Page 67 of Make Us Yours
I smile at him, pressing my lips delicately to his one last time before sitting back down properly in my seat. I lift my right arm, stretching it out to show them my sleeved ink. “She’s the reason I have this. After a month of sessions with her, I was still in a really dark place. I had no desire to live. I felt dirty and used no matter how many times I washed myself.” I swallow, remembering how many times I came close to just ending it all.
“She gave me a journal and told me to write down one word a day for an entire year about something that made me happy during that day. Even if it was as sillyas a little bird sitting on the windowsill.” I glide my finger over my tattoo of a bird sitting outside a window and smile.
“After a year of doing it, I took my journal to Maze; she’s my tattoo artist and hairdresser. I told her I wanted her to take every word in that book and turn it into a tattoo all over my arm, and this is what she came up with.”
My eyes travel over every little image like I’m seeing them again for the first time. “Now I have three hundred and sixty-five reasons to be happy forever with me,” I finish quietly.
Although at this moment, I feel like I have three hundred and sixty-seven.
Chapter fifteen
Gabriel
Jealousy looks cute on you.
~ Three Days Later / July ~
I’m still seething. It’s been three days, seventy-two hours since Ronnie told us what that piece of trash did to her, and I’m still enraged. I just want to find him and rip his throat out for hurting her.
But fuck, she’s so strong. My beautiful Vixen. She’s the bravest person I’ve ever met. How she can still stand so tall, after everything she’s been through, makes me fall for her even more.
I know she’s still living through her trauma, still working on getting better. But she’s doing it; she’s fucking trying. She sought out help on her own and has been doing everything in her power to heal. She isn’t hiding from her trauma. She’s facing it straight on.
Unlike me.
I knew our wounds were similar in some way; our stories may not be the same, but in the end, we were both brutally hurt by people we thought loved us. Aside from Noah and the people who helped me get out, no one knows my story.
I’ve never wanted to share it with the world. I just wanted to ignore it, pretend it didn’t exist, and hope it would go away. I’m the funny guy, the flirt, the guy who always smiles and laughs.
What would they think of me if they knew just how broken I really was inside?
But Ronnie knows. She might not know the story, but she sees my pain. She sees right through me. It’s why she offered her therapist. It’s why she told me I shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help, because she knows how desperately I still need it even if I pretend to be fine.
I don’t think I’m ready to try therapy again, despite me telling Noah I would go.I’ve tried so many times, and it just makes me feel worse in the end. But now that Vixen has shared her past with us, it makes me want to share mine with her. I just don’t know how to bring it up. How to just… say it.
Like, ‘Hey! Remember that time you found holes in my sheets, and I claimed it was because of wild sex? Yeah, well, that was bullshit. The truth is I have night terrors about my past because my parents used to beat the shit out of me daily, to the point of almost killing me a few times. So yeah, want to toast to our shared trauma?’God, that just makes me sound even crazier.
I’m jolted out of my thoughts when Vixen’s hand taps against my thigh. We’re currently seated by our boarding gate, waiting for the rest of the gang to get here. We picked up Ronnie and Aubrey at their condo this afternoon before heading to the airport.
Vixen has her head leaning against Noah’s shoulder as they watch something on his phone together. She’s not looking at me, but her hand still reaches out for me, hitting against my thigh, then higher up until she lands on my forearm.
From there, dark purple fingernails drag down my forearm, into my palm until they slip between my fingers and curl. I bring her hand that now holds mine up to my lips and kiss it. She still doesn’t look my way, but her lips spread into a heart-melting smile.
God, she’s mesmerizing.
The day after her encounter with her ex, I brought Ronnie to see her friend Maze, who dyed her hair a nice orchid purple. She’s a pretty cool chick with a flashy pink pixie cut and tattoos from her toes to her neck, from what I could tell. A little heavy on the makeup, but she has this whole punk rock look going on that seems to fit her perfectly.
What freaked me out a little was that she called me by my name the minute I walked into her little hidden workspace, located in the middle of nowhere. She didn’t say it out of recognition from being a fan or seeing me on TV. She said it like we were old-time buddies and knew exactly who I was.
After seeing my stunned face, she laughed and revealed that Ronnie often talks about me and Noah to her. Well, complains would be the correct word, which I’m not surprised about. Vixen has never been shy to speak her mind, and I know we were very determined when it came to having her, which meant we pissed her off most of the time. But I’m hoping that will change, or maybe it already has.
Because ever since that day in our home gym, things have been escalating between us at rapid speed. Every day feels like we’re getting closer to her. And since the episode with her ex, our relationship has developed even more.
She kisses us at least once a day. Once a day, I get to feel those perfect pink lips against mine. It’s not like that scorching hot session, where I was ready to make her scream my name. But it’s still her and me, and I happily die a little more inside every time she melts into my arms and moans into my mouth.
When I look in front of me where Aubrey sits facing us, she smiles with a pink tint covering her cheeks, which makes me chuckle and shake my head. This girl and her uncontrollable blush.
“We’re finally here!” Morgan calls as she rushes over and kisses all our cheeks in greeting.
