If things were simple between us, I would’ve asked for Della’s help. I would’ve chuckled as she wrangled me from my t-shirt and teased her as she unzipped my jeans.
But things weren’t simple. And that would be a complication I couldn’t afford.
By the time we made it to the emergency room, taking the bus to the downtown hospital, my wrist was three times the size and an angry blue to match Della’s ribbon.
The nurse checked us in, asked for a deposit up front as we didn’t have documents or identification for insurance, advised I’d need X-rays and most likely a cast, and finally that the wait was long.
I told Della to go home. She had school in the morning, and who knew how much time we’d waste in this place.
She nodded to appease me but never left.
She sat beside me, reading trashy magazines, getting me coffee and water, never leaving my side for longer than a few minutes. Every so often, I felt her watching me through a curtain of blonde, her fingers tracing her lips. She’d avert her gaze the second I noticed, leaving me confused and achy and in more pain than before.
It was the longest evening of my life sitting in that room. Not because of my wrist but because of her.
It was a constant fight not to hug her close and kiss her softly. All I wanted to do was be free with my actions and affections. I just wanted to touch her to reassure myself that she was still here, despite the stress of the past few months.
But I couldn’t.
I was no longer allowed to hug and touch because my thoughts were no longer clear.
When I finally saw a doctor, underwent X-rays and learned the news that a couple of fingers as well as my wrist had been broken, I wouldn’t wish it away for anything.
The cow that kicked me gave me a night I’d never forget. It deleted the stilted strangeness that festered between me and Della, and I had my best friend back.
We went home together that night, me in a cast and Della with her arm looped through mine. We sat in comfortable silence on the bus home, had a midnight snack of cereal and milk, then she took my hand and instead of saying goodnight and going to our separate rooms, she led me into hers.
I balked at the doorway, staring at her double bed, seeing it not as a place to rest but a battlefield in which I’d never stop fighting.
But I couldn’t stop her when she tugged me forward, whispering, “I miss you, Ren. Please…just for one night.”
I’d never been able to deny her anything.
And so, despite my better judgment, I stayed.
Together, we stripped to underwear and slipped beneath the covers.
We didn’t touch, lying stiffly in the dark, but having her so close I could hear her breathing and feel her heat and smell her lovely scent…I was happier than I’d been in a very long time.
* * * * *
“Happy Birthday, Ren.” Della gave me a card with one of those tinsel rosettes stuck to the envelope.
We sat in a burger joint with red vinyl and grease-stained music posters. Tradition demanded our birthday meal took place in a diner, but I ensured it was different to the last one where she left me to eat with Tom.
“I thought we agreed we weren’t buying each other presents.” I put down my fry and wiped salt-dusted fingers on a serviette. “Now I just feel like crap because I didn’t get you anything.”
“Ah, well.” She shrugged. “I saw it the other day, and I had no choice. It had your name all over it.”
I frowned as I tore at the glue holding the envelope shut. Sliding my finger under the seam, I ripped the paper and pulled out a card with a picture of a forest wreathed in fog.
My heart thudded harder, knowing it belonged there over anywhere; my legs tensed to run to wherever this photo had been taken. “It’s beautiful.” I looked up, smiling. “Thank you.”
Della rolled her eyes. “Open it, you moron.” Wearing a black dress with her hair slicked in a high silky ponytail, she was pure elegance. She’d grown up, and the change in her from sixteen to seventeen hurt my chest whenever I stared too much.
I’d loathed her wardrobe choices lately; mainly because they were far more revealing than before. She was beautiful in whatever she wore, but the tight shorts and skirts, the tops that clung to her…it all drove me mad trying to stop myself from hunting down the men who stared at her in appreciation.
She deserved to be appreciated—just not by them.
Not by any man.
Including me.
Cracking open the card, another picture fell out, this one torn from a hunting and fishing catalogue. Picking it off the table, I flipped it over until I looked at a four-person tent with a small alcove for gear and two sleeping pods off the main living. The price had been blacked out with a picture of a scribbled balloon.
“What…” I looked up. “You bought me a tent?”
She scooted her chair closer. “Uh-huh. It’s the perfect size for when I finish school and we leave again. You won’t have to feel awkward sleeping with me squished so close, see?” She tapped the picture in my grip. “We would each have our own wing and our stuff would be safe in the middle. It’s brown like your hair, so it will disappear in the forest, and the fly screens are green. It’s perfect, don’t you think?” Her blue eyes danced with futures I hadn’t dared think about.
My life until now had been a monotony of riding to work, cows, riding home, and staying close but not too close with Della. I hadn’t dared think about what would happen when she’d finished school.
About what I wanted.
About what I needed.
The past few years had been a different chapter to our normal world—totally unrelated to who we truly were. An episode of treading water until we could go home, be happy, and figure out how we fit into each other’s lives after so much.
The concept that we could leave this place…run.
Just us.
Fuck, I wanted it more than I could stand.
Her voice dropped when I said nothing. “You weren’t planning on staying here…were you, Ren?”
