He scrubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand, his shoulders trembling just a fraction. “I promise,” he manages, breath uneven.
He waits until I nod. Until I believe him.
He pulls in a breath. Then another, longer this time. His hand drops to his sleeve. For a moment, it just rests there, fingers curling into the fabric. Then he starts to push it up. All the way.
It takes a moment to register.
It’s… a list.
A grocery list, tattooed on the inside of his forearm.
Black ink. Thin, clean lines. Simple. No shading, no artistic flourish. Just handwriting made permanent.
The paper itself is part of it, drawn as though it was torn from a notebook. One edge is uneven, rough from a hurried rip. The corners carry faint creases, softened from being folded into a pocket and opened again and again.
milk
good bread (not the dry one)
eggs
tomatoes (ripe, not big)
tea
One word is crossed out.
cookies
Next to it, written smaller and with obvious care, is a replacement.
apples
Then at the bottom, in a wobbly, unformed script, the ink reads:
don’t forget the flowers
The ordinary tenderness of it makes my breath catch.
Kieran tracks the movement of my eyes, ignoring the ink entirely. His focus remains pinned to my expression, gauging every flicker of my reaction.
“My mom made the lists,” he says quietly. “She’d sit there with her pen waving and call a family meeting to see what was needed.”
I can see it. A kitchen table. A mother with a list. Everyone arguing about what to add. The chaos of a family that is comfortable with each other.
He looks down at his arm. A faint smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. “My dad always tried to sneak something in. Cookies. Cake. Ice cream. Anything sweet.” A ghost of a chuckle escapeshim, warm and bittersweet. “She always caught him. And she always crossed it out.”
His finger drifts down and rests gently on the wordapples. “She’d replace it with something sensible. Every single time.”
Then he hesitates. Just for a second.
His finger drops to the very last line.
don’t forget the flowers
“That part’s mine,” he reveals. His thumb traces over the ink once, light, almost absent.
I keep my eyes on his, waiting for the rest.
