The Finished Masterpiece Boxed Set - Pepper Winters Page 0,15

sprang to my eyes. I gasped as he climbed the podium behind me, and a fingertip traced the torn and tattered flesh of my back. “Wh-what happened?” A delicate question. A dangerous question. His voice was bare of all shields and tempers, annihilated into caring. His touch continued to trace, following the ink on top of scars. “What is this?”

I flinched as his breath skated over the lines and designs down my left side.

Staring at the floor, I murmured, “It’s a tattoo.”

“Why? Why did you not tell me?”

My heart clawed to go to him, recognising the catch in his voice as pain for not knowing. For tossing me to the side without a backward look. For casting me out where accidents had found me instead.

I wanted to tell him everything. I trembled with the pressure. The need to spill it all. The elation of being chosen to work for the London Dance Company. The joy of dancing every day and night. The horror of the moment when it was all taken away. The loneliness of not having anyone to lean on.

But...I had my pride. I had my stupid ego. I didn’t want to give him all of me. Not now, not yet. Some part of him missed me, maybe even still wanted me, but if he wasn’t brave enough to put down the barriers he’d erected, then I wasn’t either.

“I know I should’ve told you yesterday. I wasn’t honest in my interview.”

He tore his hand away, laughing brokenly. “That’s how you want to play this?”

Yes.

No.

I nodded.

Inhaling hard, he clipped, “In that case, as my canvas, I expected you to be in pristine condition.” His voice scratched with sandpaper. “How can I paint you when you’re already scribbled on?”

My chin came up. I’d chosen this path. I would defend it. “It’s not a scribble.”

“What is it?”

“Something very meaningful.” I wanted to twist and look at what he saw. Whenever someone saw my tattoo for the first time, I craved to see it from their point of view. To study it close and appreciate the talent of the artist I’d chosen.

My tattoo wasn’t a vanity thing.

It wasn’t an impulsive dare.

It was needed—to heal my broken pieces. To cover up the mess left behind.

I’d hated those scars. Hated me. Hated life itself.

Without ‘scribbling’ on myself, I doubted I’d be whole enough to go to battle with Gilbert Clark. I would’ve chosen to check out of trying and sink into my mind where I could still dance, still be happy.

His body cast shockwaves of fury and frustration behind me. He touched me again, gingerly, tenderly, tracing the filigree lines and lacework that convened into a large geometric pattern before bleeding into a realism piece of an owl. Imbedded in the owl’s feathers were as many creatures as I could name all starting with O.

For me.

Olin.

I shivered as he touched every blemish I knew well.

Would he understand? Would he see just how pathetic I was?

Back at school, I’d surrounded myself with friends. I’d looked after my fellow students because my parents didn’t look after me. I earned their gratefulness and friendships but they never patched up the holes inside me.

Until Gil had chosen me for his own.

Until he’d traded his secrets for mine and, in return, stole every piece of my heart.

It’d been a month into our tentative relationship.

A month of hurried smiles and hesitant hellos before he used the first nickname.

He’d always said my name was odd. That he didn’t know anyone else called Olin.

I’d said that was a good thing. It meant he would always remember me.

He’d said the letter O was just as unique as my name. Therefore, any animal beginning with O was just as special.

A few days later, he’d passed me my backpack after class. Whispered under his breath so the other kids couldn’t hear—a melodic rasp of secrecy. “Otter, don’t forget your bag.”

The next week, he’d called me owl by the gym, then octopus in the cafeteria.

I’d fallen in love with him after that.

Tumbled and tripped, rolled and cartwheeled, loving him more than I’d loved anybody.

Ocelot, orangutan, ostrich...

They were all there, peeking in the feathers, turning ugly scars into special uniqueness.

Gil sucked in a pained breath, a strangled grunt escaping his lips.

I twisted to look at him, studying the sudden grief painting his eyes and the regret sketching his mouth.

It was enough to make my knees turn week and my arms beg to hold him.

“You used us to cover your scars.” His voice vibrated with something I couldn’t decipher.