Page 84 of A Thousand Broken Pieces

“Ah, now you understand,” Aika said, and it only took me a few seconds to realize what she was doing. I looked down at the broken plate in my hand. The nine broken pieces, the sections where the chips had disappeared, leaving a rough edge. My throat immediately clogged with emotion.

The plate would never be the same again. It was broken, but—

“Now, I teach you how to make it functional again,” Aika said, just casually ripping a shred off my soul. Savannah leaned into me, and I knew she understood why Aika was teaching us this lesson too.

As I looked around the group, I saw everyone had understood. These plates had been broken into pieces, but we were going to take something irreparably damaged, and make it work again.

Wewere the broken plates.

“Please, sit,” Aika said, and when we did, she handed out paintbrushes and a gold mixture. Once she had given us our materials, she sat down and took out a broken plate that she must have stored for this moment.

We watched her with held breaths. We knew this class was not just to learn a new skill. We all felt it was for something more. Something for us all, for our healing, hearts and souls.

Aika took the two largest pieces of the plate and coated one side with the gold liquid. “This is the Japanese art of kintsugi,” she said, never taking her eyes off what she was doing. “I am using a gold lacquer like a glue to repair the plate. To put the broken pieces of the plate back together.”

Aika pushed the pieces together, the two broken segments of the plate now fixed together, a stunning gold line tracking down where the break previously was. “This art form is the physical manifestation of the principle ofwabi-sabi.Wabi-sabiteaches us to embrace life’s imperfections, its impermanence and incompleteness.”

“Like Sakura, the cherry blossom trees,” Savannah whispered, emotion thickening her voice.

“Yes. Like sakura,” Aika said. She then nodded to our broken plates and our tools. “Please, begin. Follow what I am doing.”

My hand was shaking when I reached for my paintbrush. Savannah didn’t move for a few minutes, eyes closed and breathing. I placed my hand on her thigh. Her eyes fluttered open. “You okay?” I asked quietly.

“Yes,” she said. She gave me a watery smile. “I just … needed a few minutes.” Savannah reached for the paintbrush and began reconstructing her plate.

There was total silence as we all worked. With every piece I glued back together, flashes of the past year came to mind. About the catatonic state I was in after Cillian died. About the anger that had taken root and spread like a plague throughout my body until it had consumed me. I recalled the first time I had shunned my parents, screaming at them to leave me alone. About when I had walked out of my teams’ hockey rink and never looked back, refusing to start Harvard in the fall. When I had thrown my skates in the pond shed and slammed the door. When I had taken Cillian’s hockey stick and smashed it to smithereens on the frozen pond we loved so much.

Each of them was a crack in my soul.

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

They were the physical manifestation of my heart breaking, my soulshattering into a thousand broken pieces. I never believed that I could be put back together.

Until this trip.

Until I fell in love with the most incredible girl who made me dare tohopeagain.

Were they my gold lacquer? Was this what was happening to my broken spirit? Was this trip, these new friendships, Leo and Mia’s guidance, and falling deeply in love with my girl, my kintsugi? Could I—we all—be somehow put back together? Or was I broken all over again since the exposure therapy? Had my pieces been refractured? Did I have to scramble to find them again? Or were they smashed into too many pieces that it was unsavable? That was my biggest fear. That it was too far gone to be healed.

“Are you struggling?” Aika asked me. My hands were suspended in the air and I realized I had been sitting still, lost in my head. Then I heard her question filter into my ears. Was I struggling?

Too much.

Swallowing, I met Aika’s searching gaze. “Is it …” I shifted in my seat, uncomfortable at asking this question out loud. But I had to know. “Are there any plates that are too broken to be repaired? Any … hopeless cases?”

The room was silent as my question thickened the air. I felt Savannah’s hand land on my knee in support. But I never took my eyes off Aika. My breath was held as I waited for her answer.

“No,” Aika said, matter-of-fact. “The shattered pieces may take longer to find, and they certainly would take longer to fix back together. But any broken plate can be mended with time and the sheer tenacity to do it.”

The relief I felt from her answer almost knocked me off my chair. I could feel Aika watching me closer. When I looked up and met her eyes again, she nodded her head once, like she could see into my soul. That curt nod was in encouragement. I knew she understood why I had really asked that question. Everyone around this table did.

“Okay, baby?” Savannah asked, her whispered voice shaking with sadness. Sadness for me.

“I’m okay,” I said and gave her hand a squeeze, then carried on, ignoring everyone else’s heavy focus on me.

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