Page 26 of This Love is Under Construction

As I step outside to take it to the camper, I feel unexpectedly rattled. It’s just a child’s drawing. But something about seeing this odd little project named home —by someone so sure of it—feels like a declaration. One I wasn’t ready for.

When I return, Owen is showing Jamie how primer helps paint stick. He glances up, and when he sees my face, something in his expression shifts .

“You okay?” he asks quietly.

“Fine,” I say, my voice not quite convincing. “Just... it was a really nice drawing.”

Owen holds my gaze. “Yeah. It was.”

We don’t say more. Jamie’s dad arrives soon after, and the boy leaves, waving through the window with his arms still smudged with primer.

Later, as I tape Jamie’s drawing to the wall of the camper with painter’s tape, I catch Owen watching me from the house. He doesn’t say anything.

He doesn’t have to.

Some gestures say more than any explanation ever could.

The approaching storm has stalled, meteorological predictions proving as unreliable as emotional ones.

Instead of the forecasted downpour, we’re stuck in a lingering heaviness—the kind that promises rain without delivering it.

The kind that makes the air thick and strange.

The kind that feels like a metaphor I’m trying not to examine too closely.

We’re working in the main living area, where the drywall installation is nearly done. Owen is focused on a complicated corner section while I sort through the piles of books, magazines, and reference materials that have slowly migrated from his truck into the house over the past few months.

“Do you want these grouped by subject?” I ask, flipping through stacks of architectural journals and building code manuals. “Or alphabetically? Or by how likely you are to actually use them before next Tuesday?”

“Subject’s fine,” he answers without looking up. “Reference on the left, code books in the middle, design resources on the right.”

I begin sorting, building clean stacks on the makeshift shelving we installed last week.

The task is soothing—putting things in order, finding patterns in chaos.

It lets my hands stay busy while my mind drifts to this morning’s weatherproofing conversation.

.. and to Jamie’s question about whether Owen and I were living here together.

Somewhere between zoning regulations and roofing guides, I find a book that doesn’t fit: a cloth-bound volume with a fraying spine and dog-eared pages.

The Architecture of Dwelling: Spaces Between by Elizabeth Harmon.

It falls open on its own, naturally, like it’s been read dozens of times.

The margins are filled with Owen’s handwriting.

I shouldn’t read it. It’s clearly personal. But curiosity has always been my weakness, and this is no exception.

I scan the passage he’s annotated:

“The window seat represents perhaps the most perfect architectural manifestation of liminality—the space between inside and outside, belonging and observing. It is neither fully of the interior nor completely connected to the exterior, but rather a threshold space where one may simultaneously participate and withdraw. In this way, the window seat becomes not merely an architectural feature but a philosophy of being—a place from which to witness the world while maintaining the safety of shelter.”

In the margin, Owen has written:

Connection without exposure. Observation with protection. The ideal balance of engagement and retreat.

Something in me goes still.

This isn’t about design preferences or square footage or aesthetics. This isn’t about my stubborn insistence on the window seat, or his initial resistance. This is about Owen. Who he is. How he sees the world.

“Find something interesting?” Owen’s voice startles me. He’s closer than I realized, quiet as always.

“Sorry,” I say quickly. “It just... fell open.”

He doesn’t look annoyed. Just thoughtful, eyes on the book in my hands. “Harmon. One of my professors assigned it in architecture school. Changed how I think about space. ”

“Because of the window seat passage?”

He nods, reaching for the book. “That one especially. Her theory of threshold spaces—areas that aren’t quite one thing or another—always resonated with me.”

“Like the seat being in-between. Not fully inside, not quite outside.”

“Exactly.” He touches the page gently. “It’s not just about aesthetics. It’s a space for both participation and retreat. It’s psychological as much as architectural.”

I hesitate, then: “Would you read it? Out loud, I mean.”

He looks at me, surprised. But after a moment, he nods. He leans against the wall and opens the book again. When he starts to read, his voice is... different. Softer. Like he’s reading something sacred.

I don’t really hear the words this time. I hear him —the reverence in his tone, the way he lingers on phrases he’s clearly memorized, the way his hands move unconsciously as he speaks, emphasizing rhythm. His usual reserve is gone, replaced by something unguarded and honest.

This, I think, watching him: this is what Owen Carver looks like when he loves something.

It hits me like a thunderclap—quiet, but undeniable. I’ve seen him focused, frustrated, methodical. I’ve seen him soaked in rain and soothed by coffee. But I’ve never seen him like this. And now I can’t unsee it.

He finishes reading, and the silence that follows is heavy and intimate. He closes the book carefully.

