Page 102 of Road Trip to Forever
I reach out to touch him but my eyes snag on something at the top of his thigh. Three somethings, each the size of a postage stamp.
“What are those?” I push onto my knees and crawl across the mattress.
They were hidden under his clothes, and now that he’s naked, I can see them as clear as day. I’ve never noticed them before.
“Ah.” Patrick runs a hand over his face and blows out a breath. “They’re tattoos.”
“Since when do you have more tattoos?” I stare, getting close enough to try to decipher them. Maybe they’re another drunken mistake. Something he got in college and never bothered to get rid of but was too embarrassed to tell me or let me see. “It’s—” My head jerks up. “No.”
His smile is sheepish and shy. He reaches out and takes my hand, guiding it to his body and letting me trace the outlines with the tips of my fingers. “Like I said, Lola. With you, nothing is accidental.”
There, in a secret space no one would ever see, is a stack of books. A needle with a spool of thread. And a treehouse, complete with a ladder and two tiny windows, an exact replica of the one we spent so much time in together as kids.
My lips tremble as I lean forward, kissing the first one then the second and the third. I run my finger over them again and again, learning their shape and colors and the angles of their lines. I’m afraid that the more I touch them, the more likely it is they’ll disappear, erased forever.
They’re never going to disappear.
They’re a permanent fixture on him. Reminders of our friendship, always with him wherever he goes.
Reminders ofme.
“When?” I ask.
“The summer we left for college,” he says, tapping the treehouse. “When you sold your first commission,” he continues, tapping the needle.
“And the books?”
“A couple of weeks ago. Right before you got home from Italy.”
“You’ve had these for years? While you’ve dated other women? And you’ve kept them hidden them from me?”
“Yes,” Patrick answers. He doesn’t deny it.
“Why?” I ask, more than a couple of words difficult to find.
“I miss you when you leave,” he says. He cups my cheek and his thumb wipes away a tear I didn’t realize had fallen. “I miss you so fucking much. I feel empty when you’re not around. It’s like a piece of my soul is missing. A piece of my heart is carved out when I can’t see your smile or hear your laugh. I turned to tattoos as a way to always have you around. Even when you aren’t here, you’re stillhere. You’ve ruined me, Lola, for anyone else. I’m utterly destroyed and totally wrecked. I have been for a while now. Only you can put me back together.”
The words pierce my soul. Of all the books we’ve read together with their romantic declarations and grand gestures, his confession is the most prolific and poignant one. It’s real and it’s raw and it’sperfect.
I’m ruined too.
Every single part of me belongs to Patrick.
I think I’ve always belonged to him, some subconscious lock placed around my heart years ago. Guarding it until I was strong enough to realize the reason I’ve been so terrified of trying with anyone else, the reason I’ve been hesitant to let anyone have my imperfect parts and allow them to see all of me, is because they weren’thim. I didn’t trust them or believe they wouldn’t leave. Not like I trust Patrick.
I think I’ve belonged to him for twenty-four years, and every moment that passes where he stares at me and I stare back, I know exactly what these feelings mean.
I love him.
Of course I love him. I’ve always loved him.
I’min lovewith him.
Hopelessly, irrevocably, completely, and totally in love with him.
It wasn’t fast, infatuation at first sight or a hot and heavy rendezvous. It’s been a slow and steady kind of love that’s taken time and patience and restraint. Mistakes and fears and hesitations. A love worth waiting for.
I love him, and I never want to love anyone else.
