I squeeze my eyes shut and try to consider everything that happened today and yesterday. Everything has gone wrong since Tuesday, since the moment Tiffani stepped foot in Manhattan. I’m just relieved now that although I made a mess of it all and that Dean’s probably already been told the truth by now, Tiffani didn’t get her way. It backfired. The fact that Tyler’s here with me right now already proves that he’s taking my side, that it’s me he believes. “Tiffani wanted you back,” I admit, my head still against his shoulder. His chest rises and falls. “She thought the only way that would happen was if I wasn’t in the way. She said I had to cut things off with you or she’d tell Dean the truth. If we beat her to it and told Dean first, she’d tell our parents.” It’s a little more complicated than that, but I simplify it all for the sole reason that I don’t particularly want to talk about it. I try to glance up at Tyler, but from my angle I can only see his forehead.
“Fuck,” he murmurs. I see him run his free hand back through his hair as he exhales a long breath. Slowly, he shakes his head and squeezes my body tighter against his. “I’m sorry for being such an asshole earlier. I was just pissed off at you and I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“I’m sorry too,” I tell him.
He manages to laugh a little, a quiet, breathy laugh, just like the times he laughed during the video. I don’t think I’ll tell him that I know about it. I think I’ll keep that a secret. “Seriously, I thought you’d given up on me,” Tyler admits. “Don’t ever scare the hell out of me like that again.”
I don’t think I’ll ever give up, especially not now, and I think this exact moment is a better time than any to show Tyler the new addition to my wrist. I don’t need to reply to him right now. I think his own words, his own quote is the only reply he needs. Smiling, I hold up my hand and raise my pinky, purposely angling my wrist in Tyler’s direction as I say, “I promise I won’t.”
He’s just about to interlock his pinky with mine when he pauses, grasping my wrist instead and bolting upright, then leaning forward. When I glance sideways at him, he’s squinting through the dark at the words inked upon my skin. He looks to me with wide eyes. “What’s this?”
“You might want to turn on a light,” I say, biting down on my lower lip as I grow slightly anxious. I can imagine Tyler’s eyebrows shooting up as he unwraps his arm from my body and reaches over me to turn on the lamp on the bedside table, his other hand never letting go of my wrist.
The room immediately brightens up, setting both our faces aglow, and I don’t even look to my wrist. I look at Tyler, admiring the way his eyes gloss over and his lips part, his entire face lighting up with surprise in the most adorable of ways as he studies my wrist with great intensity. “No way,” he says, blinking at me with an expression full of innocence. It all makes him seem younger in that exact moment, like he’s just a kid again.
I laugh and pull my wrist free from his hand, scanning my new tattoo again for myself. It’s still rather red and occasionally I can feel a hot sting, but it’s all worth it for Tyler’s expression alone. “I got it this afternoon,” I say, answering the question he hasn’t even asked. I know he’s wondering about it, though, so I continue to explain. “It was the only thing I could think of that would make sense to only you and me. It’s yours. It’s what you wrote.”
“You were way more thoughtful than me,” he says with a sheepish smile as he lifts his left arm up a little, glancing down at his own tattoo, the one on his bicep and the one that’s only four letters long. “I wasn’t that original. Hey, the ‘te’ looks a little squint,” he says, pointing to the words on my wrist again.
“That’s because you wrote it a little squint,” I fire back at him, rolling my eyes, and he seems to realize only then that my tattoo is in his very own handwriting, because color rises to his cheeks and he looks away. I roll out of the bed still smiling, dropping to my knees on the carpet and looking back across the bed to Tyler. It’s hard to believe that this afternoon everything went wrong and now everything feels right again. “By the way,” I say, “Emily knows.”
“Knows what?” Tyler asks, his eyes never leaving mine.
“About us,” I say slowly. I push myself up from the floor and get to my feet. I look down at Tyler, still in the bed, studying me. “She knows that we’re more than just stepsiblings.”
“You told her?” Immediately he pushes back the comforter and slides out of the bed, straightening up as panic pools in his eyes.
“She figured it out herself,” I tell him. His expression shifts from worry to confusion as he tries to process the fact that Emily knows the truth. “And,” I say, walking around the bed with a wide grin toying at my lips, “she doesn’t even care. She’s totally cool with it.”
Tyler’s eyes are wide again as they follow me across the room. “She is?”
“Yeah.” When I reach him, I cup his face in my hands and stretch up to kiss him, pressing my lips to his before pulling away to add, “People knowing the truth isn’t that bad after all.”