40. Byrd

40

Byrd

" H oly shit. It's you." The young woman with spiky orange hair and a riot of color on her amber skin gawks at me as the door of the tattoo parlor swings shut to the chime of bells.

"Um, hi?" I take in the vivid mural on one wall and the clutter of images crowding the others. It feels clean, at least, the faint odor of sanitizer wafting from a curtain at the back.

"You're Echo's Byrd." Her elbows hit the display counter with a thud, and a crooked smile tugs at the piercings in her purple-painted lower lip.

Echo's Byrd . Every time he called himself my Echo, it turns out he had it backward, and it takes a girl I've never met to call it out.

"He wasn't kidding about the hair."

I drag a self-conscious hand through the waves I've left loose today. "You must be Audrey."

"Yep." Her smile fades at the edges. "You know he's not here, right? He left for that school in Europe a month ago."

"I know. I'm here to see you. "

"You want ink? And you couldn't find anyone to do it in the Bay? I know a shit-ton of sick artists up there. You could've saved yourself a long-ass drive."

"How do you know I drove?"

She jerks her head toward the glass door behind me where the 4-Runner shimmers in the Southern California sun. "That's not an airport rental."

"I like driving the coast," I admit, crossing the room to rest my elbows on the counter.

"Everyone likes PCH until they're stuck behind some geezer tourist in an RV. Or are you one of those pseudo-locals who still goes apeshit over the scenery?"

"I had a lot of thinking to do."

"About a tattoo?" Her grin is infectious, and I find myself returning it. I can see why Echo likes her. He'd still win in the sass department, though.

"Well, c'mon, then," she says, snagging a sketchbook from the counter and vacating her stool. "You must have some good ideas after, what, nine hours on the road? Let's go make them better."

"More like twelve. There were a lot of RVs." And I follow her laughter through the curtain to place my heart in her hands.

It turns out tattoos are fucking painful. By the end of my grueling session under the needle, I have a whole new appreciation for Echo's commitment to his body as a canvas, and I'm convinced Audrey has to be a sadist to do what she does.

It's also a strangely intimate experience. Maybe because of the piece I chose and how close she is to Echo. Maybe because the whole time, I was thinking about how her hands and her tools have been on his skin too .

Or maybe because I seem to have a knack for surrounding myself with women who have no filter and find it infinitely amusing to lecture me about my life.

"Are you going to tell him I was here?" I ask as she snaps pictures of the finished tattoo—first with her phone and then with an ancient Polaroid for her portfolio.

"Are you going to go show it to him?" She shakes the Polaroid in one hand while flipping through the album with the other.

"I plan to."

She huffs in satisfaction—at my response or possibly because she's found the page she's looking for. "Then why would I ruin the surprise?"

Peeking over her shoulder, I find a collage of a dozen shirtless Echos. Even in the ones without his face, I recognize the words and familiar contours of his skin. The ink in each is fresh and vibrant black, the edges lined with the same red protest my own skin has recently discovered. Unthinking, I trace a finger over the cellophane shielding the image of his broken wing. She slides the new photo into an empty sleeve beneath it and tosses me a sympathetic look.

"Sit down so I can get you wrapped up before you run off after him."

I sink obediently back onto her chair, balling my discarded shirt in my hands.

"I wasn't trying to break his heart, you know."

Her deft fingers stall in the process of taping the bandage to my chest, and she pins me with amused eyes.

"Don't give yourself too much credit. I'm pretty sure he knew you'd come around."

"Why do you say that?"

She smirks. "Hot for teacher."

"He was not serious about that. "

"Don't worry. It's very tasteful for a tramp stamp. I have standards, even if he obviously doesn't."

"Jesus. Thanks a lot."

"You're welcome. You can put your shirt on now."

With my blush hidden in the ratty cotton, I find the courage to ask, "How was he doing? When you saw him."

She waits until I emerge from my dubious armor to reply.

"He was sad. And beautiful. And better ."

"That's…good." My fingers trace the bandage over my heart. "Thank you." This time, I mean it.

