Beauty in the Ashes

“Need to hold my hand?” Caelan joked from somewhere behind me.

I rolled my eyes. “Not likely.”

The whir of the machine filled the room. I closed my eyes and laid back. It didn’t hurt—not at all, at least to me. The slight sting of pain was actually pleasant.

“All done,” she said, wiping excess ink off my wrist. She wrapped it up, going over care instructions. Then it was Caelan’s turn. He handed her a slip of paper that I was sure contained what he wanted. After discussing placement and font, she left us alone again.

“What are you getting?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” was his smart-ass reply.

“Come on, tell me,” I pleaded, but he wasn’t having it. I didn’t get to see the script until she placed the outline on the skin of his upper back. “Fate is always there to carry us home,” I read. He glanced over at me with a sad look in his eyes. “Your mom wrote this, didn’t she?”

He nodded simply and turned away, staring ahead.

I repeated the words in my mind, marveling at their meaning. It made sense, if you believed in fate—no matter what we did, or who we became, some things were meant to be. You couldn’t fight it. You couldn’t question it. You had to accept it.

Once his tattoo was done we paid Alba and said goodbye.

We walked around town—not holding hands, our relationship would never be lovey-dovey, no matter what—and went in and out of a few shops, eventually stopping to eat a late lunch.

Weird, could not even begin to describe what I felt sitting in a restaurant, in broad daylight no less, eating a meal with Caelan Gregory. We didn’t talk very much. I think we both felt extremely awkward. So far, our entire relationship had pretty much taken place behind closed doors.

On our way back home, I spotted something in one of the many stores and forced him to wait outside while I went in. Once I had the item purchased, I walked back outside and handed him the bag. He raised it in question and shook it. “What is this for?”

“It’s a gift,” I smiled, swaying back and forth.

“A gift? For what? Are we celebrating something?”

“No,” I laughed. “I saw it,” I pointed to the store behind us, “and knew you had to have it.”

“Oh,” he murmured as we started walking once more. “Can I open it?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“You know,” he said, reaching into the bag, “I can’t remember the last time someone gave me a gift.”

I frowned. “Well, you’re getting one now.”

He pulled the item out of the bag and unwrapped the tissue paper.

He stared down at the doll in his hand, reading the inscription. Finished, he looked at me with a playful smile. “A Dammit Doll? Really, Sutton?”

I shrugged innocently. “It seemed fitting. When you get mad, just take it out on this and not…”

“You? Someone else?” He bowed his head in shame, and I was sure he remembered all the times he lost his cool with me.

“It’s just a joke,” I shrugged. “Please, don’t take it to mean anything else. Honestly.”

He forced a smile, swallowing thickly. “Thanks,” he muttered, putting it back in the plastic bag.

I suddenly felt unsure of my gift and hoped I hadn’t upset him. I’d meant it to be funny.

In the stairway of the apartment, I grabbed his hand and stopped him.

“What?” He snapped, his voice gruff.

Yeah, I soooo shouldn’t have gotten that stupid doll.