He stood, took my hand. “Anywhere you go.”
We walked into my tiny bathroom to face the thing I didn’t want to face. As I stood there, in front of the mirror, with Ryder’s arms holding me tight, my back against his front, I finally looked at the mark.
Two black circles, each small as a freckle, but perfectly round, and perfectly placed.
It was strange that something that had hurt so much, something that had the power to change me so deeply, left so little a mark. I felt like I should be wearing a sign that said “damaged” or “failure” or, at least, “injured.” But some wounds only scar on the inside.
Ryder was silent, his breathing steady, his warmth an anchoring necessity.
When I looked back up in the mirror at him, he was watching me.
“I’d like to forget this, for at least a little while,” I said softly.
“Forget what?” His breath was warm against the opposite side of my neck, my cheek.
“Everything. Except us.”
His arms tightened and his palm, resting on my stomach, shifted to drag upward so his fingers brushed the edges of my breasts.
“We can do that,” he said. “But I still have one more question left.”
“Question?”
“We agreed to ten. I’ve only asked you nine.”
I nodded, my eyes never leaving his in the mirror. “Anything.”
“Do you love me?”
My heart was pounding hard, my pulse fluttering. I could pass. I could say no. But we’d promised each other the truth, and I was so tired of secrets.
“Yes.”
I think both of us stopped breathing, afraid to shatter this fragile thing between us. “Do you love me?” I whispered.
“Yes.”
One exhaled word, heat against my skin, solace in my soul, and we were breathing again. But there was something new in the air. Something new in the world. Something new about us.
The truth.
“Good,” I said.
And when I turned in his arms, when he kissed me as we stumbled to my bed, slowly peeling off each other’s clothes, I knew that it was one extraordinary, ordinary truth that would never change between us.