“Yeah.” Hunter’s voice doesn’t ask for questions, like the subject is closed.
“Fraking shit, Hunt, what did you go and do?” I squeak, my eyes going from all three focal points of the tat, knowing what I’m seeing, but my brain refuses to see it that way. I’m denying how much getting diabetes ruined his life, or how much he thinks it did and still does.
The artwork is stunning, and so realistic I can feel the sorrow of the grounded angel spearing my heart. I cover my mouth in case I let out a sound. The angel is naked, on his knees, hands covering his face, shoulders hunched forward in a sob. Right before him, spanning from Hunter’s ribs down to his lower back are beautiful fluffy wings, ravaged at the joints where they would have gone in the angel’s shoulders. What’s worse, the simplicity of the colorless tattoo is made even more hateful when bright red blood trails in small rivers from the angel’s back to his lost wings in front of him. I trail my fingers over the artwork, lingering over the angel’s covered face.
I want to dig my nails into Hunter’s skin and rip off the picture with my bare hands. The need is so great, my hands turn into claws, and I sort of wish I had talons to rip it off. He shouldn’t have this on his back, and it’s even worse that he drew it himself, branding his own skin with his sorrow.
“Fucking shit, you got this when you found out, didn’t you?”
Hunter doesn’t even have to answer me, I already know. “Getting sick was one of the worst things that ever happened to me. Jules dying was the second and becoming a Dad under those shitty circumstances. The third was almost losing you.”
I want to tell him that losing me is so not as devastating as learning that your sick. I’m uncomfortable with it, and end up fidgeting on top of him, like I’m trying to shake his words off. All through that, I keep petting the image on his back, trying to erase it with the soft strokes of my hands.
I want to tell him I’m not strong enough to look at this amazing art and not feel lost and sad whenever I look at it. It’s not pity, it’s such a deep understanding of what he’s going through because I’ve done it to myself – I just haven’t marked it on my skin as a constant reminder. And that’s what he’s done – reminding himself every single day that there are limitations to what he can do.
My sadness swings over to anger, then back to sadness until I finally settle on feeling a little helpless.
“I knew from that moment I could never be myself ever again. I knew that no matter what I tried to do, there’d always be a limit where my sugars fucked with me and my body couldn’t do anymore. I knew that I was grounded for the rest of my life. That this fucking disease took my wings from me,” Hunter says to the wall he’s looking at.I really wish he would roll over and look at me when he said those things so he could see in my face that I don’t see him that way. But he just keeps looking at the wall, and I keep my silence.
“Still think I’m amazing, baby? Even if ten years, twenty, thirty years down the road they could cut off my leg from not controlling my sugars and the nerves have died?”
I sniff again, try to use a serious voice, trying to pretend that what he’s saying isn’t killing me.
“Well, we could get you a badass prosthetic leg, those cool aluminum ones and we can pretend you’re like Robocop or something. No, no, you’d be like the Terminator! And that’s fraking hot.”
He laughs, his body moving up and down, and I feel like I’m riding a Hunter-roller-coaster. “How can you make me laugh when I don’t even feel for it?”
“I’m awesome like that. They should even write a comic book about me, I’m so awesome.” I tell him and lean down to kiss his shoulder blades, where I think actual wings would come from, if he had them. “I think it’s beautiful, but it hurts to look at. And I don’t care if they cut off your leg, or whatever.” Oh, shit, here we go! “ I… I love you, Hunter, not your body parts.”
There. I said it. No biggie. He deserved to hear it, especially after what he just revealed to me. Except the way he’s gone statue-still underneath me is starting to freak me out.
“Do you mean it?” Beautiful or not, I realize now that we’re all fighting something, trying to make our lives better with what we’ve been given.
Then… Did I do the very same thing to myself? Think I couldn’t be loved because I’m a fat ass? I’ve just been TKO’d with my own logic. This changes everything.
“Frak yeah, I mean it.” I lean down over him, my naked chest to his back and lean in close to whisper in his ear. “I love you, Hunter MacLaine.” I lean in closer to band my arms on either side of his ribs. He keeps quiet underneath me, until I lick his earlobe and he growls. Green light, green light. “Now get up and give me what I want.”