He shakes his head. “Neither.” He reaches for my hand, links my fingers through his. “It’s staying.”

“Like you,” I say and I’m vaguely aware that my voice has turned breathy, but then so has the moment, shifting into something more, something expectant.

“Like me. And like you,” he repeats in a low, husky voice.

In one swift move, he lets go of my hand and yanks off his own shirt. There, over his heart, he now has an arrow. It matches mine, and I am overwhelmed, bursting with heat and light and unfettered happiness. My hand is drawn to his chest, and I trace the tattoo, then kiss the arrow on his chest. “I love it,” I tell him.

“It matches,” he adds playfully.

“Yeah,” I say with a laugh. “I figured that.”

Then, his hands are in my hair, and he’s pulling hard, exposing my neck, kissing me, marking me, claiming me with his mouth. I respond instantly, my hands looping around his back, tugging him close. His breath is hot on me, and there’s sweat on his neck from working, from inking me, and my skin is slick too. From the summer, from the heat, from the needle.

And I want to have hot, sweaty sex in his tattoo parlor.

I have become more forward, more outspoken in the last few weeks with him. So I unbutton his jeans, sliding them down to his knees, along with his boxers.

“I want you on the chair.”

“Gladly,” he says and he takes a seat, and in seconds he’s grabbed a condom from his wallet and handed it to me. It’s become our thing; I love to put them on him, and he loves it when I do. In an instant, he’s hiked up my skirt, pulled my panties to the side and is inside me.

I groan as he fills me. “Trey,” I say, letting his name slide off my tongue in a sexy purr, because I love the way his name sounds when he’s deep in me. As if I’m owning his name when we’re together like this. When I take him all the way in.

“So I guess this means it turns you on when I ink you,” he says, in a hungry voice as he rolls his hips upwards.

I inhale sharply. I can feel him so deep inside me, and I’m still not sure I’m used to his size. But then I don’t know if it’s something you get used to, or something you just thank the heavens for, then lean your head back, let your hair fall down, and imagine you’re on a wild motorcycle ride after midnight as he drives into you with abandon. And that’s what he does, fucking hard and fast. Soon, I am panting and moaning, greedy for more of this heat, this love, this life.

“Yes, it turns me on when you ink me,” I say, finally managing to answer in between my erratic breaths. “But then, everything you do turns me on.”

“Good. Because I want to do everything with you,” he says. “And right now, I want you to ride me hard, Harley. I want you to fuck me with everything you’ve got.”

I take over the reins, my hands gripping his shoulders. I ride him, up and down, until my thighs are quaking, and even then I keep going, watching as his face contorts in pleasure, and he tells me over and over how much he fucking loves me, and fucking loves fucking me, and fucking loves everything. His coarseness and his love send me spinning, and my body is consumed with wildfire, and the whole damn forest is burning down, taking everything in is wake.

I shout his name, louder than I’ve ever been, and then he’s doing the same, and we’re both savage and sweaty and hot and horny and we collapse into each other’s arms. He tosses the condom into the trashcan next to us, then wraps his arms around me again.

I don’t let go for a long time, and he makes no move to pull apart. The longer we stay like this, the more I know that there is a difference between love and addiction, and this here with him – this is some kind of love, and some kind of good.

My thoughts drift off, roaming these last few weeks, these last several months. How my life isn’t black and white, but it’s not gray either. It’s bursting with colors, and sometimes they are shades of black as I grapple with the darkness and the fear that still lives inside me, and other days it’s purple or blue when I’m happy and sad at the same time. Some days everything is orange and fiery and I am alive and burning like the sun.

I am learning to live with all these colors, all these pieces of me. I am beginning to stop swatting away the girl I was. Because I can let go of who I used to be, but I don’t have to hate her, nor do I have to be ashamed of who I was. She served a purpose. Layla freed me from my mom. Besides, had I not been Layla I might never have met Trey.

I trace my fingers over the trees on his ribs, the reminders of his brothers.

“Do you miss them?”

“Yes,” he says into my hair, as he gently rubs his hand up and down my naked back. “But then I have to believe there was a meaning behind it all. And look, if they hadn’t died, I might never have become fucked up, and if I wasn’t fucked up, I might not have met you.”

