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“I surf,” he says finally, almost hesitantly.
I blink. “I’m sorry,you? Surfing?”
He chuckles softly. “Is that so hard to imagine?”
“I mean, the lack of puka shell necklaces and overuse of the words ‘gnarly’ and ‘bruh’ sort of make it difficult.”
I glance up at him again, trying to picture him on a surfboard, cutting through waves. It’s hard to imagine—no, actually, it’s not. There’s something wild about Mal, something untamable, like the ocean itself.
Surfing has always seemed like freedom to me—wild and exhilarating, like flying across the water. “Must be nice,” I say quietly, trying to keep my voice light. “I’ve never surfed.”
Mal’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “Why not?”
I shrug. “The sun?”
“That’s the only thing stopping you?”
I snort. “The threat of crippling agony and burning is a definite turnoff.”
“I could teach you,” he says, his voice low and steady.
I look up at him, startled. “What?”
“At night,” he says, a hint of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “I could teach you. No sunlight, no crowds. Just us.”
For a moment, I can’t breathe. The idea of surfing, of feeling that kind of freedom,with Mal… It sends a thrill through me, a spark of something wild and reckless.
But fear is there too, dampening my excitement.
“I don’t know,” I murmur. “I can’t?—”
“You can,” he interrupts, his voice firm.
There’s a blazing certainty in his voice that makes me want to throw caution to the wind and just…live. For once, I want to forget about the Huntington’s, about the ticking bomb that’s inside me. I want to be free. I want to be reckless.
But the fear is still there, whispering in the back of my mind.
My gaze drags back to his Kanagawa tattoo. Then it slides down to the scar that cuts through the bottom of the piece. It’s jagged and rough, like something that wasn’t meant to be there, and it stands out against the smooth lines of the ink. But it also looks much older than the tattoo around it. In fact, the artist who did this tattoo has clearly gone out of their way to work around it, since tattooing scar tissue is so tricky. So it’s older than the tattoo.
I’ve noticed it before, but I’ve never asked about it. Now, though, with the darkness blanketing us and the quiet intimacy of the moment, I feel emboldened to ask.
“How did you get that?” I ask softly, tracing the scar with my fingers.
Mal tenses beneath my touch. For a moment, I think he’s going to brush off the question like he always does when anything feels too personal. But then he sighs, his eyes flicking away.
“It happened when I was young,” he says, his voice hollow and distant. “That’s all.”
I frown, guessing there’s more to the story, but I don’t push. We all have our scars, visible and invisible, and some are too painful to share.
Silence settles over us again, but it’s comfortable, like we’ve said all that needs to be said for now. I lean back against his chest again, closing my eyes as I let the rhythm of his breathing lull me into a sense of calm.
The storm outside may have passed, but the storm inside me rages on, a constant battle between wanting more and knowing I can never have it.
I haven’t told Mal about the Huntington’s, that I’m living on borrowed time. I don’t know if I’lleverbe able to tell him.
But for now, I’ll take this moment, with his arms around me, and his heart beating against mine, and I’ll hold onto it as tightly as I can.
Later that night, as the moon rises higher in the sky and the world outside the windows fades into darkness, I find myself staring at the ink on my skin again.
