Page 118 of Ink Me Three Times
There’s a pause on the line.
Not the bad kind, as if she’s about to yell or start crying. Just the kind where I know she’s trying to figure out which part of my emotional Jenga tower to pull on first.
“Okay,” she says, finally. Calm. “That’s a start.”
Pickle snorts softly, mocking me. Traitor.
I roll my fingers over the threadbare edge of Jesse’s comforter, the one that reeks of old cologne, weed, and a hint of pine from the nearby forest. Typical Jesse.
“It gets… messier,” I say, voice cracking a little. “Way messier.”
“Of course it does,” Olivia says. She’s heard my life story a dozen times and knows it’ll never be neat. “Spill it.”
So I do.
“It’s… it’s about the guys,” I say, my voice catching a little. “Freddie, Mitchell, Timothy.”
“Yeah?” There’s curiosity there, but no surprise. She knows about them, she met them all and put Mitchell at the forefront of her preferences.
But she doesn’t know this part.
I take a shaky breath. “It’s… all of them. Like… all of them in one night. At the tattoo con.”
Silence. Even Pickle seems to sense it, because his tail stops thumping against my ribs.
“Wait,” Olivia says softly, her spoon pausing mid stir. “All… at once?”
I close my eyes. My chest might as well be caving in. “Yeah. I… I don’t even know how it happened, Liv. It was after the con, and it just… it felt right. Like it wasn’t weird, it wasn’t forced. It was just… real.”
Her gasp is quiet. I can almost see her sitting cross legged on her living room floor, wide eyed, eyebrows somewhere in her hairline.
“Oh no way,” Olivia breathes, voice tight.
“Yeah,” I say, flat. I’m trying to sound casual but failing spectacularly. “Plot twist.”
There’s a shuffle on her end, maybe pacing, maybe grabbing snacks, probably a combo of both.
“Ivy. What the actual hell?”
“I know,” I whisper. “It’s crazy, right?”
“I’m going to murder you.”
“Gently, please. Maybe with a scented candle and a blanket.”
Her sigh travels across the line. “I can’t believe you didn’t call me sooner.”
“I didn’t know how,” I admit. My voice goes all wobbly, the one I hate but can’t stop. “Every time I thought about it, I just felt like a dumpster fire of a person. Like I was dragging everyone down.”
Silence.
Then: “Okay. First of all? No. You didn’t screw up. You made a series of bold, very sexy decisions that led to... well, this.”
I let out a laugh, watery and bitter. “Sexy choices. Sure.”
“I’m serious,” she says. “You didn’t hurt anyone. You weren’t reckless. You let yourself feel something, even if it’s complicated. That doesn’t make it wrong.”
I close my eyes and swallow. “I don’t know if I’m keeping it.”
