Page 21 of Our Secrets and Scars

“Do you have it?” He looks at me, confused. “Do you have it tattooed on you, I mean?”

He nods silently.

“Where?”

“Chest, my left side.”

I’m suddenly assaulted by the overwhelming need to see it in real life. To see how it looks drawn directly onto skin and not just paper. To see if it’s as beautiful as a tattoo as it is as a graphite sketch.

“Do a lot of people ask to get it done?”

“Yeah.” He nods. “But I never let them. It’s personal.”

I frown, confused. “You offered it to me though.”

He sighs, avoiding my curious gaze and staring straight ahead. “Apparently so.”

“What made you design it?” I ask, desperate for the answer.

I don’t understand why, but it’s like Ineedto know. Like my soul will never be at rest unless he tells me. There’s just some reason, some inexplicable, incomprehensible reason, that I feel in my bones that the meaning behind the tattoo is important.

“Just a girl I knew once.”

“Wow, lucky girl.” I breathe. Because she is, to have someone think of her that way. To have someone accept that she’s not perfect and for them to worship her imperfections like the dawn. “She must have been very special to you.”

“She was.”

We fall into silence. And in the gentle quietness, we walk together through the college grounds to my class, the sounds of students milling around and the rustle of leaves as the wind blows through, filling the gap between us.

It isn’t awkward though.

It’s strangely comforting, just walking with him and being in his presence without trying to find something to say. And maybe it’s the fact that I don’t know his name that makes it so easy to be with him because there are no expectations. There’s none of the pressure that often comes with being around a guy you’re interested in.

Because there is no space left in my heart for me to get to know someone romantically. It’s already taken up completely by a man I’ve never met. A man who made me fall in love with him just through his words written on paper. A man who doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore.

And it’s because of that fact that when H and I arrive outside the lecture hall where my class is being held, I don’t ask to see him again. I don’t even ask his name. Not simply because I know he won’t tell me, but because I don’t need to know it.

He can keep his secrets and his mysteries and his real name to himself.

Just as I’ll keep mine.

Four

Kinsley

RETURN ADDRESS

Benchmark Plaza

5 Heritage Center, #822

Salt Lake City, UT 84112

DearFletcher,

I write this knowing that you’ll never read it. But I can’t go on living my life waiting for a letter from you. I can’t keep going to my mailbox every morning, only to cry when I inevitably find it empty. It’s hurting me too much, and I need to start trying to move on.

It’s my fault, really. I know that. You didn’t ask for me to fall in love with you. You probably weren’t even aware of the effect your words could have on a girl like me. It’s just… you found me in pieces and gave me peace. And somehow, through your letters, you began to put me back together.

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