As she delicately placed in his hands a piece of crumbled paper decorated with splashes of paint and faint words in pencil. He was pretty sure he saw echoes of tears on the pale paper-which curiously smelled of musty leaves and fire over pavement.
Then her lilting voice took on a gentle tone, "I know it's messy and broken-but it's me. Please be careful."
His eyes showed the look of a careless bystander, but the way that he held on so tightly to that crushed bit that was her, she knew that she was safe.
