Where I chose.
It settles beneath the first, completing something that has existed in potential for two years and is only now allowed to become real.
I feel that settle too.
He presses the final thread through.
Ties it off.
Then he reaches for the center patch logo.
This one he holds for a second longer.
Not hesitation—recognition. I feel it in the way my spine straightens without thinking, like something in me knows this is the part that matters most.
He positions it with both hands, smoothing the leather flat like he’s setting something sacred in place. When the needle goes through this time, the sound feels louder, more final, like a door closing somewhere far behind me. And something is opening in front of me.
Everything it took to get here presses in at once. The mistakes, the distance, the choices that could have gone another way, but didn’t.
I don’t move.
I don’t breathe properly until he’s done.
When he steps back, the room exhales as one.
Sin watches me for a long moment, poker chip still between his fingers for once.
The room narrows to the space between us.
I feel every set of eyes on my back.
Every breath.
Every piece of history that led here.
He finishes setting the last stitch in the center patch and ties it off with a finality that makes something inside my ribcage shift position.
For a second, he looks at me.
Then he reaches into his cut again.
This time, what he brings out is smaller.
Rectangular.
Black.
White thread.
A single word.
He doesn’t show it to the room first.
He shows it to me.
My stomach drops harder than I’m ready for.
Road names are not chosen lightly. They are not gifts. They areverdicts.
