I follow his gaze down to his legs, and when I lift our joined hands, my breath catches.
Droplets of rainbow-colored ink run like tears down the length of his leg—unexpected, delicate, surreal.
The tattoo coils violently around his thigh, spiraling like a tornado tangled in rain. A storm etched in ink. It twists with chaotic grace, winding down his leg in streaks of color and shadow until it finally reaches his ankle—where it fades to black like a memory too painful to finish.
“Your tattoo, Noah… what is it?” I let my fingers ghost over the design, careful, apprehensive, like I’m tracing a secret I was never meant to find.
But I did.
He shivers where my touch barely grazes his skin.
“Tears,” he whispers, voice catching on something too heavy to name. “My tears,” he repeats softly, as I run my fingertips down the length of his leg, chasing the ink like I’m following a map made of sorrow.
“And the rain,” he gasps, sucking in a breath when my fingers skim his skin like a match striking against wet paper.
“But why? Why so many tears, angel? And why the rain?”
He hisses when I fold my fingers around his ankle, as if my touch scorches through his skin and bone—like the ink remembers everything he’s trying to forget.
“My t-t-tears… the r-rain…” he stammers, his voice fragile and raw. “The rain hides my tears.”
His fingers curl tightly into the sheets, white-knuckled, like he’s holding on for dear life. “Take me out of the rain, Alex,” he pleads, barely above a whisper. “I don’t want to hide anymore.”
My eyes remain fixed on the tattoo—still chasing the storm winding down his leg. I follow its lines the way I follow his silences, certain there’s something I should understand, something just out of reach, something to figure out. Maybe if I stare long enough, the ink might loosen its grip, give up what it’s holding, but instead it only knots my thoughts, the way his presence does, leaving me with the uneasy sense that I’m missing something essential.
“Who are you hiding from?” I ask, though part of me is afraid to know.
“Him.” He breathes. The word is a ghost.
He sighs as he relaxes into the memory. “She put me in the rain so he couldn’t see my tears.” He exhales softly. “He couldn’t hurt me there, Alex. I was protected. And now… I’m lost.”
I sit up straighter, my chest tightening. “I don’t understand,” I mutter, troubled and confused.
“I know,” he says numbly, almost mournful. “But could you look for me?”
The way he says it—defeated, like he’s begging from somewhere far away—hurls me deeper into confusion.
“Jesus, Noah. Where?”
Nothing in this conversation is making sense. Every word feels like it belongs to a different language, a different world, a different person, and I’m stranded in the middle of it, desperate to translate pain I can’t begin to decode.
He exhales shakily, the sound laced with defeat. A sigh that feels like the weight of years. Like something in him is slowly giving up.
“In the rain,” he says softly.
And fucking hell—I’m two seconds from ripping my own hair out.
“The rain,” I repeat, more to myself than to him, trying to piece together whatever the hell this means—ifit meansanything at all. Or if I’ve already lost him to whatever storm he’s drowning in.
“Noah.” I breathe, voice trembling. “You’ve got to give me more. I’ve never been lost in the rain. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
Jesus Christ. I thought solving a puzzle was complicated, but stepping into his thoughts is insane. The rain—how does someone get lost in the rain?
His fingers tighten around mine, grounding and ghostlike all at once.
“I’ll know when you’re close,” he whispers, a sad kind of certainty in his voice. “I’ve been waiting for you my entire life.”
“You what?” I blink, stunned, his words echoing like they’ve been spoken before—in a dream, maybe? But?—
