The cup had taken you hours—hours hunched over in the pottery studio on 4th Street, fingers caked with clay, shaping the base, curving the sides, and smoothing out every imperfection. Anthony’s mom had mentioned in passing how she could never find a mug that felt just right. “Too heavy,” she’d said, “or the handle feels wrong.”

So you thought you’d make one for her.

The mug was supposed to be a Christmas gift, nestled in a box with tissue paper and a handwritten card. But as you walked up the steps to Anthony’s mom’s house that freezing evening, you tripped. The world blurred in a moment of panic, and the soft clink of pottery hitting concrete sent your stomach plunging.

You didn’t need to look to know what had happened. When you finally did, you saw the shattered remains of the mug, the perfect gold-speckled blue reduced to shards of your effort and hope.

Anthony found you on the steps, crying into your gloves. He tried to console you, rubbing your back and telling you it was okay, but you couldn’t stop thinking about his mom’s face when she opened an empty box. When you got home that night, you wrapped the broken pieces in newspaper and stuffed them in the corner of your closet, too disheartened to even try cleaning it up properly.

Weeks passed. You tried not to think about it, burying the memory under work and New Year’s planning. Then, one day, you stopped by Anthony’s place unannounced.

“Anthony?” you called, stepping into his living room. His reply was muffled, coming from the kitchen.

There he was, leaning over the kitchen counter, glue bottle in hand, carefully piecing together what was unmistakably the shattered mug. Tongue sticking out slightly like it always did when he was focused.

The glue had dried in some places, leaving faint, silvery cracks like tree roots branching through glass. It didn’t look like it had before—less pristine, more rugged—but somehow, it was even better.

“I thought you didn’t keep these,” he said when he noticed you.