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“What did you do to him?”
“I beat him so bad, he was in the hospital for four months. To this day, he still walks with a limp.”
And it still brings me immense satisfaction when I see him around town. The girlfriend and kids moved away and in with her father.
“Why were you so angry?”
“Classic and cliché case of having a drunk for a dad and a mum who walked out and left us behind, leaving Lex and me to deal with a monster.”
“How old were you when she left?”
“Eight.”
“I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
“It made us stronger.”
“Still, it shouldn’t be that way. I would never let anyone hurt my son.”
“Perhaps not, but it’s done now. I’m not telling you because I want your pity. I’m telling you because you’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted to share myself with. I want you to know me, even the ugly.”
She looks into my eyes. “Why couldn’t I have met you years ago?”
“I’m here now. We’ll make up for lost time.”
Moving onto her side, she leans up on her elbow.
“When I first met Callum, I thought I knew everything. I thought I knew what love was, but I realised I was so stupid.”
“You didn’t love him?” This is the shit I want to hear.
“I guess I did in some way. But over the years, it became routine, like we were all each other knew. We were forever breaking up and getting back together. He would talk me into coming back every single time, but I knew it wouldn’t work out, that nothing would change. I felt nothing with him that I feel with you.”
I trace my finger slowly down her cheek, getting hard once again at hearing she feels more for me than she did for him.
“How did he die?”
“A car accident. He’d been out drinking and snorting coke all day, and wrapped his car around a lamppost on his way home.”
“Do you miss him?”
“Not in the way people assume. I’ve never told anyone this, but after he died, I was relieved I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life trapped in a one-way cycle with him. I’m sad Thomas misses him, and it helped when he would drop money off for the bills. But personally, I don’t.”
I run my thumb over the tattoo of his name on her inner wrist.
“Hearing that, you know what I’m going to ask.”
She looks at her wrist.
“You want me to get rid of it?”
“Fuck yeah.” When she doesn’t say anything, I ask, “You don’t want to?”
“No, it’s not that. I swore after this one, I’d never get another. The pain nearly had me passing out. It was embarrassing.”
Fuck, this conversation is turning me inside out. Each time I think I know where she’s going to swing, she goes in the opposite direction.
“But I’ll do it for you. It’ll be worth the pain.”
