My eyes lingered on it that afternoon at the Cottage, tracing the lines, trying to make sense of each of the sections.
Carolyn’s voice haunts my thoughts. They got matching tattoos the same week that he died.
In one of those sections of the tattoos, between the silhouettes of various predatory animals, is an intricate design. If you look at it for long enough, it resolves into a letter.
But the letter on Christian’s chest isn’t a C.
It’s an E.
Chapter 36
Christian
When I wake up, I instinctively reach for Quinn.
The spot in the bed next to me is empty.
Groggily, I sit up and rub at my eyes. What that hell? What time is it? Did I really pass out that hard after we had sex?
The only light evident in the room is the ambient glow of New York City’s lights. It’s late.
Did she leave?
I stretch my arms over my head, working out the kinks, then throw my legs over the side of the bed.
Now that my eyes have adjusted, I can see that there’s some light escaping from the door to the den, and a smile plays across my face. She’s probably in there with her head tilted to the side, reading all the book titles. Just picturing it makes my chest warm. Quinn doesn’t talk about books much, but the respectful way she touches them tells me that when the mood strikes her, she loves to find a good one and disappear inside its pages.
First things first. I move quickly to the walk-in closet and pull a fresh pair of boxers and a t-shirt from a drawer, sliding them up and on, tugging the shirt over my head. I’m sure we’ll be going back to bed shortly, but just in case Quinn isn’t in the mood for more sex—
I laugh softly to myself. If I know her—and after the time we’ve spent together lately, I think I know her pretty well—she’ll be in the mood as soon as she sees me walk through the door.
I brush my teeth in the master bathroom, then flick off the light and head back down toward the den.
Pausing outside the door, I listen for any sound of movement inside. It doesn’t seem like she’s moving around or about to open the door. My heart rate picks up. Ever since my brother died, it makes me nervous as fuck to go into a silent room at night.
But I’m not going to stand out here forever, wondering what’s going on inside my own den.
It’s just my girlfriend, likely reading a book, maybe fast asleep in one of my plush as hell armchairs.
I swing the door open.
There’s Quinn, in the armchair, her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide and horrified, locked on me, frozen.
I register several things at once.
The first is that she’s holding the one and only journal I kept in this house on her lap, and it’s open to the very last page.
The second thing I notice is a photo of my brother and me that had been taken the week he died, our arms thrown around each other, laughing in the city sun. It’s staring at me from where it’s positioned on the shelf just behind her head, nestled amongst a collection of Hardy Boys books that my mother bought us.
The third thing I realize? She knows.
My heart plummets. It’s like an icy knife has slipped down the length of my spine; it’s painful and sickening all at once.
“What—” The word comes out as a croaking whisper, and I have to try again. “What are you doing?”
Quinn’s hand falls from her mouth, but the expression on her face doesn’t change at all. “Tell me this is some crazy teenage bullshit that you wrote when you were having a bad day ten years ago.”
Her voice is sharp and cold, and I know that she’s using everything in her power to protect herself from me in this moment. I want so badly to lie to her, to reassure her that of course it’s just the ramblings of a dumbass teenage kid, some idiotic nonsense that you scrawl late at night when you’re drunk and rich and stupid.
But I can’t.
Because it’s not.
I take in a shaky breath and open my mouth to tell her the truth, but I can’t force the words out.
She sees it in my eyes.
“What the hell does this mean?” she says, standing. She thrusts the journal at me so I can read the words on the page. I don’t need to read them. I know them by heart. Then she throws it back into the chair. “What does it mean?”
“I—”
The words stick in my throat. This is not how I wanted this to play out. This is not how I wanted her to discover the worst thing I’ve done, the secret that I’ve been keeping from everyone for the past ten years of my life.
Quinn narrows her eyes, straightens her back, and crosses her arms over her chest.
Steps toward me.
Her voice is soft, deadly.
“Let me see your tattoo.”
My heart is in my throat. It’s going to burst out and splatter all over the ground.
This is it.
This is it.
I reach up and grab the collar of my t-shirt in one of my fists, then yank it down so that my tattoo is visible.
Her eyes go instantly to it, and she steps forward another few inches.
She looks harder.
Her eyes dart to my face.
Back at the tattoo.