Page 62 of Waiting for You

"No," I insisted. "Go. Have fun with the group. I'll be fine recovering here."

She stood, changed into her hiking gear, and left.

I stayed trapped in the dark, fighting the migraine until my stomach demanded food. I checked my watch. Already mid-afternoon. I dry-swallowed some pain medication, threw on a shirt, and took the elevator down to the empty dining hall. I asked a waiter for a simple plate and slumped into a chair.

I was halfway through my late meal when Sloane strolled into the pavilion.

She went still at the entrance, her eyes locking onto me sitting alone. I stared right back.

"I thought you'd be sweating on a jungle hike," I called.

"I would never subject myself to that," she shot back.

I chuckled, the sound aggravating my headache. "Then why didn't you go?"

"I was tired. I volunteered to stay back." She tilted her head, reading me. "I didn't even realize you'd backed out too."

"Headache."

"So it's just the two of us."

"Apparently."

She walked over and claimed a seat, signaling a waiter to order. With the rest of the group gone, the estate felt abandoned. The afternoon light reflected off the water, and something in me went taut, suddenly alert to the heavy, specific quiet of sitting alone across from her with no one around to run interference.

"Well, since it's just us," I offered, leaning back. "What do you want to do with the afternoon?"

She looked up from her menu. "I don't know. What do you want to do?"

I thought about it for two seconds. "Did you pack your tattoo kit?"

"I always travel with it," she answered. "Not the studio rig, obviously. But the essentials. You never know when a random emergency session is going to pop up."

I laughed. "Then you could give me one," I challenged.

She stared at me, stunned. "Right now? Here? In the middle of this trip?"

"You just bragged that you always carry the equipment."

"I did say that." She studied my face. "That's an amazing idea." She set down her fork and stood. "Alright. Let's go."

Her room was meticulously organized on the right side and a disaster zone on the left. The left pillow was creased, and the sheets on that side were ripped loose and shoved into a tangled pile at the foot of the mattress. I pointed at the wreckage.

"Did you sleep on that side?" I asked.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes."

I laughed. She'd always slept like that. Frantic, restless, constantly tossing, hauling the sheets up to her chin only to kick them off five minutes later, somehow monopolizing twice the surface area her small body needed. Years ago I'd learned to anchor myself to the far edge of the mattress, out of the strike zone of the flailing arm she never knew she had. I'd learned to not mind the chaos.

And the memory of not minding it sat heavy in me as I stood in her room.

She hauled a sleek black kit out of her luggage and dropped it on the writing desk. "Alright. What do you want?"

I dropped into the desk chair. "I was considering a ring design," I admitted. "A simple band. But I've been going back and forth on the placement. Maybe something smaller. Simpler."

She fixed me with a look. "Is this ink supposed to represent the cage you mentioned? What you said on the boat, about feeling locked in a cage."

"No," I said. "I'm still trapped in that cage. I don't know when I'll break out. I don't know if I ever will, and if I don't, I'm eventually going to have to get comfortable living in it. But existing in the cage doesn't stop me from taking what I want."