Page 85 of Under the Ink

“Maybe it helpssomepeople.”

“It does. It helpedme.”

Naomi turned so she could look in his eyes—and in her deep green ones, he saw a mere glimpse of the vulnerability she tried so hard to hide behind the glare she often wore.

But now he knew better.

She asked, “Yousaw a psychiatrist?”

“A psychologist, actually, and hell, yeah. One of the best things I ever did for myself.”

With a slight smile, she said, “This I gotta hear.”

“Fair enough.” After all, she’d told him about her painful past. Even though his paled in comparison, he could do the same. “I was an awkward kid—but lots of us are. What made my awkwardness difficult was constantly moving, ‘cause of my dad being in the army. We moved a lot, like every two years, until I was in middle school. And that’s when the problems started. I was pretty quiet anyway… I kind of lost my voice when my mom died. And I don’t really remember what it was like when she was alive.”

When Naomi put her hand on his and squeezed, his heart nearly burst out of his chest—assuring him that he needed to tell her everything. She said, “Kids can be mean.”

“Yeah. I was going to the middle school on base—meaning it’s full of nothing but army brats. And there was this group of boys—always fighting, full of scrapes and bruises…just general assholes. Now that I’ve had a chance to look back, I think at least two of those kids were being abused at home and were taking it out on the easiest scapegoat. When I came along, that was me. I was the shortest kid there.”

“You were theshortest?”

“I know. Hard to believe now. But I didn’t really skyrocket till high school. Anyway, these kids fuckin’ picked on me all the time—about my clothes, my interest in math, all kinds of stupid shit. They played football and I didn’t. They wore brand-name crap and I had clothes from Walmart. About that time, dad got remarried, so he was clueless about what was going on with me, and my stepmom didn’t know how to help…but I think she figured out pretty quickly that something was wrong. Of course, I didn’t say anything. Both her and my dad were too focused on their careers. So I did what any bullied kid did—I tried to keep my head down and not get their attention.

“But I was a target…so they didn’t forget about me. They were fucking relentless. Every goddamn day. In the halls, the bathroom, behind the building, anywhere no one could see, they were tormenting me, inflicting pain. And even in class, they’d sit by me when they could and call me names or flick shit at me. For some reason, they thought calling me aband geekwas a horrible insult. But it was better than some of their other names for me, likedick lickerorass munch.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you, Sage.”

He shrugged, smiling at her in the soft glow of the lamp, admiring how she appeared to have all her guardrails down right now. “My dad, when I was older, constantly told me what didn’t kill me made me stronger. So I just kind of stuffed that shit down. When we moved to Winchester, I figured I’d just have new bullies—but I joined band there too and that’s where I met Mickey, and everything changed. He was a fighter, so no one fucked with me—but that wasn’t why we became friends. I think we first bonded because we’d both been kind of outcasts.”

“I get that.”

“Wereyoutreated that way?”

“Sometimes. I was called aJesus freaka lot.”

“Kids can be real assholes.”

“Yeah, they can.”

Sage took in a long breath through his nostrils and pulled her hand into his, holding it softly and rubbing his thumb along the tattoo on her wrist, not surprised to feel more scar tissue there on the underside. He wished he could kiss it all away but also knew Naomi might not have been the woman he was growing to love had she not endured all the shit she had.

Still…he was hoping he could inspire her to try something different.

“High school was way better.Waybetter. Even not being a popular kid, I wasn’t bullied all the time. There was one incident later…not bullying but, uh, I guess you could call it long-game manipulation. But here’s what I’m getting at. There are professionals out there who are trained to help you deal with trauma. And that’s what it was—traumatic. But I’d bet that the shit I dealt with was nothing like what you’ve endured.”

“That doesn’t mean you were on a picnic.”

“Right…but I saw a psychotherapist to help me with that shit.”

Naomi sat up, turning her head. “Really?”

“Yeah. Otherwise, I was gonna drink my ass into an early grave—or OD on some stupid shit.”

“What made you do that?”

“You know how all the roadies have names for each other? Like Sippi and Banjo and Three Eyes?”

Her expression showed how much she didn’t care for that any more than he did. “Yeah.”

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