Bee reaches over and for a second, everything inside me turns to stone because I think she’s going for my hand. Instead, she pulls that long weed from my fingers that I forgot I even had and starts playing with it herself.
“She is nice. Remember? I told you she’s perfect.” Another pause. “What about yours?”
“She tries to kill herself. The first time she did it so Laney would find her. She likes to hurt my sister.” The coldness in my voice hits me. Words might not be something I do well, but those I can say. I won’t hide from that or let Mom do it.
“Wow… that’s rough. How is she with you?”
The door I didn’t even realize was inside me slams shut. I didn’t tell. I knew what Dad was doing. If anything, I’m as guilty as he is.
“How she treats me doesn’t matter. I don’t matter when it comes to them.”
Restless, I tap a foot, knowing if she asks why, this time I will leave.
She doesn’t.
Instead, she leans her head over and rests on my shoulder, making me tense. Sucking a deep breath into my lungs, I… relax. The tension eases out with my exhale and I wait, wondering if she’ll give me a piece of her or if we’ll start the same old masquerade again.
Chapter Seventeen ~Bee~
I don’t matter when it comes to them.
No matter what I’ve gone through in my life, I’ve always known I mattered. When Rex and Melody looked at me with concern or bandaged my scrapes, I knew I mattered.
When I came home and found out how hard Mom and Dad looked for me and saw that my old room never changed and found all the old newspaper interviews online, I discovered I was important to them too.
Does he feel the same?
What’s wrong with me that I can’t return the love I get? That I can’t understand it when so many people long to receive a little of it?
My throat tightens, almost like a fist squeezing me. His mother tries to kill herself yet mine fought for me, still fights for me, and I ignore her.
Maddox is as closed off as I am, yet he’s given some of himself to me. He’s given me way more than I’ve shared with him. He covered for me today when he didn’t have to. And I feel… normal when I’m with him. It doesn’t matter that I’m the tattooed, pierced chick with the bad mouth. I’m just Bee.
That means something to me.
The urge to give him a part of me in return takes over.
“His name was the Professor.” Even though I should, I don’t lift my head from his shoulder. Despite the fact that I haven’t said who the Professor is, Maddox doesn’t ask. He’s letting me go at my pace. He knows me… Somehow through all of this, he knows me. I swallow the lump in my throat.
“I never really fit in when I was in high school and honestly, I didn’t give a shit.”
Tell him why. I can tell him why. That I was taken when I was young. Then when I went back home, I felt like I didn’t fit with my family. It hurt too. I wouldn’t let myself care if I fit anywhere else.
“I always drew, so that’s what I focused on—drawing and doing my own thing. When I turned eighteen, I decided to get my first tattoo and that’s where I met the Professor. He was old as hell, but good at what he did.”
I startle a little when Maddox’s arm lifts and wraps around my waist. Crazily, I can’t find the urge to pull away.
“So yeah, I went into see the Professor and I had my own drawing of what I wanted.” I bite my lip, hating to admit this next part. “I don’t know why, but I couldn’t do it. It’s like my hands wouldn’t work and I couldn’t grab the drawing out of my pocket to give it to him. I was freaked out, so I left.”
“I don’t believe that.” There’s a hitch to his voice that makes him sound different than he usually does. I’m pretty sure it’s because he’s trying to make me feel better.
“Nice try.”
“Was worth a shot.”
“I appreciate it.” That’s Maddox, I’m realizing. I can see him doing something like that for his sister—can see him trying to make her feel better.
“For the next week I was pissed at myself. I wanted that ink and I wasn’t the type of person to get scared of something. So I went back and then kind of freaked out again. Every week for a month, Maddox. I went back four separate times. By then the Professor started calling me ‘the B-Back.’ It’s what they call—”
“People who chicken out getting a tat,” he interrupts.
Not sure why I didn’t think he’d know that. “Yep. I was the girl who always said she’d ‘be back.’ Crazy, isn’t it?”
He moves a little as though he’s getting more comfortable. You can move your arm, plays on my tongue, but I don’t let the words free. I should want him to move away. I don’t.
“I’ve heard crazier.”
At that I pull away enough so I can look at him, wondering how in the hell we got here. How I got here with anyone. “Careful, I might start thinking you’re nice.”
He tilts his head down and the urge to reach up and kiss him teases me.
“I could start thinking the same about you.”
Then he says nothing—back to his quiet and waiting for me to finish the story.
I look away again. “I was pretty pissed at myself. It was a tattoo. I’d been through way too much in my lifetime to freak out over that, so I went back, the drawing in my hand. Without a word, I handed it to him and he said he knew I’d do it.
“So I did. I let the Professor give me my first tattoo. He’s given me all of them, actually. I’ve never trusted anyone else to do it.”
“Which one?” Maddox asks.
“The Gemini sign on my lower back. It’s—”
“The twins. Two complete opposites living in one body. The yin and yang.”
Trying to play it off like my stomach isn’t quivering because he knew exactly what it means, I laugh. “You’re usually so damn quiet and now I can’t shut you up. That’s the second time you interrupted me.”
“And I never thought you would be the type to keep avoiding what you’re trying to say. You always say whatever the hell you want, and if you didn’t want to tell me this story, you wouldn’t have started, so do it. What’s up with the Gemini?”
The hairs on the back of my neck rise but I ignore them. After sitting up, I pull away from Maddox to see the challenge in his eyes. “I’ve always felt like there are two of me. Getting it tatted made it real. Then I realized not getting it done didn’t make it false either.” Wanna play hardball, we’ll play hardball. “Why don’t you matter when it comes to your mom and sister?”
“Because I kept my mouth shut when I should have spoken up, and they got hurt.”
I cross my arms, running his response over in my mind. For some reason, I didn’t expect him to answer.
My eyes continue to study Maddox as he does the same to me, as though we’re picking each other apart and categorizing the other. “You take responsibility for everything that’s gone wrong in your family’s lives, the same way you try to take care of your sister, don’t you?”
I wait for it. Wait for the anger that I know Maddox is capable of. Not violence, because that’s not him, but the anger he feels at the world—the same emotion I see every time I look in the mirror.
“I don’t do this, Bee.” He shakes his head, looks out at the football game again.
My eyes travel the same line of sight as his, watching the game but not taking it in. “Me either…” After taking a couple deep breaths, I continue. “The Professor asked me who did the drawing and I told him I did. He asked if I was lost and I told him I was. I felt like that for years… lost, like I didn’t really know who I was. Then he asked, ‘Wanna come back tomorrow, B? Maybe work with me?’ I know it sounds crazy but everything kind of clicked into place then. I could come back to his tattoo parlor and I could become Bee. Not because I was a B-Back, but because it’s who I wanted to become. Bee—the girl who chose who she was and didn’t let anyone pick it for her.”