Page 7 of If You Go
I pull on ripped black jeans, a fitted crop top, and my high-top chucks—comfortable, easy, familiar. A sliver of tattooed skin flashes at my stomach when I move, but even that feels like a rebellion against the years Gavin tried to erase me. My jacket waits for me on the chair, leather and worn, soft at the edges, a gray hood stitched in. It smells faintly of smoke and rain. My life distilled into fabric.
I glance in the mirror, and for a second, my own reflection startles me. Tattoos bloom across my skin like armor, color and blackwork twining together, covering what they can. Every piece chosen carefully, deliberately, until the story of my survival became something beautiful, something no one could take from me. Only one scar remains uncovered, the one slashing from my eyebrow into my hairline. A souvenir Gavin carved into me. I’ve tried fading it, tried creams and laser treatments, but it lingers—faint, but stubborn. I can hide everything else. Not this.
The kitchen smells like butter and frying potatoes, the kind of heavy warmth that sticks to the air and clings to the walls. I set the last plate down on the counter, my hands trembling a little with nerves but also pride. I’ve spent hours perfecting this—boxty with rashers and cabbage, just like the recipe I begged from Mama. The potatoes are golden, the cabbage tender, the meat crisp. It looks perfect. I want it to be perfect for him.
I balance the plate carefully in my hands and carry it toward the table where Gavin sits waiting, his expression already impatient. My heart hammers, but I force a smile. “I made something special tonight. It’s one of my family’s favorites. Thought you’d—”
The edge of the plate slips. My fingers lose their grip. Time slows as porcelain crashes against the hardwood, shattering into white shards. Food splatters across the floor, sauce staining Gavin’s trousers and dripping onto his polished shoes. My breath catches in my throat, cold terror spreading through me before the sound even fades.
Silence. Then the scrape of his chair against the floor. He rises slowly, deliberately, his jaw tight. My words tumble out in a panic. “I—I’m so sorry, Gavin. I’ll clean it up, you can have my plate—please, it was an accident.”
His eyes are sharp and cold. He crouches, not to help, but to pluck a jagged shard from the wreckage. He turns it over in his hand, watching the light glint along the broken edge, and then his gaze snaps back to me.
“Accidents,” he says softly, almost a whisper, “are lessons.”
He moves faster than I can recoil. His hand fists in my hair, yanking my head back, and before I can scream, the shard bites across my temple, carving up through my brow and into my hairline. Fire explodes under my skin. I taste blood before I even feel it spilling warm down my cheek. My eye goes blind as blood flows down into it, causing me to scream. My body jerks,but he holds me still, his lips brushing my ear as his voice drops into something dark and final.
“Next time, maybe you’ll think before you fuck up again.” He licks the blood from my cheek, then runs his tongue along his now blood stained lips. His eyes flashing something dangerous.
He shoves me away from him and I collapse to the floor among the shards, clutching my face as the blood runs between my fingers. Gavin sits back down at the table like nothing has happened, calmly wiping sauce from his shoes, while I tremble in the ruins of the meal I’d been so proud to make.
I drag myself out of the memory with a sharp breath, my pulse racing as though it just happened. My scar stares back at me in the mirror—faint, but permanent. A reminder carved into me, no matter how many tattoos I build around it.Accidents are lessons.
I continue getting ready, running a hand through my pale hair, white-blond strands catching the light, and my emerald eyes stare back, too sharp, too haunted. The mirror doesn’t lie. Some days, I still see a ghost.
I shake myself loose, grab my lotion, and smooth it across the ink that covers me, ritualistically. Taking care of what once felt like ruin. One small way of reclaiming this body.
When I’m dressed and ready, I make my way to the bathroom slowly. Bathroom time is sacred time. It’s not just a space with mirrors and counters and tile—it’s a chapel, a confessional, a therapy session wrapped in steam and hair products. In this room, everything is allowed. Everything is heard.
The three of them are already there, clustered in our familiar chaos. Alisha’s perched on the counter in leggings and a tank top, her hair twisted into rollers, already scrolling TikTok with one hand while sipping coffee with the other. Hazel’ssitting cross-legged on the floor with her makeup bag spilled out like treasure, carefully blending foundation into her skin, her concentration absolute. Richie—God bless him—is shirtless, fussing with his eyebrows in the mirror like they’re a work of art, humming Britney under his breath.
