I don’t tell people these things.
Trust the wrong people, they betray you.
But isn’t that exactly why I have to tell Sloane?
She’s been betrayed too, even if she might not put it in those words.
She trusted people who were supposed to love her, and they used the threat of eternal damnation to make her feel like she was never enough.
She deserves to know that she’s enough.
That she can be trusted.
Even if it scares the ever-loving fuck out of me.
“That elephant. We saved it. Levi still gets postcards about once a year from the sanctuary where it lives now.”
She doesn’t reply.
Her cat pauses in licking its own ass, gives me anif you think one little story about an elephant will win her trust, you’re an idiotlook, and goes back to grooming itself.
Mind over body.
I breathe deeply to try to slow my pulse, then I point to my other shoulder. “Spent hours on the tour bus watching this show about space cowboys. That’s the ship. Sometimes Cash would make us reenact the scenes. I was always the lady mechanic. They said it was because I was youngest, but Beck got to be the badass assassin chick who was technically younger in the show. The youngest.”
She puts her hand back in my hair and snips again. “I know what you’re doing.”
Fuck. “I need your help, and my secrets are all I have to offer.”
“How do I know they’re secrets?”
I suppress a sigh. I could tell her my mother’s never seen all of my tattoos. I could tell her I haven’t been shirtless in front of a woman who’s not my tattoo artist or someone I’ve known all my life for over a decade. I could tell her to call any of the guys to back me up, but she doesn’t know they’d tell the truth before they’d defend me.
It’s why I don’t tell people things.
Because I don’t want my friends to have to stick up for me.
Or call me out when I tell the lies that make it easier for me to get around in the world without letting people in.
I wouldn’t believe me if I were her. “You don’t.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“You don’t.”
She touches the base of my neck. “What’s this one?”
My shoulders bunch.
My body is a canvas with one design rolling into the other seamlessly, weaving together all of my favorite and not-so-favorite moments of my life.
The lessons I’ve learned.
The highs.
The lows.
Life.
