me, it was a weakness. We’d been over that argument so many times it felt carved into stone.
That day, my mother had taken me into the city instead. We ended up in a pottery workshop where we could design our own mugs.
The smell of clay and paint is still sharp in my mind. We tra