I pull back to look at him. “You’re crazy and I love your crazy, because I was thinking the same thing. Well, about me.”

“If we weren’t addicted we might never have met.”

“So maybe there’s a purpose to everything, even the shitty stuff in life,” I say. “Even Miranda.” Then, in a low worried voice. “I haven’t heard from her in a while.”

“But you’re not supposed to, right? I mean, it’s over?”

“Yeah, it’s over. But the book will come out, and what if someone recognizes themselves in it?”

Because some days it’s hard to believe our debts are really paid off. Are scores ever truly settled? Can we ever stop looking over our shoulders? I wonder if I’ll always sleep with one eye open, always watch my back to see who’s going to try to trip me up next. God knows, there are so many more people who could surface, who could emerge like a mirage in the desert made real, and demand something from me. More blood, more words, more ink.

“Then we’ll deal with it then. Together. Trust me, there is nothing, not a thing on this fucking planet, that we cannot get through. I promise you,” he says, and he taps my arrow. “Staying.”

“Staying,” I repeat.

The arrow is staying.

Now I know. Now I get it. I understand. This is love. It’s not a game. It’s not a razor’s edge. It’s not a transaction.

The poets are right. The dreamers are right. The lovers are right. This isn’t nothing. This is everything.

* * *

Four weeks later…

Joanne knits another row on a hot pink pair of socks as she begins the meeting. We go round and do the introductions at the girls-only meeting. Chloe, Ainsley, a new gal named Katrina.

They say their hellos and we say hi back. Then it’s my turn.

“I’m Harley, and I’m a sex and love addict,” I say and Joanne beams at me. It’s been a few weeks now since I started using my real name here. It still feels weird and clunky after having the mask of Layla for so many months.

“Hi Harley,” the other gals say to me.

Then we talk and we share, and look, I’m not going to say I am sunshine and unicorns and the girl who overshares. I am still mostly a closed book, and I don’t know that healing means being open about everything.

Sometimes, I just practice the words in my head. I like the way they sound as I rewrite my story.

I’m Harley, I’m a sex and love addict. I’m in recovery. I was a virgin, I was a call girl, I was my mother’s daughter. Now I am a friend, I am a girlfriend, I am trying. I am twenty, and I don’t care how many guys I’ve kissed. There is only one guy I am kissing and will kiss. Now and always.

And that has to count for something.

When the meeting ends, I chat with Joanne for a few minutes, then say goodbye, because it’s my birthday and I’m having cake and watching a movie with Trey, Kristen and Jordan.

I rush up the steps and out onto the street, heading to my apartment. For a brief moment, my stomach cramps as if I’ve run too far and I have a stitch in my side. It reminds me of field hockey practice when we’d do laps.

But the feeling fades quickly, and I’m grateful for its exit because it’s time for cake when I unlock the door to my apartment.

Kristen’s in the kitchen lining up twenty pink and yellow birthday candles in a circle on the chocolate cake. “Can’t promise it’ll be any good. I’m not really known for my mad kitchen skills,” Kristen says with a shrug.

“I bet it’s fabulous,” I say and squeeze her arm.

Trey and Jordan join us in the kitchen as Kristen lights the candles and they all start singing. I don’t even pretend to act humble, or like it’s no big deal. It is a big deal. I’m celebrating my birthday the way I want – with my friends, and my boyfriend, with a cake that’s not made by my mom, and my life is finally starting to feel like my own. Moment by moment. Like I belong to myself.

So I sing along, and the four us are loud as loud can be.

“Now make a wish,” Kristen says, gesturing to the candles.

Leaning close, I gather my breath, and blow the flames out at once. I wish for more moments like this.

“What did you wish for?” Trey asks as he reaches for my hand, laces his fingers through mine. I love that we hold hands, that we held hands as friends, and now as more.

“I can’t tell you, or it won’t come true.”

He sticks out his tongue at me as Kristen serves the cake on small plates for each of us.

“Mmm. Delicious,” Jordan declares after a bite.

Kristen rolls her eyes. “You’re just saying that to score points.”

“No. This really is good cake,” Trey says after he takes a forkful.

“Now you’re just backing up your buddy,” she says.