Page 95 of Lavender Lake
“Do it scared. I don’t need much of an explanation. It’s pretty self-explanatory.”
I looked at the barn ceiling when I replied, “About a week before the tattoos, I found a card my mother had written me. She always signed her notes withdo it scared. It was her mantra. And so I got it inked on me in her handwriting.”
“It’s your mantra too, yeah?”
I nodded, my eyes filling with tears. “When she—when she died, I didn’t feel much of anything. I did some things that I really shouldn’t have done just so I could hope to feel something. But then . . .”
Cas reached for my hand. I let him take it even though it felt uncomfortable, even though it felt cumbersome at that moment.
“Then something really terrifying happened. One day, I wasn’t numb anymore. I felteverything. It’s why I ran off to New York. It’s why I refused to come home often. The numbness I could understand. The numbness got me through life. But feeling? There were times I couldn’t breathe it hurt so bad.”
“The shower,” he murmured. “You couldn’t hold it in any longer.”
“Nope.”
We were silent for a moment, and then I said, “You don’t talk about your childhood.”
“No. I don’t.”
“Was it bad?”
He inclined his head. “Not terrible, I guess. But it’s wild, you know? From the first moment I can remember, I knew I wasn’t wanted. Abandoned six days after I was born? No mother. No father. No one coming back years later trying to claim me. I bounced from foster home to foster home until I was old enough to leave.”
“You chose a nomadic life, too,” I said softly. “Mine was because of nature. Yours was from nurture.”
“Or lack thereof, but yeah.” He frowned. “We have a lot in common. Maybe not when you first take a look, but deeper shit.”
“Is this . . . are we trauma bonding?” I quipped.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what.”
“Don’t make a joke and turn the focus away from the reality of how heavy this is.” He skimmed his thumb across my knuckles. “What is it you want, Salem? What do you want from life?”
“Adventure,” I said automatically.
“Adventure,” he repeated. “Like travel?”
“Adventure comes in many forms. But yeah, travel is good. I want new experiences. I want memories that are so poignant I can taste them, smell them . . . remember them when I’m old. I don’t want to roll into the grave thinking about a life unlived.”
“You’re not living just for yourself, are you?” he asked quietly. “You’re living for her, too.”
I both hated and loved that he seemed to understand me so easily. But the thing was, I understood him too. I understood everything he did in his life stemmed from that one pivotal moment of being left at six days old. Babies that young needed skin to skin contact, to hear their mother’s heartbeat. They needed love and security. And he’d never had that.
“There will be a time in my life that I’ll be the age she was when she died. But I’ll still be alive. I’ll still be breathing. So yeah, I’m living for both of us.” I turned my head to stare at him. “You think I’m crazy.”
“Yes.”
I frowned.
“Not in the way you think,” he explained. His face screwed up into a pensive expression as if he was searching for the words. “I’ve never known anyone like you, Salem. So determined, so fearless to live. But so . . .”
“So what?”
“Scared to love.”
“I’m not scared to love.”