I blinked, dragged into the conversation against my will. Unprepared to show her how desperate I was for something different…something better and bearable between us. “Well, no. I mean, I hadn’t thought—”
She dragged a fry through her tomato sauce. “We need to start thinking about it. This is my last year of high school. We can leave soon.”
Leave…
I cleared my throat as that promise did its best to wrap around my heart and free me from every restriction I’d put in place. “But what about your future? What do you want to do?”
“I want to go back to the forest. I’ve told you that.”
“There are no jobs out there, Della. No boys to make a family with. No future apart from—”
“Apart from with you,” she whispered.
I froze, studying her face and the naked desire there.
The restaurant disappeared. Silence descended, turning the world mute.
I stopped breathing.
She stopped breathing.
The only thing we survived on was the vicious, violent bond that we’d always shared but had somehow magnified from virtuous to blistering.
Her eyes filled with promises, pleas—things that filled the chambers of my heart with crucifying futures I could never have.
We stared for an eternity, drowning in each other, before I closed the card with a snap and shoved it back toward her. “I can’t accept this.”
She flinched. “Too late, it’s in our apartment. I didn’t bother bringing it with us as it’s bulky, but it’s already yours.”
“How did you buy—”
“With my salary from the florist. I still do the odd weekend. Enough to save up some spending money.”
I nodded.
I’d known that. Every time she came back from that place, she smelled utterly devine. Honeysuckle and rose petals drove me insane sitting beside her on the couch, pretending to watch TV when really I counted down th
e seconds for her to go to bed so I could be alone with my traitorous body.
This was too much.
My cast clunked on the table as I shifted uncomfortably, seeking something normal to say. “If you could have anything you wanted for your birthday, what would it be?”
Her eyes burned like blue coal. “Anything?”
I swallowed, cursing her. “Within reason.” Terror at what she’d ask for locked me to the spot. This was a stupid idea.
Her forehead frowned as if thinking of every gift she’d love but knew better than to ask for. Eventually, she murmured, “A tattoo.”
I coughed on a mouthful of Coke. “Excuse me?”
“I’ve wanted one for ages, but I knew you wouldn’t approve.”
Normally, I would agree with her. I’d had a panic attack when she’d come home one afternoon with her ears pierced, let alone her skin inked, but that was then and this was now. Della had once again unsettled me with talks of futures and forest freedoms. I needed to change the subject with something—anything to stop the electricity humming unpermitted between us.
“Okay,” I whispered.
Her eyes widened. “What did you say?”
“I said okay. Let’s go get a tattoo.”
“You’re—you’re serious?” Her head tilted to the side, her hair swishing down her back in one long rope.
“Deadly. If you want to permanently mark your skin and regret it later, who am I to stop you?”
“I’ll need a guardian who is over eighteen to sign the paperwork.” She stood, inching her way around the table to stand in front of me, her tight black dress showing off every sinful curve. “Is that going to be a problem?”
I shook my head. “No problem. You want a tattoo. You can have one.” Keeping my attention on her face, I stood. “Your decision.”
“Yes!” She threw her arms around me, wedging her breasts against my chest, deleting space I dreadfully needed to keep between us.
I swallowed my groan as I nuzzled her against my will, hugging her fierce, missing her hard.
She trembled in my arms, her breathing quick and shallow. Her leg slipped between mine, inappropriate and far too close. “I’ve missed hugging you, Ren. So much.” Her lips pressed against my t-shirt.
My body reacted, my heart smoked, and even though I had to fight every muscle, I pushed her away with a careless shrug as if she hadn’t just crippled me all over again. “A birthday hug before your birthday tattoo.”
She nodded sharply, liquid suspiciously bright in her gaze. “Right.”
It physically stung not to gather her close again, but I held out my arm, the only form of contact I could handle. “Come on. Let’s go get your seventeenth birthday present.”
She looped her arm through mine.
And we pretended things were perfectly normal.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
REN
* * * * * *
2017
SHE GOT A ribbon.
Of course, she did.
A long blue ribbon that wrapped twice around her ankle with one end flared on her calf while the other trailed down the bones of her foot, twisting into a shape that looked suspiciously like an R.
When she showed me after two hours in the tattooist chair, I’d almost beaten up the artist. They’d shown me the original sketch that was drawn and printed on her skin prior to inking and that ribbon had ended with a kick in its tail.
Normal.
This one, the permanent one, looped over itself and back across in a letter not a shape. A letter that happened to be the first of my name.
Della hadn’t even tried to act ashamed, high on marking her skin with an unforgettable, unforgivable symbol.
With shaking hands, I paid the artist and was grateful when he wrapped Della’s leg and foot in cellophane, blurring the design enough so I could pretend I’d seen something that wasn’t there.
By the time we’d returned home, my temper was short, my mind a mess, and the tent resting in its untouched box on the coffee table just made me tip into places I could no longer run from.
Grabbing Della, I marched her to the couch, shoved her down, and kneeled before her.
