Fresh Canvas – Melissa Lark

The bathroom was also vacant. In the kitchenette, I found that our abandoned mugs of stale coffee had been washed, dried, and put back in the cupboard. Awww, Russo. The notepad on my refrigerator had also been scrawled with a message. Amantha, There are no words deserving enough to describe last night. Sorry I didn’t wake you before I left—you seemed so tired.

I can’t wait to see you today. Val P.S. You snore like a foghorn. I groaned with embarrassment even as a wide grin claimed my face. Clutching the notepad to the butterflies in my stomach, I shuffled back to my bed. I used one of my throw pillows to muffle my squeal. Heat trickled down my spine at the memory of it all.

Besides enjoying Val’s expansive kissing skills—which I thoroughly planned to exhaust again at my earliest convenience—I had learned so much more about him last night. He had told me about his Nonna, his sister, Camilla, his parents, and the small, yellow wallpapered kitchen they grew up in. How Nonna insisted on tailoring all his clothes and would never accept payment. I learned of his bowling league, and how he hadn’t played in a while. He missed it.

As the morning hours drew near, Val had lain beside me on the pillow. My back nestled against his body, a cocoon of muscle and heat. My eyelids kept fluttering closed, safe and sleepy. Val’s arm was draped around me, his tattoo winding across my waist. I traced the length of the elegant script. “What does it mean?” I asked. “Ti amerò per sempre,” he whispered, the warmth in the words brushing my neck. “It means, ‘I will love you forever.’

I got it after Stel’s funeral.” “It’s beautiful.”

Beside the use of brief quotations in a book review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact [email protected] The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious.

No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred. First edition April 2025 ISBN: 979-8-9925932-1-1 Cover by Lark Publishing Co Edited by Angela Morse www.melissalark.com OceanofPDF.com To the version of myself who is up at two AM feeding the baby. It does get easier, and you will find yourself again.

You’ve got this, mama. OceanofPDF.com trigger warnings This book is closed-door, low swearing, and includes the topics: – Societal pressures of womanhood/motherhood – Depression/anxiety/panic attacks – Grief/loss of a loved one – Divorce/infidelity OceanofPDF.com I one AMANTHA couldn’t decide what felt more embarrassing—my unusual name or the fact I was trying to squeeze my ample bottom into two sets of women’s shapewear. “Come on, Amantha,” I wheezed in my locked bedroom. Why two sets? Because during my last forty-five minutes of blissful alone time—aka sitting my bare nether regions on crinkly paper at my gynecologist appointment—I made the mistake of picking up a magazine with an advertisement for high-waisted shaping shorts.

The already-toned, ultra-beautiful model had zero lumps or bumps, thanks to the shorts’ special tummy-tightening panel. And if you used two sets? Well, you’d end up twice as sexy. In retrospect, I realized the ad clearly targeted soft, thirty-four-year-old suburban housewives with crusty minivans and disinterested husbands. It felt like a personal attack. My yearly exam went as smoothly as could be expected. And by smooth, I mean that only one of the nurses mistook my name as Amanda and that my underwear stayed perfectly concealed in the strategic folds of my jeans this time.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: a8efb958417ce758
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 2,737,116 bytes (2.61 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9798992593211
• Pages: 335
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 513.23 minutes
• Total Words: 102,645
• Total Characters: 572,584
• Average Words per Page: 306.4
• Average Characters per Page: 1709.21

Most Frequent Words

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