"One more," Chris promised, "then you can look, Ava."

I resisted the urge to peek at what he was doing at the ends of my arms, and instead, turned my gaze towards Natalie who was sitting next to me.

She graced me with a mysterious smile, and I marveled once more at the transformation that had come over her in the last month.

Despite the fact that her clique of friends abandoned her as soon as she dared to sit next to me at lunch, she continued to do so, much to my surprise. She started to come over with Chris to watch him labor over the task of giving me hands.

It had almost natural to invite her over on the day that he told me that he was going to put my hands on.

"There you go," my boyfriend (because that's what we had decided we were) said, patting my forearm. "They're all ready for you to give them a whirl."

I looked down at a pair of hands. They weren't flesh and blood and I hadn't had them all my life, but they were hands.

Chris laughed at the expression on my face before handing me a pencil. My fingers clamped around it, and for the first time in my life, I realized that I wasn't going to have to rely on someone else to write down my answers. I wasn't going to have to sit in a different room for a test anymore.

My eyes welled with tears, and I threw my arms around him, careful not to whack him with the beautiful hands he had given me.

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" I told him, kissing his cheeks even as tears ran down mine. "You are a genius, Chris, and I don't know how in the world I ended up with such a wonderful guy like you."

Once I had managed to stop my flood of tears, I pulled away from Chris and looked towards Natalie. Her eyes were shining with tears as well, and she took place her palms under my hands.

"They're beautiful," she whispered. "You're beautiful."

I laughed and curled my new fingers one at a time. "I'm glad that we managed to get past our differences, Natalie. I'm glad that Chris's arrival allowed me to regain a friend and find a new one."

Looking at my hands, I was reminded of the hands made of Legos that Chris had attempted to make me seven years ago. As soon as that thought crossed my mind, I looked at my two friends.

"I need to go get something," I said. "I'll be right back. I promise."

The box was still under my bed, but I didn't linger on the contents like I normally did. Instead, I pulled out the biggest objects and bolted back down the stairs, balancing them on my palms.

Chris blinked in shock when I held out the first pair of hands he made me out to him. "You kept them for all these years?"

I nodded and transferred the objects that had meant so much to me for the seven years that we had been apart. They had been evidence of how much he had loved me, but I no longer needed them to show me that.

I had the living breathing proof that he loved me right in front of me, and I was not going to need those little hands. I watched him stare at those Legos for a moment before he let them fall to the floor, where they broke apart.

"I love you, Ava," He said fiercely before pulling me close and kissing me. "You were my quest for seven years, and I don't plan on ever letting you go again. I lost my girl without hands, but now I've found her again."

I closed my eyes and rested my head against his warm moving chest. I hadn't want hands because it felt like I was giving up on ever finding Chris again. I hadn't want the prosthetics that the doctors would have found me because they would have been made someone who didn't really care about the person behind them.

Now, though, I had hands that were made by a young man who was never going to stop loving me. I had a friendship with the person that had been my worst enemy only a month ago.

I had been the girl without hands, the girl that believed that she could never truly be loved. However, I now knew what a lie that had been.

The proof of that fact rested in the palm of my hands. The hands that had been made with love.