Page 69 of The Scars We Heal

“I only have four things left to do on your bucket list,” I explained, holding up the sheet of paper with the items I’d completed scratched out. “Whitley’s at my mom’s place again because she wanted a sleepover with Grandma, so I thought today would be a good day to mark off another one.”

He studied the list, eyes scanning left to right and lip worried between his teeth. “Do you know what you’d want for a tattoo?”

Admittedly, when I first saw that item on the list, I was surprised. I’d been saying for the last ten years I’d never get a tattoo, that I wasn’t going to ruin my body by permanently etching ink into my skin. Why would Jake have added something I was so blatantly against?

But when I looked back, the realization of Adam’s influence on my decisions hit me.

“I think I want to get a tattoo,” I mumbled while scrolling.

“A tattoo?” Adam wrinkled his nose. “Why the hell would you want to do that?”

“I think it’d be pretty. Look at this one.” Flipping my phone, I showed him the rose design I’d found.

“You look so much better without those. Getting a tattoo is like putting a bumper sticker on a Bentley, or whatever the saying is. Brings down the value.”

I rolled my eyes, daring to snap back, “Good thing I’m not a car, then.”

“Yes, but you’re my wife. How would that look if the girl I’m married to showed up with a trashy tattoo on her arm?”

“That’s not fair,” I protested. “I’m not your property. It’s my body.”

Adam sighed, throwing down his stupid finance book. “God, Caity, why are you being so dramatic about this? Get the damn tattoo if you want then, but don’t come crying to me when you hate it ten years from now because it’s all warped and shit.”

If Jake remembered that short, mundane conversation from eleven years ago, then what else about me had he carved into his memory? What parts of myself that I had discarded in my marriage had he attempted to discreetly salvage?

“After I had Whitley, I’d thought about getting a rose for a bit. No color, because white roses are always what I’ve associated with her. Even the challenges of pregnancy brought me something beautiful and pure despite the pain I had to endure. She was my new beginning.” My lips pressed together as my vision threatened to blur. “That’s her middle name, too, you know?”

“I think that’s beautiful, Cait.” Jake squeezed my shoulder. “Let’s do it.”

My brows raised. “We?”

“Yeah, I’ve been wanting another tattoo for a while, so why not? If you decide at the last minute you don’t want one, you don’t have to.”

“No, I want to,” I blurted.

The grin that spread across his face made me blush, heat creeping into every inch of my body.

“You sure?” His tone morphed into something more serious. “They’re permanent, is all. I don’t want you to feel like you’re being pressured into doing this for the sake of completing a silly bucket list.”

I nodded, reaching for his hand to give it a squeeze. “I’m sure.”

“Let me text my guy to see if he can get you in today.” Jake reached for his phone and started tapping away at the screen. A few minutes later, he nodded with a massive grin. “We’re all set.”

Jake drove us to the tattoo shop, and about thirty minutes later, we stood in front of the doors of Outlaw Ink.

I inhaled a deep breath, exhaling through puckered lips.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Jake reassured me. “Nothing is set in stone until the needle hits your skin.”

“Is it going to hurt?” I cringed, realizing how stupid the question was. Of course, it was going to hurt.

He just smiled. “I can tell you it’s probably not going to feel great, but everyone’s pain tolerance is different. I’ll be right there to hold your hand if you need me to.”

On an exhale, I puffed out my cheeks then nodded. “All right. Let’s do the damn thing.”

“That’s my girl.”

Butterflies swarmed inside my stomach, and I averted my gaze as Jake pushed open the door, the bells jingling as we stepped inside. Framed tattoo designs covering the moss-green walls immediately caught my attention before the individual tattoo booths separated by half walls.