"Thanks for driving all this way. I'm glad I got to meet you." She offers her hand, and when I clasp it, she doesn't let go. "You know, it is possible to be more than whole together without being less than whole apart."

Wisdom from the vantage of youth. I guess it's past time I start listening.

The smart thing—the responsible thing—would be to get a hotel room, but I'm too wired to subject myself to a whole night of staying still. So instead, I grab a quick dinner from a roadside taco shack and hit the road as the sun sinks into the Pacific.

I call as soon as I clear the city, hoping to catch him before he heads to classes for the day .

Hope is an unlocked dive.

"An actual phone call. You're showing your age, old man."

"I'm driving. This seemed like the safest option."

"Where are you going? Isn't it late out there?"

I'm chasing you.

"I'm headed home."

"From a hot date?"

"What? No. Why would you say that?"

"I don't know. I don't know what to think anymore. I haven't heard from you since you turned me the fuck out the other morning. I thought maybe I pissed you off by leaving. Or that you regretted it."

"I sent you the video. Did that look like me regretting anything?"

"No," he admits. "But then where have you been for the last three days?"

"I've been doing some thinking."

"Sounds ominous. Good thinking or bad thinking?"

"Hard thinking. About stuff I should have told you weeks ago."

"I'm not sure I can handle any more of your confessions."

"Too bad. You're gonna listen to this one."

"I'm almost to campus. Do I need to turn around?"

"Just give me five minutes, and then I'll let you go, I promise."

"I hate it when you let me go."

"Fuck, baby. I know . That's why I need to say this, okay?"

"Okay."

Now that he's listening, my hands are shaking on the wheel, and the smear of oncoming traffic sets off a pike of panic behind my eyes.

"Coen? "

I fucking love it when he calls me that, the syllables somehow softer and more vivid from his tongue. I love that he's resurrected something from my life before Gabriel, and how he's claimed it as his own.

"I never knew I could want something the way I wanted you," I blurt, unable to hold back any longer. "It made me stupid when I should have been brave, and reckless when I should have been strong. It made me want to keep pieces of you for myself when I've only ever been good at giving things away.

"I didn't know what to do with those feelings, Echo, so I decided the only way to have you and still leave you intact was to make you temporary. For your sake even more than mine. I convinced myself that if you were temporary , then my past didn't matter. My secrets didn't matter. Because I was afraid that if you found them out, you'd disappear before I was ready to let you go."

"I—"

"But then you found out, and you not only stayed , you kept right on loving me. And even though it was what I hoped for, it scared the fucking shit out of me. I realized if you'd let me hurt you that much and still forgive me, then you might never leave. And how badly I wanted that paralyzed me." I press a palm to my chest, breathing hard, as the taillights in front of me run together like blood on still water. "I couldn't let myself be that man."

"I know , Coen," he says, tinged with frustration, and I blink back to warm leather sticky at my back and the hum of the 4-Runner's AC.

"You know?"

"You think I fell in love with you without learning who you are? You think I would have let you drive me away if I could have stayed without destroying you?" The helpless urgency in his voice threatens to unravel me. "But none of those things are excuses. You should have known me just as well. You should have trusted me to make my own decisions, even if they scared you. Why did you assume I'd make the wrong ones? You might have been clueless at my age, but we've already established I'm the emotionally mature one in this relationship. Situation. Whatever." He sighs, uncertainty oozing from the pause that follows. " Is this still a relationship, Coen?"

The most important one I've ever had. But his opinion is the one that matters.

"Do you want it to be?" I definitely shouldn't be driving. I can hardly feel the pedal under my foot, and the highway is a blur through the windshield. Rolling down the window, I suck in brine and diesel and wish I could see his face.

"Send me another video and I'll decide."

Something tenuous stretches its fragile wings behind my ribcage.

"And you wonder why I question your decision-making process." I'm grinning like a lunatic, alone in the dark. "That's not going to help you think with the right head."

"You don't know that. My dick and my brain have always been on the same page when it comes to you."

"Lucky boy." My brain is finally catching up to what my dick—and my heart—have known all along.

"Coen? Do you still want this to be a relationship?"

"I'm hoping you'll let me try."