My daughter wasn’t sitting on her bed. She wasn’t laughing, whispering, or scrolling through her phone. She wasn’t even looking at Noah.
She was kneeling on the floor.
So was he.
Between them lay a large piece of cardboard spread across the carpet. It was covered in handwritten notes, rough sketches, and photographs carefully taped into place. Open notebooks surrounded them. Colored markers were scattered, uncapped. A laptop sat nearby, paused on what looked like a presentation slide.
They both looked up at me, startled.
“Mom!” my daughter said quickly, her face turning red. “You weren’t supposed to see this yet.”
For a moment, my brain couldn’t catch up with my eyes.
“See… what?” I asked.
Noah stood immediately, as if on instinct. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice respectful and rushed. “We were going to clean up. We didn’t mean to make a mess.”
My daughter got to her feet and walked toward me. She took my hand gently, grounding me. Her voice shook just a little, but she met my eyes.
“We’re working on something,” she said. “Together.”
