And to make it even better, I’d fallen asleep with the hand that had a bandage on it under my pillow. This was going to hurt like a bitch.
Without even sitting up, I twisted until my legs fell off the edge of the bed.
“I see you’ve had a good day,” a voice I could usually listen to for hours said from the doorway. Right now, though, it was the most painful thing I’d ever heard in my life.
At least that’s what I thought. “Please, can we not make any noise ever again?”
I heard a snort and her footsteps walking away from me and breathed out slowly. I could do this - I could move and function like a normal human being.
Apparently I couldn’t, but that was because her big assed cat jumped right on my stomach, knocking the air out of my lungs and the alcohol out of my stomach.It’s amazing what being sick does for a hangover. Sure, you feel rough as balls while you’re doing it, but afterward I could walk in a straight line, breathe without wanting to die, I’d even made a noise and not had to hold my head in place. I couldn’t even remember why I’d gotten drunk. Progress, it was all about baby steps.
Sitting down at the table in the kitchen, I smiled gratefully at Rose for the bottle of water and painkillers that she had waiting for me. I might not have felt as shit as I had before, but I still need water and something to kill off the rest of the pain in my head.
Watching me over the rim of her cup, she asked, “Wanna tell me what’s going on?”
Swallowing the mouthful of water, I thought about the question. “I’m honestly not sure if I can remember why.”
“I see,” she hummed, looking me over and pausing when she got to my hand. “Care to tell me what happened there?”
Looking down at where she was staring, I looked at the wrapping around my hands, and groaned when I remembered I’d fallen asleep with my head on them. “Ugh, taking that off is going to suck balls.”
“And why is that?”
I’d had a solid plan on how I was going to do this, and it had been perfect. Unfortunately, another effect of day drinking was that I couldn’t remember what I’d come up with while I was in the merry depths of hell getting all of this done for her. Figuring it was best to just do it, I stood up and pulled my t-shirt over my head, showing her the larger bandage on my ribs.
“I don’t…” she started, but I held a hand up to stop her. If I didn’t do this now, I’d end up fucking it up even more, and I wanted this to be perfect for it.
Peeling off the dressing, I slowly unveiled the new tattoo her brother had done for me earlier. That’s why I’d gotten as drunk as I had, because they’d decided the only way to settle me down after it was to give me tequila – the one drink I couldn’t handle. I’m fairly certain I had my brother to thank for that, but all the same it had stopped me freaking out. Maybe a little bit too much, though.
“I went to see your parents today,” I told her, watching her face as the tattoo was revealed. “And then I went to see your brother and he did this for me.”
Lifting my arm over my head, I turned so she could see the large black and white rose that took up a good chunk of the left side of my ribs. It had an R woven into the petals and was split in half by a blank line with today’s date taking up the beginning of it.
Walking around the table, she bent over and looked closely at it, lifting a shaking hand to skim a finger around the edge of the raw flesh. “It’s beautiful.”
“I think so.” I’ll give her brother credit, he did fucking good work, even if it had felt like he was trying to dig down to my heart as he’d done it.
Looking up at me, she asked, “What’s the date?”
Taking a deep breath, I braced myself for something that had scared me more than the needle breaking my flesh open hours earlier, and was probably the real reason I’d ended up drinking as much as I had. “It’s the date that I was hoping you’d say yes to marrying me,” I rasped, watching her hand freeze mid circle around the tattoo. “And there’s a space next to it for the date you become Rose Evans, which I hope is soon.”
I’d expected her to do something like yelling yes or even tell me no, so when she dropped to her knees and just stared at the tattoo, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Again, we’d gone through a lot of scenarios – some of which even involved me getting on my knees to beg her to say yes – but none included her doing being the one on them.