#angus004

Sama’s impromptu shopping trip with Naomi had been the respite she needed it to be, but it wasn’t enough. As soon as they’d pulled back into the long, gravel drive she’d wanted to leave again. Instead, she’d parked the car, gathered her purchases, and made her way inside, like an adult. She’d hung her dress for the gala up in her room and strode down the hall to the art room, like an adult. She’d laid out her supplies—a broad-edge nib for the old calligraphy pen she hadn’t realized she left behind when she moved out, fresh ink, and two pads of paper, one for practice and one for the final product—like an adult. 

Things fell apart after that. Since she’d started working for the UN, any trip anywhere in the Middle East had to include a stop to get a new qalam. These days, that was all she used for calligraphy in Arabic. Now, she was paying the price for her indulgence as she struggled to smoothly form the fluid characters with a metal nib. She’d even moved to the floor, sitting with one leg tucked beneath her and the other pulled up to support her paper, in the traditional posture for a novice calligrapher. When the pen caught and spat ink yet again, ruining the last clean corner of her third sheet of practice paper, she threw it down and cursed, loudly. 

It wasn’t until she rolled her shoulders and looked up in an attempt to stretch her spine that she caught sight of Angus seemingly lingering in the doorway. She welcomed the distraction, shifting slightly and letting her legs fall into a more natural, cross-legged pose. “Are you lost?” She raised her eyebrows as a half-smile flirted with the corners of her mouth, almost overtaking her earlier frustration. As she remembered it, he’d always been more of a connoisseur of the visual arts than an active contributor.