Chapter 5: Proof in the Pages

Chapter 5: Proof in the Pages

The click of the door shutting echoed like a gunshot in the suddenly cavernous apartment. Chloe’s words were a toxic gas, filling every space, choking the sacred air that had existed just moments before. She finds a ‘sign’ with every guy. The phrase was a needle, expertly aimed at the most vulnerable part of Tom—his terrified, fledgling hope.

He stood frozen, unable to look at Nina, unable to look away. The silence stretched between them, thick and unbearable. His logical mind, the part he had trusted his entire life, was screaming. A musician with a scar shaped like a bird. A designer with a birthmark shaped like an ‘N’. It was a pattern. A formula. He was just the latest variable in her romantic equation. The glorious, world-altering significance of the mark on his skin curdled into a cheap coincidence, a prop in her "sad little fairytale."

He finally forced himself to look at her. She stood by the couch, the velvet throw clutched around her, her face pale and shattered. The brilliant fire in her eyes had been doused, leaving behind a deep, abyssal hurt. He saw her pain, but the poison of doubt was a powerful anesthetic to his empathy.

“Nina,” he said, and his own voice sounded hollow, alien. “The musician. The bird scar. Is it true?”

A single tear escaped her eye and traced a path through the freckles on her cheek. She didn't flinch from his gaze. She just nodded, a tiny, jerky movement. “His name was Leo. And yes, he had a scar on his forearm he thought looked like a sparrow.”

The confirmation landed like a physical blow. Tom felt a bitter, self-loathing laugh bubble up in his throat. Of course. He was a fool. A twenty-nine-year-old man swept up in a fantasy woven by a woman who saw divine intervention in every random mark and scar. He had thrown away a decade of stability—unfulfilling, yes, but stable—for this. For a lie wrapped in beautiful, chaotic packaging.

“So this is just what you do?” he asked, the words tasting like ash. “You find a man, find some mark, and call it destiny?”

Nina’s expression hardened. The hurt was still there, but now it was edged with a fierce, protective anger. She dropped the blanket, standing before him in just her bralette and underwear, her vulnerability a defiant act of war.

“No,” she said, her voice low and trembling with intensity. “That is not what I do. And that is not what this is.”

“Then what is it? Because from where I’m standing, it looks exactly like what Chloe said.”

“You think I saw a mark on your body last night and decided you were the one?” she challenged, taking a step toward him. “You think my feelings are that cheap? That shallow?”

“I don’t know what I think anymore!” he shot back, running a hand through his hair in frantic desperation.

For a moment, she looked like she was about to shatter. Her face crumpled, her shoulders slumped. He saw the fight go out of her, and a horrible part of him felt a grim satisfaction—the part that wanted his cynical worldview to be proven right. But then, a new light ignited in her eyes. It wasn't the blazing fire of passion or the soft glow of awe. It was the hard, sharp glint of determination. She was faced with losing him, and she was not going to let him go without showing him the truth.

Without another word, she turned and strode to a large, flat-file cabinet tucked into a corner of her studio. She yanked open a wide, shallow drawer and pulled out a stack of sketchbooks, their covers worn, their spines softened with use. She carried them back and didn’t hand them to him. She dropped them onto the floor between them. The thud was a final, irrefutable statement.

“You want proof, Tom?” she whispered, her voice raw. “You want to see what this is? Look.”

He stared down at the pile of sketchbooks as if they were live explosives. Hesitantly, he knelt, his knees cracking in the silence, and picked up the top one. It was heavy, substantial. The cover was plain black cardboard. He opened it.

His breath caught in his throat.

The first page was a charcoal sketch of the corner booth at The Daily Grind, the coffee shop he frequented. It was empty, a study in light and shadow, but it was unmistakably the place he sat nearly every day. He flipped the page.

It was him.

Not a clear portrait, but a quick gesture drawing. Him, hunched over his laptop, one hand cupping a coffee mug. The posture was perfect. The tilt of his head, the focus in his shoulders—it was all there. In the bottom corner, a date: four weeks ago.

He grabbed another book. And another. He flipped through the pages with growing urgency. It was a chronicle of an obsession. There were dozens of sketches of him. Him reading. Him sketching in his own notebook, the geometric tile patterns he’d been so fixated on rendered in meticulous detail. There were pages dedicated just to his hands, the way he held a pencil, the way his long fingers rested on the table. There were studies of his profile, the line of his jaw, the unruly wave of his dark hair.

He was looking at weeks of his life, seen through her eyes. This wasn't the work of a woman who had just discovered him last night. This was the work of an artist who had been captivated, studying her subject with a devotion that bordered on worship. This was the slow, painstaking process of falling in love.

He came to a page in the most recent sketchbook. It was a more detailed portrait, a close-up of his face in profile. He was looking out the coffee shop window, a thoughtful, slightly tired expression on his face. And there, in the margin, in her elegant, looping script, was a single word, followed by a question mark.

Thomas?

Underneath it, another note, dated two weeks ago: Heard the barista call him Tom. It fits. Solid. Real.

The book slipped from his numb fingers. The proof he’d demanded was laid bare on the floor around him. This wasn’t about a musician with a bird scar. This wasn’t about a convenient birthmark. This was about him. Thomas Vance. She had chosen him, studied him, and fallen for him long before she ever knew about the impossible ‘N’ on his skin. The mark wasn't the reason for her feelings; it was the universe’s final, shocking confirmation of a truth she already held in her heart.

A wave of shame and overwhelming emotion crashed over him. He looked up at her, his eyes stinging. She was watching him, tears streaming silently down her face, her expression a mixture of hope and terror.

“Nina,” he breathed, his voice breaking. “I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He surged to his feet, closed the distance between them in two strides, and pulled her into his arms. He held her tight, burying his face in her wild hair, breathing in her scent like a drowning man finding air. He was a fool, but not in the way he’d thought. He was a fool for ever doubting her, for letting the bitter words of a ghost poison something so pure.

He held her at arm’s length, his hands on her shoulders, his gaze locked with hers. “Chloe was right about one thing,” he said, his voice thick with newfound certainty. “I have been living in a beige, passionless world. I’ve been living in fear. Fear of feeling exactly what I’m feeling right now.”

Her eyes searched his, waiting.

“You asked me to move in with you,” he said, his heart hammering against his ribs, not with fear, but with a wild, exhilarating energy. The idea of just moving his stuff into her apartment suddenly felt too small, too practical, too tainted by the memory of Chloe’s intrusion. It wasn’t enough. It didn’t match the scale of this moment, of this feeling. He needed to make a bigger gesture. A final, absolute rejection of his old life.

“I have a better idea,” he declared, a wide, reckless grin spreading across his face. “To hell with my apartment. To hell with the Vitamix. Don’t just let me move in.”

He leaned in, his forehead resting against hers, his voice dropping to an urgent, thrilling whisper.

“Run away with me. Right now. We’ll pack a bag, get in my car, and just drive. I don’t care where. We’ll take your sketchbooks and my woodworking tools and we won’t stop until we find a place where no ghosts can find us. Let’s not move in, Nina. Let’s disappear.”