It was always intense between us, fast, full bodied, and burning from the inside out.
We joked about tattoos once, somewhere between playful teasing and something more serious.
We talked about his, what they meant.
We even talked about getting one together, half kidding, half testing the waters of forever.
And I remember asking him one day, maybe half laughing:
“Would you ever get my name tattooed on you?”

I didn’t expect him to say yes.
But he did.
Without hesitation.

I didn’t believe him at first.
I didn’t think people actually did that, especially not after just a few months.
But then one day, late April, he sent me a picture.
His hand.
His ring finger.
And there it was.
My name, tattooed into him.
Just beneath the skin.
Permanent.

It made me feel chosen.
Seen.
Like I wasn’t just a secret in his phone or a voice after midnight, I was someone he wanted to wear.
It felt like a declaration, not in words, but in ink.
Something sacred. Something real.
A piece of him that would carry me forever.

That finger; the ring finger.
He never wore a wedding ring, so I didn’t think much of it then.
I didn’t know.
Not yet.
Not that he was married.
Not that there was already someone who believed that space on his hand belonged to her.

And when I think about it now…
To be his wife, to look at his hand and see another woman’s name etched into that place
I can’t imagine the kind of pain that would cause.
It would’ve broken me.

But at the time, I didn’t know.
I was just a woman in love with a man who said he’d carry me with him.
And that ink felt like proof.