Page 112 of Between the Blue
I lift my arms above my head, trying to catch my breath as I come down.
After a few seconds, I slowly open my eyes, finding Ben above me once more. His eyes aren’t on my face though. His head is cocked to the side as he raises his hand, tracing his finger down my right arm
“I didn’t know you were hiding all of these,” he says, referring to my tattoos.
“I wasn’t,” I breathe.
My tattoos are all fine-lined and small. They’re also mostly hidden when my arm is down at my side. And, of course, when I’m wearing sleeves. I can understand how he wouldn’t have really noticed them.
“I’d seen this one at the gym before,” he says, touching the mirrorball near my shoulder. And something about him mentioning the gym, that other secret strange part of our relationship, where it all started, sends an odd feeling through me. “But I hadn’t noticed the others.”
“Intimidated by my ink?” I ask sarcastically. And Ben, who has tattoos covering nearly one-third of the skin on his body, rightfully gives me a deadpan look in response.
He grips my wrist, turning my arm towards him to examine it further. And, a moment later, I feel his fingers tighten on me. I look up at him, seeing his brows pulled together.
“What?” I question him.
“What’s this?”
My brows raise as I turn my head to look at what he’s talking about, finding him pointing to the sunset tattoo I have above the crease of my elbow. It’s fairly abstract, with only a handful of lines and half a circle. I would still think that it’s fairly obvious what it is though. “A sun?”
“Why?” he asks, his voice nearly a whisper.
“Oh…” I say, glancing between him and the tattoo. “Well, my Nana has always called me Sunny.”
Ben’s throat bobs, but he doesn’t say anything.
After a few seconds of silence that are on the verge of getting awkward, I add, “She thought my hair looked like sunshine when I was a little kid. Not quite blonde, but not fully red. So, yeah. The nickname just stuck ever since.”
My gaze had trailed away while I was rambling, but it finds Ben once more, and I’m confused when I find him looking like he’s in pain, his face suddenly pale.
I sit up a little. “Ben?”
He instantly snaps out of whatever trance he’d found himself in, his expression shifting straight to anger.
Before I can even start to question him, he is up off the couch, dropping my arm and reaching for his jacket on my coffee table in one swift motion. He turns away from me as he throws it back on, then he makes a beeline for my door, not saying a word as he does so.
I stand up from the couch, my legs still feeling shaky from what my body just went through mere minutes ago. I shuffle a few steps towards him. “Um, are you leaving?”
“Clearly,” Ben says, his tone cold.
I rear back, crossing my arms. “I see the asshole is back, then.”
Ben freezes as he’s reaching for my door knob, and he slowly turns back to me with dark eyes and a deep crease between his brows.
“Why would you think that anything has changed here?”
My shoulders drop as my head tilts at him.
“Don’t forget what this is,” he says.
“This?” I question him, waving my finger between us. “What isthis, Ben?”
“I already told you.” He takes one step towards me, his mouth twisting into a scowl. “Nothing.”
My lips part, and Ben steps away from me. He throws open my door, stepping out into the night and slamming it behind him, leaving me with his words echoing in my deeply confused and muddled head.
Don’t forget what this is.
