Tatted

A NOT SO FRESH START

"'Show me your scars,' he said. 'But why?' She asked. 'I want to see how many times you needed me and I wasn't there,' He whispered."

*****

The flight to California was peaceful. That was until Tyler showed me this on his phone:

"Famous chef, Tyler Cruz, spotted in New York at a wedding? Witnesses speak about a fight between two men, and a women who could potentially be the mysterious lover we all know of."

My eyes lift from the phone to his stressed expression. "I never thought that finally reaching my goals would mean this. I have zero privacy now, Gia." He sighs.

I place my hand on his forearm and don't miss when his body stiffens. "It's okay, Tyler. For now let's forget about everyone else. I just want to get there alive." I assure him, my fingers tracing patterns up his arm, noticing as he slowly melts into my touch.

He takes a deep breath. "Okay, but can I at least read it?" He asks for permission and I find it funny. "Magazines tend to lie a lot and it's funny." I don't disagree so his fingers scroll down the screen.

"Multiple New Yorkers claim to have seen the famous Tyler Cruz at a wedding. Videos of Cruz and the supposed husband-to-be fighting until death are posted on every social media platform. They fight over the bride, Gianna, could it be? Cruz and Gianna flee from the scene of the crime. Off to start a new life together?"

I stop reading because he looks at me. "They exaggerate everything. I swear if somebody posts anything about me being on this plane, I am going to get furious." His words are serious but he is not. He smiles but his eyebrows are furrowed. He laughs but his hands are tight around his phone.

I knew I missed Tyler since the very night he left, but I never knew how much I actually missed him until now.

As he sits next to me I felt a relief settle inside of me me. That hollow inside of my stomach, inside of my heart, slowly being filled until I feel like me again. He sews the pit with thread and pulls it closed tightly, making sure it never snaps apart again. Like an empty stuffed animal, being stuffed with cotton, sewn together, and handed off to make a child happy.

How sad my nights had been, how my days were so depressing, while now I wanted to cry but from happiness. My despair, my emptiness, my numbness, while some caused by him, all fixed by him.

While I should be at least a little angry for him leaving me, I can't find the willpower to be. It's been a long time since I have felt this happy. A long time since I felt truly alive and not like a corpse forced to carry on with life.

His brown eyes continue to ogle. I feel my cheeks starting to warm.

"Will you stop looking at me?" I say with a giggle, for not his sake but for mine, because the tingle beneath my skin when his eyes are on me can only mean one of two things: his stare makes me nervous, and/or the way he looks at me is urging me to get the pleasure I long for.

He's grinning ear-to-ear by my reaction. "But your so gorgeous, Gia. It's hard to not look."

I blush harder than before.

How can a man be so sweet to me? He knows my truth, he knows the darkness that I've indulged in before, yet he still loves me as if I were an angel.

He knows how I hurt, he knows how I bawl my eyes out each night, yet he's here next to me, looking at me as if I were the most beautiful princess. It's unbelievable in my eyes.

His hand on my thigh is impossible to ignore. The warm touch that I've longed to feel, those familiar sparks that ignite my skin. How long I didn't realize that this is what I've needed. Love that is not just a word, not just a saying, but an action.