One night.
That was how long I wore his jacket. And it wasn’t even the whole night. Just until he dropped me back off at my car. 4:37 a.m.: headlights cut fog, wine burns in our throats, his eyes do not move from the steering wheel.
Even a shower that set off the smoke alarm could not remove the earthy musk from my skin or stop the phantom leather from chafing against my arms and back. When I lifted up my hair in the mirror I saw that his initials, scribbled in fat ink on the tag, had fused to the back of my neck. A brand.
I called to demand answers. Straight to voicemail.
Family and friends pleaded with me to get it removed. Several expensive rounds of tattoo removal only made the edges sharper, the ink glossier.
Other men tried to claw it off to no avail. The blood only made your his presence stronger.
The words he said to me — “Godyou’resofuckingbeautiful” and “You’regonnamakeithere,Iknowit” — vibrate under my skin on walks to the coffee shop or while studying the blinking cursor on my monitor screen. Sometimes I hear the words coming out of my own mouth in his voice.
I’m told I walk different now. Dress different, too. The people I knew before him no longer recognize me. I smile; they look down.
My eyes even look like his now. Slowly they changed from brown to gold to hazel to ice.
These days they don’t even blink.
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