Page 52

Rocket

T he leather is cool against my back as I settle into the chair. There’s no such thing as getting comfortable when you’re about to subject yourself to pain, and yet this is a pain I welcome wholeheartedly.

I’ve done this a dozen times. Maybe more.

But today feels like it’s the first time.

Willow sits cross-legged on a worn leather couch across the room. She’s wearing one of my hoodies, sleeves shoved to her elbows, and bare legs tucked under her. She looks like home and heaven and hell all rolled into one.

Poppy’s on her lap, head buried under her neck, but eyes locked on me and the tattoo artist almost as if she’s fascinated but scared about what happens next.

This probably isn’t the brightest thing to show a three-year-old—because over my dead body if she wants a tattoo when she’s older—but it feels important for me to do this right now.

It will show her what her place is in my life—always .

The needle buzzes to life, and everything—the shop, the sound, the ache in my chest—all fades away.

And suddenly, I’m not here.

I’m back there.

The first time I saw her.

Not Willow.

Her. Poppy . Tiny. Silent. Holding a rabbit like it was the only armor she had, and with eyes too big for her face, looking at me like she already knew I was going to disappoint her.

I’d been hungover, still reeking of liquor and regret, staring at her like she was a vicious punishment.

She wasn’t a daughter to me that day. She was proof of who I’d been. Of how badly I’d screwed up.

I hadn’t seen her as a gift, but rather as a reckoning.

The needle touches my skin, right over my heart, and I suck in a sharp breath as the artist begins.

It burns. Not the needle. Not the pain it brings. More so, it’s the meaning behind what the ink is creating.

Because I’m not that man anymore. I’ve become a better version of myself in this brief time that Poppy has come into my life, and I’m fucking terrified to lose her.

This tattoo isn’t a punishment. It’s a promise.

I glance at Willow. She’s whispering something to Poppy, who’s still watching me with eyes wide, and tiny fingers curled around Willow’s.

I want to cry. I want to laugh. I want tostay right here forever.

“You were never my mistake, baby girl. You were my beginning,” I whisper to myself before gritting my teeth as the needle digs a bit deeper.

As I let it brand me with a representation of the one thing I’ve spent my whole life trying to believe I could deserve. A family.

Poppy.

Willow.

Us.

And fuck if that thought doesn’t start my spiral of thoughts all over again. I finally have something I never thought I wanted, deserved, and... what if I lose it?

The hearing. The custody battle. The possibility of losing Poppy. The thought of never having had Willow in my life .

I don’t want to imagine my life without either ever again.

The artist finishes shading the stem, wipes the skin, and starts lining the petals.

I close my eyes because I’m not just getting a tattoo.

I’m getting marked.

By them.

For them.

Forever.