“No.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry that you feel like you have to do that. Sure, it was horrifying to walk in on, but you’re the one suffering enough to do it.”
It caught me off guard, how understanding he was being. I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything.
“Can I show you something?”
At my hesitant expression, he placed a hand on my knee. He squeezed it gently. “You let me help you when you were extremely vulnerable. I know you’re probably super uncomfortable about that.”
Price held out both of his arms, suspending them with his inner arms pointed toward the ceiling. Gorgeous black and gray ink covered them, some cohesive, some entirely random.
“Look closer, Crew.” He repeated the words he’d said earlier on the sidewalk.
I leaned closer, staring at his skin in confusion. There was an irritated red spot near the crook of his elbow that I followed downward. I strained to look at the detail of his tattoos in a way I’d never done before.
They looked pristine, the line work perfect in almost every spot. A few were a bit blurry where the ink had migrated, though the majority had healed wonderfully. When Price pushed his arm closer to my face, I finally caught a glimpse under the dim, yellow-tinted lighting of the living room.
Underneath the perfect artwork were small imperfections. They weren’t a part of the tattoo, but a part of his skin. Most of them blended in, hardly noticeable after years of healing. I grabbed hold of both of hisarms, staring closer at every inch of them. The deeper ones were slightly darker, showing up more easily underneath the ink. How had I never noticed? With the amount of time I spent staring at his body, I was surprised the scars had never registered in my mind.
Something warm and selfish danced up my front, settling on my chest to bloom. I was both relieved and sad. Price understood what I could never fully explain. At the same time, Price’s understanding meant he felt at least some of the pain I did.
The scars didn’t look exactly like mine, though. A lot of them were curved and grouped together, which didn’t follow the typical scarring of a blade. I looked up at him, still holding his arms in my hands.
He turned them downward, placing his palms around my arms instead. “I started when I was seven. It’s officially diagnosed as an anxiety thing. When the world goes to shit, when I’m anxious or scared, or when my routine is thrown off the empire state building, I itch. When I itch, I scratch. And when I start to scratch, it’s insanely difficult to stop.”
I couldn’t help it this time. I looked into Price’s eyes, mine no doubt wide from his confession. Barely a second in, I could feel the ice melting. He was sharing a part of himself he kept hidden from the rest of the world. We could understand each other on a level no one else in my life had been able to.
Price wasn’t pristine.
He’d already been rotting on the inside before he met me.
His decay was as beautiful as wilting petals from black roses that’d lived through a long, harsh season. Mine was ugly, like neglected, forgotten compost during the height of summer.
Looking into his forgiving soul, I wondered if I could be saved. If I could be saved, maybe I could bring his petals back to life.
“Has the itching gotten any better?” I asked.
The grip his palms had on my arms got tighter, if barely. “It has. I’m not as bad as I was when I was a kid. It got rough for a little bit, but…” His voice got quieter as he trailed off. One side of his lip tilted up, a barely-there grin ghosting across his face. “It’s gotten better over the last two months.”
It hit me all at once. The implication of what he was saying, the emotions I’d been desperately trying to keep under lock and key, thereality of how I felt about the man sitting in front of me, bearing a part of his most vulnerable self. My breath caught in my throat, hitching on an inhale. Until recently, I’d considered myself a very stoic person. Crying wasn’t something I did easily or often. I was on the verge of doing it for the third time tonight.
Of course, Price noticed. His hands went to my upper arms, squeezing them lightly. “Most of the time, my scratching is because of my anxiety or something that’s stressing me out. When I was a kid, though, it felt like I deserved the pain. Shit was really going down with my parents and it felt like it was my fault.”
Maybe if I looked away now, he wouldn’t notice that I understood that a little too much. If I wiggled in my seat, maybe he wouldn’t notice that my muscles had stiffened.
“You cut for the same reason, don’t you?”
He was seeing me too clearly. Reading me too easily.
“I’ve had my suspicions for a while, but I bet cutting isn’t the only way you hurt yourself.”
Our knees were touching now. He was scooting closer. Could he feel me shaking?
“The sex work. The way you ask those men to treat you. You told me once that you didn’t have a choice. Is it because you have to punish yourself?”
The final thread of control I had snapped. A puddle trickled to my feet, coating us in once-frozen water. I searched Price’s gaze, my eyes moving rapidly back and forth. There was no darkness in them. No contempt or danger.
I could tell him. Right here, right now. I could tell him everything that I’d never told a soul, and I was confident he’d wrap me up in his arms and keep me safe.
A whimper escaped my lips instead of anything cohesive. It sounded scared and sad. I could hear my breathing pick up pace as I tried to speak the truth. The truth behind everything.