“What are you—”
“Shut up,” I hissed, hell bent on finding answers I was afraid of.
She gasped as I tore at the cellophane, unwrapping the plastic, revealing the slimy aftercare cream and the vibrant blue ribbon forever inked into her skin.
Two hundred dollars and she’d fucking ruined me.
My teeth hurt I clenched so hard as what I’d feared stared back at me.
Not an ordinary ribbon but one with a goddamn message. “What the hell is this?” I looked up, seething and ruthless. My fingernails dug into her foot as I held it on my thigh.
She tried to yank it away, her black dress riding up her legs, the flash of red underwear sending yet more rage into my already out of control temper.
“Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing, Della.”
“It’s nothing, okay?” She shrugged with a worried look in her gaze. “It’s a ribbon. That’s all.”
My hands, despite themselves, feathered up her calf to her knee. I couldn’t stop them, and I couldn’t stop her reaction as her legs parted and her lips sucked in desperate air.
She should hate me for touching her.
She should leap away and smite me for even thinking of touching her.
But she did the opposite.
Her entire body beckoned, clouding my head, making me sick with—
“What the hell are you doing?” I groaned as I shoved her aside and stood on trembling legs.
I needed to get laid.
I shouldn’t have blocked myself from other people’s affection just because I preferred Della’s company over everybody else’s.
I wasn’t naïve.
I knew Della was experimenting and testing, and this was just another push to see what I would do. Only problem was, I didn’t know what I’d do if she pushed me any further.
Raking my hands through my hair, I paced the lounge as Della shuffled higher on the couch, her eyes dropping to her newly inked ankle and foot.
I couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t stand to see what she’d done to herself.
It hurt.
It hurt so damn much to love her so fucking dearly but be so confused. I loved her in so many ways, but here she was, trying to get me to love her in an entirely different one, and I honestly didn’t know if I could.
How was I supposed to see past the little girl I’d raised?
How was I supposed to be a man with her when I would forever be her boy?
How was I supposed to be okay with the changes in my need for her?
The answer?
I couldn’t.
I was projecting my desires onto her, making myself believe she sent me messages when really, they were entirely innocent.
She wasn’t inviting me.
She wasn’t messing me up.
This was my fault.
I was reading into things that weren’t there.
There was no message. No ulterior cry for more.
I was the one turning innocent into dirty, and it had to stop.
Right now.
She confirmed I was the one making a mess of everything by murmuring, “Ren, I’m sorry. You’re right. I did ask him to make it wrap like an R. I didn’t think you’d be so mad. I thought you’d appreciate it.”
I spun to face her, willing to hear the truth after my stupid mind muddied everything. “Go on.”
She spread her hands helplessly. “I love you. I’ll always love you. You’re my family. Is it so wrong that I wanted a reminder of you on me at all times?” She blinked back tears, urging me to believe. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t mean anything, okay? I know we never talk about it, but that kiss at Cherry River has been infecting everything between us for years. It’s a toxin that I don’t know how to get rid of, and it’s changed how you see me and I miss you, Ren. I miss you
so much. I miss that I can’t hug you and say silly things without you tensing and thinking I’m trying to get you into bed. I miss that I can’t get a tattoo that represents both me and you and explain that it’s a symbol of togetherness and nothing more. That’s all. That’s it. If you were a girl who’d run away with me and been there every day of my life, I would feel the exact same way. I would want something permanent to remind me of all the amazing times we’ve shared and all the sacrifices you gave me.” A single tear rolled down her cheek. “Please, it’s nothing more than that. You have to believe me.”
I backed up, hearing the truth beneath her shaky promises.
This was all my fault.
“I’m sorry, Della.” I wanted to use her nickname, to prove to her that things hadn’t changed so much that I could no longer say it. But my skin felt foreign, my heart a stranger, and I needed to fix myself before it was too late.
Stalking to the front door, I grabbed my keys and my phone.
Tonight, I’d reached my limit.
I needed companionship that would hopefully clear my head. I needed to be away from Della in order to do that.
Not looking back, I said, “Don’t…don’t wait up for me.”
I slammed the door before I could fall before her and beg her to forgive me.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
DELLA
* * * * * *
Present Day
THAT WAS THE beginning of the end.
If I could, I’d rewind time and never get that ridiculous tattoo. I couldn’t explain what came over me as the artist bent over my foot and dug his needles into my virgin skin. Ren had paced the front of the shop, studying blown-up pieces on the wall, flicking through books with tattoo designs.
I’d thought I would be happy with the simple design, but the longer the tattooist dragged his needles, the more it felt like only half of the puzzle. The ribbon had been a part of my life since the day I could remember…just like Ren.
It wouldn’t be right to draw myself without him there to weave into the tale, too.
With Ren’s back to us, I’d whispered to the tattooist to flow the ribbon into a capital R. He’d given me a strange look, glanced at Ren who’d signed the paperwork with his matching last name to mine, and shrugged as if it wasn’t his business.