Page 240 of Bitter Poetry

I fell helplessly in love with her from the very first moment, and it only grows with every passing day.

She heals me in a way I didn’t know I needed.

As does the unwavering love of her two fathers.

But there is something else I need.

Something I have been waiting patiently for.

The final step, one I know in my soul, is necessary.

I remember in one of my art history classes learning about the Japanese practice of Kintsugi. How there is beauty in the broken. How, rather than throwing away broken pottery, they put it back together with gold. They don’t hide the damage.Instead, they honor the breaking and accentuate the scars left behind.

With Dante and Christian, I feel like my scars are seen, that I never need to hide them. What happened to me is not a dirty secret I need to be ashamed of. What’s more, the fact that I survived makes me even more precious to them.

“You sure about this, babe?” Christian asks.

“Never more,” I say. “The design is beautiful.” I send a shy glance at the huge, tattooed man with pretty hazel eyes and dirty blond hair, who goes by the unfortunate name of Goat.

I kept thinking Christian was joking with me. But then we turned up at the tattoo parlor, and the girl at reception hollered,“Goat! Clients are here,”which cleared that up.

“Ah-ah, sweetheart,” Dante says. “Two is your limit. Make eyes at Goat again, and I’ll have one of the boys come around and off him. Christian hasn’t had his sleeve tattoo finished yet, so that would be inconvenient all around.”

I swallow.

Goat chuckles, not at all bothered. “Are you good to go?”

“Yes,” I say, pointedly not looking at him. When Dante says things like that, he can sound so serious that it makes me a little nervous, truth be told. “I’m ready. I want to do this.”

“Alright,” Goat says, all business. “Let’s do this.”

It hurts.

Christian and Dante hold my hands the whole time, telling me that they love me, how I’m incredibly brave.

The tattoo is small, but perfect.

A bird flying out of a cage. It covers the small scar on my upper arm left by events in my past.

There are two more tattoos that go with it.

One on Christian’s ring finger.

One on Dante’s ring finger.

Theirs are both keys.

The keys that unlocked my cage.

The keys that set me free.