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“Is it done then?” I ask, craning my neck to try to see.

Callan squints, moving his head this way and that like he’s trying to make sure there are no spots missed. Then, finally, he nods. “It’s done.”

I can’t get a good enough view the way I’m sitting, so I get up and go over to the mirror in the hall so I can see. There on my shoulder is a small garden of wildflowers. They’re inked in black lines, but the flowers themselves have been colored in with pinks, purples, oranges, and blues. It looks like a sunset on my arm.

Then I look closer, and I see there aren’t only flowers in the garden. One flower stands out taller than the others, and clustered around it are different items. A spatula, a pencil, a strip of film. They’re growing right out of the garden around the flower, leaning toward it like they want to shelter it or like they’re growing toward it, like flowers do to the sun.

I swallow hard, touched by the symbolism and the meaning.

Callan appears in the mirror behind me. “We thought it was classier than getting our names tattooed on you,” he teases. “And this way you can have a piece of each of us with you all the time. When you’re on tour or recording. Whenever you need us.”

The image of the tattoo goes a little blurry as my eyes fill with tears. I grin at him, letting him see my open delight.

“I love it. It’s so beautiful, Callan. Thank you. Thank all of you for this.”

All three of them cluster around me, and they take turns kissing me. I lean up and into them, lingering over the kisses.

“There’s something else,” Callan says.

“If it’s another tattoo, it’s going to have to wait,” I tell him. “That wasn’t so bad pain wise, but I don’t think I can sit for another one.”

“It is a tattoo, but it’s mine,” he tells me. He rolls up the sleeve of his sweater and shows me a new tattoo, freshly washed and moisturized. I didn’t notice it before, among all his others, and it’s just a small thing. At first, it takes me a second to realize what it is.

It’s a cluster of swirls and loops, chaotic and messy, but then they shift into curving lines that start to form the petals of a flower. It’s in all black, but the style is similar to the one he just gave me.

“It’s for you,” he says. “I started thinking about it when things were all fucked up before, how everything was chaos around us, but the idea of you was still so clear through all of it.” He shrugs. “It helped, and now I get to have a piece of you with me as well.”

“Callan, that’s beautiful,” I tell him.

“And unfair,” Tate points out. “Where are our Brynn-focused tattoos?”

“If you have one, we all should,” Ares adds.

Callan rolls his eyes. “Okay, fine. You can have tattoos too. Later. I need to clean up my shit and cover up Brynn’s.”

He puts a piece of clear film over the tattoo and explains the aftercare to me. Luckily, he’ll be here to help me with it, but I listen intently all the same.

While he cleans up, I grab my phone from where I put it face down on the table. It’s on silent, but as soon as I unlock the screen, a flood of notifications appear. My stomach twists when I realize they’re mostly from my family.

Part of me wants to ignore them, but a larger part needs to know what they’re saying, so I open them one by one.

MOM: Brynn, this is unacceptable. It’s bad enough that you ruined the festival with this nonsense, but now you’re ruining Christmas too?

DAD: This is a betrayal. The Thornton boy AND two other men? Is this family a joke to you? Do you know what people are going to say about you? About us?

MOM: We expect an apology, I’ll tell you that. You can’t behave like this. We won’t allow it.

DAD: I just want to know why. Does nothing we’ve worked toward matter to you at all?

OWEN: Brynn, I don’t know what to say. I think I expected better from you. You can live your own life, but was the festival really the place to have all that on display?

HAZEL: Mom and Dad are flipping out. Maybe you should have warned them or something, that all this was going on? I don’t know. I don’t know what would have helped. I hope you’re okay, at least.

I let out a little sigh, shaking my head.

“What?” Ares says, looking over my shoulder.

“Just getting yelled at by my family over text,” I tell him, showing him the messages.