“Really?” he asked, pulling back just enough to look at my face properly.
“Really,” I said. “Better than the portrait. Better than the shadow box. Nobody up here tonight gave their sibling five months of their entire heart carved into wood.”
⸻
We took the box home that night, all seven charms nestled carefully inside on a bed of felt Mom had apparently helped him cut and glue in without ever once telling me what any of it was for.
⸻
I keep it on my desk now, at college, three states away from home, close enough that it’s usually the first thing I see when I wake up and the last thing I see before I turn off my desk lamp each night.
⸻
Teddy still works with Mr. Whitfield most Saturdays. He’s made four more pieces since prom — a small jewelry box for Mom’s birthday, a simple picture frame, two more charms he mailed me without any explanation attached, one shaped like a graduation cap for exactly the milestone he apparently already knows is coming for both of us in a few more years.
