“Are you afraid right now?”
“No. I should be.” I touch his hand. He follows the movement with his gaze. “You don’t scare me.”
“Really? ’Cause you scare the shit out of me.”
Again, he surprises me.
He laughs at my shocked expression. “Ahh, Vera. You have no idea what you do to me, do you?”
He does things to me too.
His slow blink is followed by an even slower smile. There’s something innocent and shy about it, as though he read my thoughts. He lies down on his side next to me, pillowing his head on his hands. I do the same and we stare at each other. So many thoughts run through my head. It’s like a stampede. I can’t grab ahold of one. They slip by, one after the other.
I told him my secret. Well, one of them. The one that shames me and makes me less. He’s not looking at me like I’m less. He will, though. He won’t understand all of the things I’ve done and why I did them. The closer we get, the scarier it is that he’ll ask and I’ll tell because I don’t know how to be any other way with him. Maybe because I know he won’t go looking for the answer on his own and I can’t lie to him. Even if it means I’ll lose him.
“Why do you keep it?” he asks gently. “The tattoo?”
“I’ve thought about tattooing over it, but it would still be there underneath. Same with having it removed. It will never really go away. Even if it miraculously vanished tomorrow, what happened to me won’t.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police after you escaped?”
“I didn’t trust them. Still don’t. Do you?”
He considers my question, then shakes his head.
“I can’t ever go to the police.”
“There’s more, isn’t there?”
I nod. So much more.
“Okay.”
His simple acceptance makes me want to tell him the rest. The words tremble in the corners of my brain, afraid to come out. I could push them forward, but I’m a coward. And I’m selfish. I want him for however long I can have him. If I tell him now, that will be the end. Beau can and has accepted more about me than any other person would, but I know his limits. He’ll see this final piece as a betrayal. So I’ll keep my mouth shut and hold on to whatever time I can get with him.
I touch a finger to one of his tattoos. “What does this mean?”
“Nothing. It’s some stupid shit I put on my body because I was angry and it made me look like the rest of the convicts.”
“What about this one?”
“Same thing. They’re all the same.”
“Prison tattoos. Very tough.”
“The best defense is a good offense.”
“Was it very bad for you?”
“It was hell. Every day.” He says it so matter-of-factly, but the look in his eyes is far from dispassionate. “I didn’t think I’d ever get out.”
“Neither did I.”
“And yet here we are.”
“Yeah.”
The silence that descends around us is full of what-ifs. What if one of us had gotten out and the other hadn’t? What if neither of us had gotten out? What if I’d chosen another agency? What if he wasn’t there the day I came in? What if we’d stayed away from each other like we should have?
“Do you think there’s some greater purpose for everything we’ve been through?” I ask. “Some point to it all?”
“If there is, I haven’t seen it. Sometimes bad shit just happens to good people.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much what I think too.” I roll onto my back and stare up at the stained ceiling. “For a long time I fantasized about being rescued. After a while I stopped thinking about the future. I stopped thinking about anything at all. I made a place in my head where I could escape to, where no one could reach me. It wasn’t perfect. It cracked and shook. Every time that happened, I’d build it back stronger than it was before. After a while it became solid and impenetrable.” Closing my eyes, I push back at the memories that swell up inside me. “I hate it there.”
“I hate seeing you go there.”