I linger in the doorway for a moment, taking it in. These people. My people. This bathroom has heard every secret we were too afraid to tell anyone else.
Alisha’s came first. Her voice shook when she finally admitted what her uncle had done, words dragging out of her throat like they’d been buried under rocks for years. She couldn’t even look at us, her eyes fixed on the tile as she confessed how he stole her safety long before she even knew how to name it. She told us about the nightmares, how she still sometimes wakes gasping with phantom terror in her chest, her body remembering what her mind tries so hard to forget. We cried with her that night, holding her between the counters and the mirror, promising her she wasn’t broken, even if the world had tried to make her feel that way.
Hazel’s confession came later, softer but no less jagged. She told us how her father’s hands left bruises, but it was his words that cut the deepest. How he could take her apart without lifting a finger, how his disappointment carved holes into her that she still tries to fill with ink. She admitted that even now, every time she finishes a tattoo, a tiny voice in the back of her mind whispers that it’s not good enough, that she’s not good enough. She whispered all this while twisting her hands in her lap, her eyes shimmering, and for once, we couldn’t fix it with jokes. We just sat with her in the silence, letting her know she wasn’t alone anymore.
And then Richie. Loud, unapologetic Richie, who somehow still carries the weight of scars no one can see. He told us about the conversion camp his parents forced him into betweenninth and tenth grade—how the counselors preached shame like scripture, how they tried to scrub the truth out of him with prayers and punishment. He said he can still smell the pine needles from the woods that surrounded the camp, still hear the way his own sobs echoed in the thin mattress at night. He said they told him he was broken, and he believed it for too long. But then he looked up at us—smirking through tears—and said he doesn’t believe it anymore. That we are the proof he was never broken in the first place. We all cried happy tears that night. For healing. For us. For our little chosen family.
And then there was me. My turn. I told them everything Gavin had done, every bruise, every scar, every way he broke me down until I thought there was nothing left. I spoke the words I had never dared to say out loud—that the man I had married had treated me like property, like a body to control, like a cage to keep his power in. I told them about the nights I begged him to stop, about the mornings I could barely get out of bed, about how I learned to smile through bloodied lips so no one would ask questions. Alisha had known some of it, suspected more, but even she hadn’t known the full truth until that night. I thought they’d look at me differently once they knew. Instead, they held me, cried with me, and reminded me that what he did was not who I am. That I was still here, and that mattered.
We made this space holy. A sanctuary in a world that doesn’t give women, queer kids, or survivors safe places. This is ours.
I move into the room, sliding into my spot by the sink, and the chatter dips for a moment before picking up again. Hazel’s telling Alisha about the client today, the one who wants each of them to tattoo him. Alisha makes a crude joke that has Hazel blushing so hard she nearly drops her beauty blender. Richie cackles, tossing his head back dramatically.
I laugh with them, but my chest aches, my mind snagging on the words still burning a hole in my pocket. This was supposedto be where we bare it all–our sacred room of redemption–but I’m clinging to a secret. A text. Not just any text, but one from him. From Gavin. After years of silence, his name alone feels like a wound reopening, tearing through layers of scar tissue that I had spent years healing. I had rebuilt myself, reclaimed my life, survived what he thought would kill me. His words slithered through me like poison last night, dragging nightmares back into my sleep. I thought I was free. But monsters don’t stay buried forever.
I know I need to tell them. Not just for me—for them. For their safety. If Gavin is back, he’ll use anyone he can to get to me. The thought makes bile rise in my throat.
I stare at myself in the mirror, watching my friends in the reflection. Hazel’s focused. Alisha’s confident. Richie’s exuberant. They’re light. They’remylight. I can’t bring Gavin’s shadow into this space. But if I don’t, it’ll creep in anyway.
I open my mouth to speak—
—and before I can utter a syllable Hazel shrieks, the sound sharp and panicked. My heart lurches, and I whip around, adrenaline spiking.
Her phone is clutched in her hands, her face going pale.
“Oh my God, guys!” she gasps. “June just texted.” She looks up, eyes wide with disbelief. “The shop was BLOWN UP.”
