Brad quickly covered it.
I stared at him.
“Why is it broken?”
His head turned sharply.
“It isn’t broken.”
“Then what is it?”
Brad looked toward Erin.
Then toward the photographs covering the walls.
Finally, he looked at me.
“It’s unfinished.”
“Why?”
He didn’t answer.
But Erin’s expression told me the answer had very little to do with tattoos.
Suddenly, the question I had spent years asking changed.
I no longer cared why Brad hid the ink.
I wanted to understand why the only mark he had personally chosen was the one he refused to complete.
Brad stared at the photographs for a long time.
Then he spoke.
“I wanted to be an illustrator.”
I waited.
“My dad got sick. Money became tight. I started working full-time. Art school became something I planned to do later.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged.
“Later kept moving.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
