Page 227 of Hot Mess
He glanced at the tattoo. “No. I got it when I was seeing her, but it was something I’d been planning to get for a while. I did get the idea to do the hair that color because of her hair, though.” He shrugged. “She has cool hair.”
“She does,” I agreed.
“But it’s not meant to be her.”
“Okay.” I ran my hand across his torso and down the flaming phoenix. And it occurred to me to ask… “Do you have any tattoos for other women? I mean, besides my sister…”
He threw me a regretful look. Clearly that wasn’t his favorite topic.
Wasn’t really mine, either.
“Just this.” He lifted his left arm and showed me a small script, to the side of his heart. It was buried among all the intricate flames, hard to read at first, but when I looked closely, it clearly said:Lilith. “It’s my mom’s name.”
“Nice. When did you get it?”
“After I found out she’d died.”
“How did she die?” I asked him softly.
“Hit and run accident. She was a pedestrian and someone drove into her at a crosswalk. They never even managed to find the car or the person driving it. Just one of those freak things.”
“Jesus. Ashley… I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. Me too. I mean, she ditched out on me, but there’s a part of me that knows she really ditched out on my dad. And maybe when I was grown-up and not a kid anymore, she and I could’ve… I don’t know. Had some kind of a relationship? I feel like she probably wanted that. I was her son, right? But I can understand why she had to get out of that toxic house.”
Yeah. Honestly, after meeting his dad and granddad, I kind of could, too.
But abandoning her son to do it… I wasn’t sure I could ever muster enough empathy to understand that.
He cleared his throat. “There’s also this one.” He showed me a smallNon his right bicep, again pretty buried among the other tattoos there. “It’s for a guy, though. Kind of. My first… I don’t know. Boyfriend? Male lover? We never really dated, exactly. We were in high school. I would’ve, but he was pretty deep in the closet. Everyone found out at school anyway… He got beat up a lot because of it. Shit, I haven’t thought about that in a long time.”
“Jeez. That’s awful.”
“Yeah. He ended up pretty messed up over it all. It kinda ruined him.”
“Was it ever like that for you, too? At school and stuff?”
“Not really. I think he had a harder time because he tried to hide it. He didn’t own it. I can’t say for sure, but I never really got hassled about it like he did. Or maybe it was because I openly dated girls, too. I don’t know. But I never really gave a fuck what people thought about me. Plus, you kick in one douchebag’s teeth for calling you a fag, it gets around to the other douchebags. They look for an easier target. It’s what bullies do.”
I sighed. I hated that he’d been through that. That anyone had such animosity toward him, just for being him.
Especially when he was so damn amazing.
Couldn’t they all see what a unicorn he was? Really.
“What was his name?” I asked, tracing theNon his skin.
“Nate. But he died too, long time ago.”
“Ugh. Ash. I’m sorry.”
“I’msorry. Not all my tattoos are this depressing, I promise.” He smiled at me. “I got the N as a promise to myself, or a reminder, maybe, that I was never gonna hide who I was. No matter what anyone thought.”
Damn. I loved that about him.
Loved.
But…
