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His grip on my body changed. It became severe. It nearly hurt.
“And this one,” I touched the word Loser, then our gazes met.
There was fear in his eyes. And they were suddenly wet with tears. My heart sank.
I sat the marker down and cupped his face. “Sean, why? Why do you have those words on you? Did she put them there?”
He tried looking down and away, he tried to hide his tears from me, but I wouldn’t let him.
“Sweetie, it’s okay,” I said. I could feel my own eyes watering now. “You can tell me anything. It won’t change how I feel. I promise.” I kept my one hand on his cheek and touched his chest with the other. “You are not these words, Sean. You aren’t, and not just to me. You matter to so many.”
“What are you writing on me?” he whispered. His eyes jumped between mine in panic.
“I’m writing what’s true.”
His chest shuddered, and he subtly shook his head.
I let go of him to pick up the marker again, and when I did, Sean wiped his forearm across his eyes and cursed.
I wanted to find that woman and slowly kill her. I’d drag it out for days. She would have an entirely new definition of pain when I was finished.
Just as I was lowering the marker to his skin again, Sean caught my wrist and stopped me.
We looked at each other. He was breathing raggedly out of his mouth, and his eyes were red.
I almost tugged my arm back to toss the marker. I almost began to sob—I shouldn’t have done this. Sean crying was the saddest thing I’d ever seen and probably would ever see, and I was to blame for it. His grief was unbearable.
But then I felt my arm moving closer to his body as he slowly pulled, and when the marked touched his skin, he trembled.
“I don’t have to,” I whispered. “I’ll stop.”
“No,” he rasped. He dropped his head back and squeezed his eyes shut. His hands were no longer on my body. They were curled into fists on the bed. “Fuck, just do it…hurry,” he begged. “Hurry before I can’t.”
My breath caught.
Not days. Years—I’d make sure she suffered forever.
I blinked tears from my eyes and carefully wrote Worthy on his rib. I moved to his bicep and penned his value there, the other side of his neck, on his hand where Space was inked. I wrote the word Loved over top of it in heavy outline so it covered.
I had to be slow because Sean trembled, and I worried my hand would slip and the words would be too messy to read, and I couldn’t have that. Even though I wanted to rush and finish so he’d relax and let me hold him, I couldn’t.
I took my time, and it killed me.
“Okay,” I rushed out when I’d covered everything and painted his skin with words good enough to touch it. I capped the marker and tossed it on the bed.
Sean opened his eyes. His chest shook as he breathed.
“Do you want to see it?” I asked softly.
He didn’t say a word. He didn’t move. I wondered if he even could.
“You don’t have to get up. I can show you,” I told him, swinging my leg over and sliding off the bed. I darted into the living room and pulled a compact out of my purse, then I rushed back to the bedroom and climbed on top of him again. “Here. See?” I opened the compact.
Sean lowered his eyes to the mirror when I angled it at his body.
When he read the word Beautiful, his gaze shot to mine.
I smiled. “You are. Not just on the outside, Sean. You have the most beautiful heart. Despite everything.” I moved the mirror lower, over the word Worthy.
Sean’s hands flew to my hips and squeezed.
“It’s okay,” I soothed, because I interpreted his embrace as that reactional battle he was ready to put up at any moment. Sean was gearing to contest me. I just knew he was.
But then he sat forward and dropped his head to my chest. His body sagged.
“She didn’t write them,” he mumbled.
I stroked my fingers through his hair. “Who did then?”
“Me.”
I tensed. “What?”
Oh, my God, no. No. No. No.
“I’d write them all the time when I lived with her. I got good at it. Standing in front of a mirror, I could see what I was doing. It was easy.”
“And you got them tattooed on you?”
He nodded. “When I was sixteen. Found a guy who didn’t give a fuck about me bein’ underage. He liked cash. I had some.” His shoulder jerked. “Words have been there ever since.”
I hadn’t even considered the possibility of Sean doing this to himself, but it made sense. That woman broke him. She poisoned his mind. She might not have been the person who put those words all over Sean’s skin, but she’d been holding the pen.
