Peyton took the plate out of his hands and placed it on her bedside table, next to the remains of the half-melted candle.

She lifted her legs and crossed them on the bed. “What did you hear?”

Callum mirrored her sitting position on the bed. “What did you hear?”

“I asked you first.”

“Then you answer first,” he retorted.

She huffed out. “Fine. I heard nothing. I was bluffing.”

Lie. I heard you call us a sometimes moment.

Callum glared at her. Then he closed his eyes for a long moment and let out a hum. Rolling her eyes, Peyton leaned back against the headboard. Waiting.

The sunlight that passed through the window hit the side of his face, and she mentally noted just how beautiful he was in this moment. He looked peaceful and unworried. A version of the boy she had fallen in love with. Peyton clenched her fists. It was happening. And she hated herself for it. Somewhere within him was the person she loved—had loved.

He slowly opened his eyes. No smile or frown. He seemed restrained, not wanting to show his emotions to her.

“You mumbled that you still loved me,” he said.

Did I say that last night? Christ, Peyton!

Peyton let out a hard laugh. “Me? Still love you? That’s such a lie. I did not,” she downplayed.

Still was a very strong word. Though, in the back of her mind, she knew that word was a representation of her current status towards him… She just didn’t want to admit it.

Callum rubbed his arm, his long-sleeved top riding up. Peyton quickly sat up, staring. She was sure she’d seen something on his skin. So she grabbed his wrist, feeling him wince in her hold.

“What are you doing, Peyton?”

Ignoring his question, she stared at the black on his wrist. After a moment, Peyton looked up at him and raised her brow in disbelief. If it was what she thought she saw, then she was in the presence of the world’s greatest hypocrite.

Callum struggled to pull back and free himself, but had been met with Peyton clutching him tighter. She looked at him, hoping her face expressed her seriousness before she eyed the sleeve that covered up the questionable mark on his wrist. When she thought back, she realised that everything he’d worn since he’d had returned covered his arms and it only made her even more curious. Unable to help herself, Peyton loosened her hold and let her thumbs caress the mark.

“Peyton,” he warned and jerked back. “I got one, okay?”

Her hands fell in her lap. “You said you’d never.”

He got off the bed and shook his head. “Well, I did. I don’t need to explain myself to you.”

Too curious to care about the harsh tone in his voice, Peyton rose to her feet. She placed her hands firmly on his hard chest and pushed him into the wall. He let out an, “Oomph,” and before she could take a step back, he held her arms, trapping her.

“Let go of me,” she said sternly.

“Not unless you say that you won’t look.”

She shook her head.

“Then I don’t want you to see,” he stated.

Peyton looked him dead in the eye. “You walked out on me.”

His hold on her loosened before his arms fell by her side. Then he turned away from her and said, “Fine.”

She took a deep breath and readied herself. When she was growing up, it had always been a pissing contest with the boys when it came to tattoos. Callum had straight up said that he’d never, promising her that he wouldn’t.

Peyton held his left wrist, traced his skin, and slowly pushed up his grey sleeve. When she was able to see his entire forearm, she stopped and stared. Reddish-pink colour against the black tattoos caught her eye. She held her breath as her fingers traced the inked cherry blossoms on Callum’s arm. As he turned his arm over and she looked at his wrist, she immediately stepped back.

Her eyes never left his wrist. The throbbing in her chest and the lump in her throat rendered her speechless.

“I got it when I turned eighteen, a few months after I left,” he said in a soft voice.

“But why?” she managed out.

“It seemed necessary,” he replied.

Peyton shook her head in disbelief. “My-my name…necessary on…your wrist.” She looked up at him, confused.

He’d left her the weekend after she’d given him her virginity and told him that she loved him, yet he had tattooed her name on his wrist.

“I don’t understand. You left me and then got a tattoo of my name? That’s crazy!” she exclaimed.

Callum ran a finger over each letter on his wrist before meeting her eyes. “It reminds me every day of why I did what I did. It’s a constant reminder of what I gave up for you.”

“What did you give up for me?” she asked, a little hurt.

“A horrible future with me,” he confessed in a small voice.

“No,” she whispered, staring at the way her name marked his skin in permanent ink. The useless hope that had filled her heart now consumed it.

Peyton quickly brushed the tear that was running down her left cheek. She walked towards her dresser and pulled open the drawer. After rummaging through her jumpers, she found a bundle of Polaroids. She stared at them for a moment before she turned and walked back to him, placing them in his hands.

“We were happy together, Callum. We could have had this, but you decided to walk away instead of fighting dragons with me. You turned your back on me and a future together. We were going to leave this town, go to Deakin, and live together. You went and did that all without me. Do you know how much it hurt me to hear that you went to Deakin while I was stuck here, grieving my parents?”

He sifted through the Polaroids of their time together and swallowed hard. She hadn’t touched them since the day after her parents’ funeral. She had been stupid to believe that he’d attend. Never answering her call should have been a clear indicator. But she’d been hopeful.

“You think it was easy going to Deakin without you? Going to classes and thinking maybe you had applied, too? That maybe I’d see you walking to class and we’d bump into each other? It didn’t happen. I waited for you, hoping you’d show up. That you didn’t let what I had done to you stand in the way of your dream school.” There was an it’s-not-my-fault stance in his voice.

Peyton sat back on her bed, rubbing her forehead. It was too early to be arguing with him. But there was so much that had gone unexplained between them. They were imploding.

“How do we move on from this? You’re adamant that you won’t leave until after the wedding. How do we coexist in this town?” she asked, defeated.

Callum sighed and crouched in front of her. She noticed his sleeve still pushed up and was able to see that her name had visibly branded him. He placed the photographs on her unmade bed and then rested his palms on her knees.

“I’m not saying that you should forgive me so easily, because I don’t want that. Just let me in your life, Peyton, even if it’s only for a little while. We keep taking too many steps back. I don’t know if you’ll ever forgive me, but I won’t stop trying to get you to. Can we just have a start fresh? Actually become friends or at least something along those lines?”

Peyton blinked once.

She turned her head and looked at the Polaroid picture of them sitting on the pier together. It had been a good memory of them—one she had reflected on throughout the years. He might have not loved her, but he cared—his tattoo proved it.

“Okay,” she said, her eyes still on the picture. Her mother would be proud about that one word. She turned and met his stare. “But can I ask you a favour?”

“Anything.”

While staring at his tattooed arm, Peyton smiled at the way the letters of her name joined together perfectly. For whatever reason, it was sentimental to him. And the thought had her breathing out as she kept her eyes on his hands across her knees.