“She loved flowers,” he continues, his eyes not leaving the line. “My dad never forgot to buy them. Not once. It didn’t matter if he was just going out for a walk or if they were fighting. He always got her flowers whenever he went out.”
He rubs the line with his thumb. Back and forth, as if trying to erase the ink and feel the memory beneath. “We went together that day. Dad and I. He gave me the list, the responsibility of keeping it safe. So I wrote this at the end.” His voice drops to a near whisper. “Just in case he forgot about the flowers.”
He releases a heavy breath that seems to drain the tension from his frame. “It was a normal day,” he narrates. “We were supposed to get the groceries. Eat ice cream. Go back home and not tell Mom about the ice cream.” His mouth curves, just slightly. “I lived for those trips. Just the two of us. I thought we had forever to do it again.”
He goes quiet for a moment, his thumb tracing the ink on his arm.
“I was ten,” he says, almost to himself. “I didn’t know yet that forever had an end date.” His voice tightens on the last sentence, pulled too far. He keeps talking anyway. “We were—”
The cut is jagged. He gulps and attempts the line once more. “We were supposed to—”
The rest doesn’t make it out. A rough breath slips out instead. His hand curls suddenly over the tattoo, hiding it even as his eyes stay fixed on the spot. His chin drops, gaze slipping to the ground.
“I thought—” The words drag, forced out one at a time. “I thought I was ready for this conversation.”
His gaze stays fixed on his arm, thumb pressing into the skin again and again. Every muscle in his back bunches, iron-tight and straining, battling the visible tremor threatening to take hold.
I don’t look at his eyes. I don’t have to. I know they’re brimming again, fighting to stay clear.
I have seen that fight before. In the mirror. In the dark. In the moments when I was trying so hard not to cry that my whole body shook with the effort of holding it in.
I lift my hand, then pause with it halfway between us. It hovers there for a moment, uncertain, before I let it move forward inch by inch, aware of every bit of space I’m crossing, aware ofhim.
I leave room for him to pull back. Leave space for him to stop me.
He doesn’t.
I place my hand over his, where his fingers have curled tight over the ink, light enough that he can shake it off if he wants.
His skin is warm. He has squeezed his hand into a bloodless grip, the muscles beneath my touch rigid with strain. He clutches that memory with a crushing strength, tethered to it to prevent his entire world from drifting away.
He looks up at me then.
His eyes are red, glassy, unfocused for a second before they find me. There’s a flicker there—surprise, sharp and unguarded. His breath catches, his whole body going still under my hand, as if he’s trying to understand what just happened.
He wasn’t expecting this.
Not from me.
He stares at where my hand rests on his. Then back at my face. Then down again, as if checking that this is real.
For a second, doubt hits me. A quick, uneasy twist in my chest. I might have crossed a line. Stepped into space he keeps protected.
But I don’t move.
Because under my palm, his grip changes. The pressure eases. Just a little. His fingers don’t dig in as hard, the strain loosening enough for me to feel the change. He doesn’t pull away or shut down. He lets me stay.
So I leave my hand there, resting over his, staying with him.
He draws in a breath. It catches halfway, held in his chest before it slips out uneven. Another follows, deeper this time, filling his lungs more fully, though it still falters on the release.
His shoulders shift under it, rising, then easing down, the tension in him loosening by degrees. Each breath goes a little deeper than the last, staying longer, leaving with less strain.
He finds his path back to the story and continues. “We were in the grocery store. Middle of the aisle. He was holding the cart. I was holding the list.”
His hand glides beneath my palm, abandoning its guard over the tattoo. His fingers travel across my skin until he rests his weight atop my hand, pinning my palm against the ink.
“He said something—” He swallows. “I don’t even remember what. Then he stopped.”