“That’s why the window seat mattered to you,” I say, my voice quiet. “It wasn’t about the view or the storage.”

He nods. “It’s how we inhabit space. How we protect ourselves while still staying connected.”

“Like weatherproofing,” I murmur, and his gaze snaps to mine. “Protecting what matters while letting the right things in.”

“Yes,” he says. “Exactly.”

For a long moment, neither of us speaks. Outside, thunder grumbles like the sky clearing its throat.

Then I notice it—his hand sketching something on the notepad he always keeps. He does that sometimes, when he’s thinking. Drawing things. Details. Ideas he hasn’t voiced yet.

“What are you sketching?” I ask, edging closer.

He blinks like he forgot the pencil was moving. “Just ideas. For the window seat trim.”

“Can I see?”

He hesitates, then hands me the pad.

What I see isn’t just trim. It’s everything—the entire window seat, down to the angles of light. Built-in storage. Framing options. Thoughtful, elegant details. But what stops me is the last sketch: a figure sitting in the finished window seat. A woman with curly hair and a book. Me.

The sketch isn’t precise—it’s more suggestion than portrait—but it’s unmistakable.

“These are incredible,” I whisper. “You never told me you draw like this.”

“They’re just rough drafts,” he says, watching me carefully.

“They’re more than that,” I say, flipping through. “They’re?—”

I stop. Tucked between the pages is a sheet of paper. Folded. My handwriting.

It’s one of my old lists. Profit margins. Projected ROI. Back from when this was just a flip.

And suddenly I understand what I’ve stumbled into: the space between who I was and who I’ve become.

Projected renovation costs: $45–60K

Potential market value post-renovation: $130–150K

Estimated profit: $15–30K depending on final costs

Timeline: 3–4 months renovation + 1–2 months to sell

Exit strategy: List with local agent, return to LA with profi t

The words stare back at me, clinical and detached—the calculations of someone already planning her exit before she’d even arrived. A person who saw this house as a spreadsheet line item. A project. A launchpad back to the “real” life she thought she was pausing.

A person I no longer recognize.

I look up to find Owen watching me. His expression is carefully neutral, but his eyes—his eyes give him away. There’s hurt there, sharp and quiet, the kind he’s trying not to show.

“Owen, this isn’t—” I begin, then falter. Because what can I say? That it’s not what it looks like? It’s exactly what it looks like. Proof that I intended to fix the house and leave. That I treated Maple Glen as a stepping stone, nothing more.

“It’s fine,” he says, too evenly. “It’s a logical plan. Financially sound.”

“It was my original plan,” I say, needing him to hear that word. “Before I got here. Before I met everyone. Before?—”

Before you , I don’t say.

Owen closes the notepad with deliberate care. “Plans change. I understand that.”

But his tone says he doesn’t. Or maybe he does—too well. Maybe he sees this as confirmation of the thing he’s feared all along: that I’ll leave. That I’m just another person who couldn’t stay.

“Owen,” I try again, “that plan doesn’t reflect how I feel now.”

He looks at me then, really looks, and asks, “And how do you feel now?”

The question hangs there, too direct, too raw, too Owen. And I have no answer. Or rather, too many. I feel confused. Anchored. Terrified. Like I’ve built something I wasn’t planning to—not just a house, but a life. A place. A maybe.

Before I can speak, his phone rings—the distinctive tone he uses for his father’s care facility.

His expression shifts instantly, concern eclipsing everything else.

“I need to take this,” he says, already heading for the door. “We’ll continue later.”

He steps outside, leaving me alone with the open notebook, the sketches, the book, and the proof of every intention I swore had changed.

I stare at the two realities on the table in front of me: Owen’s sketch of me reading in the window seat, and my crisp bullet list calculating exactly how long until I’d be gone.

Through the window, I see him pacing, phone to his ear, one hand running through his hair. That move—so familiar now—means stress. Something’s wrong. The call is serious.

And just like that, I’m reminded: Owen’s life isn’t just here. It’s tied to this town with threads stronger than contracts or house keys. His roots run deeper than anything I’ve let myself plant. He belongs in a way I never have.

The rain begins—gentle at first, barely a whisper on the roof. But it builds, quick and steady, the forecast finally catching up to the sky.

I look around at the half-finished house. No longer a disaster, not yet a home. My eyes land on the window seat—nearly done. On Jamie’s drawing still taped to the wall, a child’s faith in five block letters: HOME .

Owen is still outside, talking through whatever crisis just found him, soaked now, unaware or uncaring. Focused.

Weatherproofing isn’t about keeping everything out , he’d told me. It’s about protecting what matters while still letting the right things in.

And somewhere along the way, I stopped weatherproofing my heart against Owen.