Elona’s POV
The drive was quiet. He didn’t push. And I didn’t speak until we stopped at a traffic light. I just hope that he doesn’t confront anyone, but I don’t think I can tell him about the fight until the time is right.
“They were just taunting me,” I said, my voice was hoarse. “About the pregnancy... And I fell off a beam, that’s why my cheek...” I sucked in a breath.
It was a lie.
He knew it.
He just didn’t say anything and continued to focus on the road ahead. He had seen me exit VFS the way that I did, so he knew that I was barely holding it together because something had happened, and it wasn’t a fall.
“I got on the beam myself to get a certain emotion, and now I have a cover photo because, apparently, it’s amazing, according to the photographer. I know they want me gone,” I added, staring out the window. “And maybe they’ll win.” They might win if they ruin it for me.
Tristan still didn’t say a word, but the silence between us wasn’t empty. It was full of promises he hadn’t made yet, and the war he was preparing to wage in my name. I turned toward him then, finally facing those eyes that seemed to see every crack in me and somehow still held me like I was whole. “I want to get a tattoo.”
He blinked. “A tattoo? The one you mentioned about the other day?” he asked. Finally he spoke.
I nodded slowly, my voice fragile but steady. “Yes, I kept thinking… if it was a girl, I would’ve named her Taliah Ever. And if it was a boy, Evron. Either way… I need something. A mark that says they existed... Even if only inside me,” my voice lowered at the thought.
Tristan’s jaw clenched, his throat working around an emotion he didn’t speak aloud. “You want to get it now?” he looked over at me for a brief moment before looking ahead again.
“Yes.”
His answer was immediate. “I know a place.”
The way he said it, like he didn’t even need to think about it, settled something inside me. We turned in a different direction instead of going back to his house. It was getting darker. I exhaled a breath because maybe it will give me more closure on everything that these girls are reminding me about.
“I love those names,” he said softly after a while. “Taliah Ever… Evron. They are beautiful and they are yours. Ours.”
A lump gathered in my throat. I nodded, blinking fast. “I didn’t know how much I needed to say them until now. I did use the beads of the bracelets you gifted me to bury at my mother’s grave, as a means to let go of what we lost. That is why I was there.”
He nodded as if something was registering in his mind. He reached over, his fingers brushing mine on my lap. It was just that simple touch that broke the coldness around my chest. I stared out the window at the passing streetlights, letting the quiet fill us again, until I found my voice.
“How was piano practice today?” I asked, looking over at him.
He smiled faintly, eyes still on the road. “It’s… strange. Therapeutic, maybe. I didn’t think it would mean anything, but it does. I’m not playing to forget Estelle or the baby. I think I’m playing to remember... to feel something other than pain... closure.”
I swallowed hard. “Do you think it’s helping?”
“Today? Yeah. Mostly because you’re here doing it with me. I was alone before, and now I’m not.” He glanced at me briefly, his expression unreadable. “It’s easier to find peace when I know you’re still breathing.” That one sentence shattered me more than the rest.
We didn’t speak again as he pulled into a narrow alley lined with industrial buildings and flickering neon signs. A small studio sat wedged between a coffee shop and a shuttered bookstore. The exterior was nothing to look at. It was plain, with chipped red paint on the window frames, but inside, a warm yellow light glowed through the glass. A stenciled sign read: Hollow Ink Studio.
“Is this the place?” I asked with surprise.
“They’re good. Discreet and clean.” He cut the engine and looked at me. “Are you sure you want to do this tonight?”
I nodded. “I need to... For me.”
***
Inside, the studio was calmer than I expected, no loud music or intimidating artists in leather jackets, just soft music, the scent of antiseptic, and framed artwork along the dark gray walls. A heavily inked woman at the front desk smiled when she saw Tristan.
“Hey,” she said, clearly familiar with him. “Been a while.”
“Hey, Demi. This is Elona. She wants something done tonight.”
Demi looked me over kindly. “Got anything in mind?”
I pulled out my phone and showed her the sketch I had drawn hastily on the notes app. A butterfly. Its wings were delicate and open, with the initials T.E. in tiny calligraphy where the body of the butterfly would be.
“Taliah Ever… or Evron,” I explained. “It’s for a baby.”
Demi’s gaze softened instantly. “We will make it beautiful.”
She led us into the back, past a row of clean workstations and sterilized equipment. I sat in the chair and tugged my shirt down over one shoulder, revealing the faint mark from Tristan’s bite. It had faded, but I still felt its heat every time I looked at it in the mirror.
He sat beside me, one knee bouncing. I could see the tension in his posture. I know it’s because of what happened this evening, or maybe it was the weight of what this tattoo meant.
As Demi prepared the ink and traced the design on my shoulder, Tristan reached for my hand and squeezed it.“Are you okay?” he asked. I nodded, though my throat burned.
The buzzing needle began, and I braced for pain, but it wasn’t pain... It was release. With every line she etched into my skin, it felt like I was reclaiming something. Not just loss, but love and strength.
I stared forward, my eyes were wet, watching the needle move with precision in the mirror. “I feel like I didn’t get to say goodbye in a proper way,” I whispered.
Tristan was quiet for a long moment. “Neither did I,” he said. The silence returned, but again, it wasn’t hollow.
When she finished, Demi handed me a smaller mirror. The butterfly sat right above my shoulder blade, wings open and reaching upward. The initials that were nestled in the center were almost delicate, like a whisper. A quiet tribute to a soul that never took a breath but would always live inside me.
“It’s perfect,” I whispered.
Tristan leaned closer, brushing a kiss just below the tattoo. “They would’ve been perfect, too.”
I tried to smile, but it wobbled. My heart was too full... Too shattered, but something about that moment made it feel like maybe, just maybe, we were stitching it back together.
Demi covered the tattoo and gave us instructions on aftercare. I barely heard them. My mind was somewhere else, lost between grief and the man who sat beside me, bringing me to life.
We walked out into the cool night air. I was sore, but lighter somehow, like part of the weight had been laid to rest. Tristan didn’t say much on the drive back to his house. He didn’t need to. We both knew what this meant.
The war wasn’t over, not with VFS, or with the guilt we each carried, but tonight was a truce. A breath. A promise inked in skin, and love that lived, even in the cracks of our broken hearts.