It was almost too difficult to believe—that this man, theonlyman, to show me a measure of kindness had a version of himself that put my moniker to shame.
I wondered what his secrets would look like stacked against my own. I buried most of mine with Foster, but there were some still stuck in my throat and hidden beneath a loose floorboard under my bed.
Roman’s were hidden in plain sight, and now that I was close to him, I could see their shadows. The tattoos painting his skin were a mask, a kaleidoscope of colors that concealed raised ridges of skin and barely there scars. I ran the tip of my finger along their edges, tracing both the pain he experienced and the designs he’d chosen to cover them up.
“You’ve found a map to my past, baby bird.”
I rested my chin on his chest, peering up at him with curiosity filling my eyes. My throat bobbed, and I choked a little on the questions that were lodged at the base.
“I see your questions, sweetheart.” He palmed the back of my head, using his thumbs to trace shapes against my scalp. “I grew up here in Massachusetts, in a town a few hours away. After high school, I did the college thing and got a degree in psychology because it interested me. Around the time I finished my masters, my brother graduated high school and enlisted in the Marines. The big brother in me couldn’t let him go alone. I spent three years in active duty. Towards the end, I found myself a little too close to a blast. Flames ate the top layer of my skin and there was shrapnel that tore me open but really, I was lucky it didn’t spread past my arm.”
Trauma rarely felt fortuitous, but I think I understood… in my own way, on my own level.
Covert scars and dark dreams didn’t seem so bad when there was still breath inside your lungs… and a big enough reason to force them to work.
“After my injuries, I stayed with the military and put my degree to use. I counseled people like myself. People who’d been hurt in the line of duty, POW victims, and families of those who’d lost loved ones. Some days, that job was more painful than the weeks I’d spent in the hospital, but I felt a responsibility toward them. In some ways, I’d felt like I was doing more with a pen in my hand than I ever did with a gun.”
I ran two fingers across the phoenix on his arm, trailing the feathers as they fell.
“A little more than two years ago, I lost my brother. He was somewhere across the world, in a desert with bullet holes in his chest and all alone. Charlie’s death felt like the end of everything, and I spiraled.Hard.I quit my job because it made little sense for me to help people anymore, not when I couldn’t seem to help myself. I spent about a year grieving, and it wasn’t until I’d gotten word that Charlie’s unit had taken out the man who’d killed him that I felt like I could live again. I moved back to Massachusetts and picked up my pen, but I also promised myself that I’d never put down my gun. Not fully. The psychologist and the soldier work in tandem now, and I’ve never felt them blend so seamlessly until I met you.”
Each word he spoke felt like another layer he peeled back, tearing himself to pieces and offering me them all. I ached to give him something in return, to match one of his scars with one of my own, but when my lips parted, there was silence.
It crushed me in a way that made my eyes wet, and I burned with a lick of frustration. I hadn’t wanted to speak—had been afraid of what would be revealed if I did, but now that I found a purpose for my words, they were anxious to come out and play.
I wrapped my arms around him instead, squeezing his middle with every bit of strength I could summon. It wasn’t much, but he grunted with my efforts, and I hoped he’d could feel my empathy.
Charlie was his Foster…
“I got my phoenix tattoo as soon as I moved back here. A symbol of new life rising from my old one. The cracked beak was supposed to represent my grief, but now when I look at it, I only see you.”
Baby Bird.
I’d not had a nickname before—not one that I liked, anyway.
The label he’d given me seemed to ease the pain of the one everyone else used, and if I was a bird, he was one too.
I sat up straight, capturing his attention. He watched my gestures carefully as I pointed to myself and flapped my wings. I repeated my movements, but this time, I pointed at him.
“You're baby bird, and I’m… big bird?”
I slapped a palm over my mouth, a chuckle tickling my throat as I shook my head.
He laughed. “Okay, let me try again. You’re baby bird, so that makes me…”
I flapped my wings even higher, up above my head, showing the strength his bird possessed—a strength my bird hadn’t quite found yet.
“Daddy bird?” He guessed, and I smiled.
Yes.
CHAPTERSEVEN
ROMAN
Ridgemont High had a cryptic reputation—the old church turned school for misfits, hidden beneath the fog and locked behind gates.
It was enchanting in a vile sort of way, a villainous little village we’d all heard about as kids but never quite knew which stories were genuine and which ones were made up for the sake of the scare.