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But standing in front of her, being this close to her was killing me. All I wanted to do was grab her and kiss the fuck out of her. Instead, I was being forced to watch when she pulled something out of her pocket. It was a rectangular object, and my letter appeared to be wrapped around it. I recognized my handwriting on the notebook paper.
Red held it out, as if for me to take it. I did, but I didn’t understand.
“Open it, please,” she said, and I didn’t hesitate. I did what she said and the folds of the paper revealed an object. A pink, glittery object.
No thoughts. No words formed on my lips as I stared at it, and when I gazed up, Fawn wasn’t just fighting back tears. She was full-on rubbing them away.
“My mom and I found that when we were cleaning out the attic,” she said, and my chest squeezed. I thought I hadn’t been breathing before, but here in this moment, the ability to breathe at all didn’t exist. It was like I’d forgotten how. Fucking frozen. She lifted her hand. “Show me your tattoo.”
I was frozen again by the request, but like before when she’d handed me the object, I didn’t hesitate long. I eased the side of my coat up, my T-shirt with it. I had to push down on my jeans a little for her to see, but one thing I noticed right away was I hadn’t asked her to clarify her request. She’d asked to see my tattoo, and I hadn’t gone to show her the one on my back. That wasn’t the one she wanted to see.
It just wasn’t.
The one she wanted was the one I was showing her, the one that looked just like the flower on the back of the glittery phone case she’d handed me. I didn’t need to turn the case around to see the flower, compare them. They were the same ones.
And that was intentional.
I’d seen that flower in my head for almost a year before I’d gotten it on my body. It’d been like an anchor, a goal to get to. I wanted to see the beauty in me that some girl I’d met at a party had seen.
You’re so beautiful.
The words that girl had said that night had stuck with me. So stuck and embedded. I’d never been uglier than the year I’d taken to get myself better. I’d been in a dark place, but eventually, I’d started to crawl out. I’d found light, and at the first sight of it, I’d gotten my tattoo. It was like a goal post for me and the start of something. It was new life, hopeful, beautiful life. I hadn’t given up during those dark times and had gotten the tattoo as a symbol. It was like the finish line for all the work I’d done to get to that point in my life.
She was the finish line.
She always had been. Even when I didn’t want to see it. Even when I’d written her off and I’d told myself I wasn’t completely and obsessively in need of her. After the stadium fight, I’d been angry at Fawn, enraged. I’d put the girl I’d met once at a party on a pedestal because she had been my beacon for a whole year. She’d been my light source, and I’d given her that responsibility regardless of the fact that she’d never asked for that. I’d done that, then had the nerve to hate her for taking those photos of the fight.
But you never hated her.
No, I never had. No matter what I’d told myself, or how hard I’d tried to be when it came to her. Our history was always in the background, always, and it couldn’t be helped.
Lost in thought, I came back when Fawn touched me. She touched my tattoo and ignited all that history again. Me holding her on the bathroom floor. Her holding me and calling me…
You’re so beautiful.
“Ares…” Fawn was blinking, her eyes red. She pushed her fingers beneath them, then gazed up with glassy irises. I remembered wanting to make art with them as the focal point. Fill sketchbooks. Paint murals. She swallowed. “Ares, why didn’t you tell me it was you? That it was you this whole time that…” She pressed her fingers to her lips. “That it was you who saved me? My mom got me into rehab after that night you called her. You saved my life, Ares. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”
She wouldn’t have endured so much pain, trauma, if it wasn’t for me, and she didn’t know all the facts. She’d thought it was me who had saved her.
Like it hadn’t always been her who had saved me first.
I tucked that in the back corner of my mind when I’d tried to hate her. I’d rejected the thought and the girl with the flower.
You’re so beautiful.
“Do you know how fucked up I was that night?” I asked her, knowing I was still fucked up. It was in a different way, but I still had darkness. The things I’d done to her regarding our fake relationship were terrible. I shook my head. “I was about to end it that night before I saw you. I was going to take my own life, Fawn.”
Things had been so bad back then, and she knew about my demons. I’d told her all about my guilt when it came to my sister’s absence. I was what my family had left after Sloane had been taken. I had been nothing but anger, grief, and the people I loved the most had had to deal with it. I had been such a burden for the guys and my folks. My depression was something they’d all had to deal with, and I felt so guilty about that.
Fawn tried to touch my face after I said that, but I put the phone case and letter in my pocket, then grabbed her wrists. She shouldn’t touch me. She shouldn’t want anything to do with me.
“All that guilt I had regarding my sister…” My throat worked. “I was going to end things. I was so my family and friends didn’t have to deal with me. My depression…”
If intense sadness was a person, it would have been me during that time. My fucking face would have been next to the definition.
“Ares…” She was still looking at me like I was worthy. Like I was worthy of empathy or love, but people who did the things I had to her weren’t. We were damned and should be.
“It was you who stopped me, Fawn.” I put my hands on her cheeks, my thumbs gliding over her freckles. “It was you who’s always saved me. I got help after that night. I told my family what was wrong and got help and that started with you. It was you who saved me.”
