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And I need my best friend more than ever right now.
I open my eyes and look at the sky behind her. “Yeah,” I whisper. “Sandbox to casket.”
Casey moves back from her hug and smiles at me, then her eyes land on my skin in my off-shoulder hoodie. “What’s that?”
“Oh.” I twist my head, but I never can see it from this angle. “It’s a tattoo. Dax did it. I’m getting it covered over with something else. I already made the appointment.”
If I had spoken to Casey, returned her texts and calls, then she’d know about the tattoo. It’s exactly the type of thing I would have called her about straight away.
I dust my fingers over my shoulder, and she steps closer, rising onto her toes to take a better look.
“Why? It’s beautiful.”
“It is. But I don’t want the wordSilveron me. It just makes me think of him.” I tug at my top. I don’t know why I chose an off-the-shoulder one. I’m going to make sure it’s covered everyday now until my appointment to get it fixed. The idea of having a permanent reminder of him on my skin makes me want to throw up. And so does the fear that even if I cover it up, it won’t be enough to erase him. He’s kissed every inch of my body. He’s made love to me all night. He's consumed every part of me.
No matter what I do, a part of me will always belong to Dax Silver.
“Huh? It doesn’t say silver. Turn around.” Casey spins me so she can look at it from behind me. “Oh, it’s one of those ambigram ones. Oh, they’re clever.”
“Ambi what?”
She turns me again. “You know. A word that reads one thing one way up, and something else the other way up.”
I pull at my shoulder again, craning my neck uselessly. “What does it say?”
“This way.” Casey spins me again. “It says Silver. But this way.” She makes me bend so she can look over the top of my shoulder again. “This way, it says Rose.”
“Rose? Are you sure?” I yank my phone from the hoodie pocket and thrust it into her hand. “Show me. Take a picture from there.”
My phone clicks as she snaps an image over my shoulder and hands it to me. On the screen is my delicate black cloud tattoo. But in the center, in intricate, scripted font is the wordRose.
“How is that possible?”
“He must have known what he was doing. They’re not easy to design. I bet it took him ages.”
I stare at the phone screen. It did take Dax hours to do. But that was when he was using the needle. How long had he thought about the design before that?
“You are the silver lining. It’s always been you. Look at this if you ever need reminding.”
He even told me before he did it. How can I not have seen this until now? He was trying to tell me something, the same thing he was always trying to tell me.
I am my own silver lining.
My throat thickens as I blink rapidly. How could he do this? How could he be so fucking amazing and beautiful… andhim?How could he have been everything I ever wanted and needed?
And then he pushed me away like it all meant nothing.
He told me he just needed two more days. Two more days and then our future would begin. He begged me for that time. Two days later was when I went to the dockyard and found out he’d been working to bring Julian down. It was all meant to be over that night. But then something changed. Was it me telling him Julian was his father? Am I the reason he shut me out?
But if that’s true, I would make the same choice again. I couldn’t live with myself knowing that and lying to him. Even if it might be the reason, he’s now writing our time off together to history.
I click out of the picture and my screensaver shines back at me. The one he put on my phone.His neck. The bird tattoo.I screw my eyes shut at the sight of it and drop my phone onto the chair cushion.
I might have burned the word forgiveness and be trying to live by it now.
But the jagged grief tearing open my heart right now isn’t something that will be easy to forgive. And that’s if he was even here trying.
Which he isn’t.
