Britt opened her eyes to dusty golden sunlight pouring through the high window in her bedroom. A shadow pattern of leaves was using J. T.’s smooth back as a canvas. They must have fallen asleep after they’d ravished each other. It was already warm in the little room.
He was a stomach sleeper. So lovely to know these things about a guy. These little intimacies.
She admired how his eyelashes shuddered on his cheeks in his sleep for a time. Smiling slightly.
His eyes popped open. He smiled sleepily. “Hi.”
“There’s a shadow pattern of leaves on your back. It’s very pretty.”
“Zat so. There’s something pretty in front of me, too.”
“Ha.”
He sighed happily and rolled over and scooped her into his arms, so that his shoulder was her pillow now.
He dipped his head and kissed her shoulder lingeringly. Right where she’d transformed a round, ugly scar into something beautiful. Something that could be kissed by a beautiful man.
They lay like that for a moment of utter, empty bliss.
And he was quiet for so long, his breathing so steady, she thought he might have dozed off again.
“Britt...” he said sleepily, turning to kiss her tattoo again. “You gonna tell me about the guy who did this to you?”
He said it so casually, so naturally, that it took a moment for the words to sink in.
Her heart stopped.
She went absolutely rigid.
He kept his loose hold on her.
She swallowed.
It was a moment before she could speak.
“How did you know what it was?”
“I’ve seen cigarette burns before. You managed to turn it into something beautiful.”
She inhaled a steadying breath.
“Is it so obvious?” Her voice was frayed.
“No, sweetheart. It’s not. It’s really not. It’s just... maybe it’s just I know more than a little bit about violence. It was my dad’s default way of burning off a little of his natural-born misery. Drink, smack us around, repeat. I know what it does to a person. How you go into the world with a chip, or with something to prove, or something to hide. You kind of get to know the signs in other people. But not everyone’s going to default to what I just guessed, because not everyone has... I guess that kind of lens.”
That kind of lens.
She wanted to think about that.
“Am I right?” he asked.
She was quiet for a time. “Yes,” she whispered.
And now she wanted to tell him the story she’d never told anyone, not in total, anyway, but she didn’t have any kind of narrative prepared.
She took a deep breath. And released it. His hands moved down her back.
“Okay. Like I said, I grew up in your basic middle-class family. We were happy and pretty ordinary, probably, by most people’s terms, anyway. We didn’t have a lot of money, but neither did anyone else we knew. I was a cheerleader, I got great grades, got a scholarship, went to a great college, got great grades there, too. It was all hunky-dory. I worked my butt off for all of it. And then I met this guy at college... he was gorgeous and charming and from a rich family and I fell head over heels. We got married, I got a job writing marketing copy and doing some illustrations; everything was really just perfect. We were both what anyone would call successful. I figured this was my reward for having a plan, and sticking to that plan, and being a good girl. For all the good grades and so forth. I thought it was cause and effect, you know?”
