…Imagine my horror when I saw a tattoo.
Fresh. Red. Still healing.
On his shoulder blade were the words:
“Always Us.”
In my sister’s handwriting.
My stomach dropped.
It was her handwriting. I would recognize those looping S’s anywhere — from birthday cards, sticky notes, the recipe she once scribbled for me on a napkin.
My hands started shaking.
“When did you get that?” I asked, my voice barely steady.
He went pale.
“Please don’t jump to conclusions,” he said quickly.
That was exactly the wrong thing to say.
“Don’t jump to conclusions? My sister dies and you’re secretly tattooing her handwriting on your body?”
He sat down hard on the edge of the bed.
“I was going to tell you,” he whispered.
“Tell me what?”
He swallowed.
“Three months ago, she came to me.”
I felt like the air had been sucked out of the room.
“She was planning something,” he continued. “For you.”
I stared at him, confused and furious all at once.
“She wanted to surprise you for your 40th birthday. She said you’d been stressed, disconnected, working too much. She wanted to do something permanent. Something meaningful.”
He reached for his phone, hands trembling, and opened a photo.
It was my sister. Smiling. Holding a sketchbook.
On the page were the words “Always Us” written over and over in different sizes.
“She wanted us both to get matching tattoos,” he said. “The three of us. She said no matter what happened in life, it would remind you that you’d never lose her.”
Tears blurred my vision.
“I told her I’d do it if she did,” he said softly. “We made an appointment for last week.”
Last week.
The week she died.
“She went the day before the accident,” he whispered. “I went the morning after… before the funeral.”
I felt my knees give out and sat on the bed beside him.
“She didn’t tell me,” I said, my voice breaking.
“She wanted it to be a surprise.”
He reached for my hand.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you thinking there was something between us. There wasn’t. She loved you more than anyone. This was about you.”
I cried harder than I had at the funeral.
Because this wasn’t betrayal.
It was love.
Messy. Misunderstood. Grieving love.
The next week, I went to the same tattoo artist.
I brought the photo of her handwriting.
And I got the same words.
Always Us.
Now when I look at it, I don’t see horror.
I see her.
Still here.
Still ours.
