“Alex,” Andrew’s voice catches me off guard as I turn right toward the bathroom, still completely naked.

  The cold floor sends electrical shivers all along my legs. “Yes?”

  His hands clasp both of my shoulders, and he drives me in front of the bathroom mirror, back showing, tattoo popping. “What is this?”

  I blink a few times. Watch him intently. “It’s a tattoo.”

  “I mean…”

  I know what he means. But it’s funnier seeing him struggle, to be honest. It has been harder at first, delivering our most personal details like the local postman with advertisements, as we were getting to know each other. But it’s easier now. I feel good around him. Comfortable. Safe. “When did I get it? Where? Why? Is that it?” I ask for him while he timidly nods, and I enter the shower to let the cold water turn into hot.

  I’ve always liked tattoos. Always considered them when I was a student. Stefan was so convinced I was about to become a primary care physician as I entered the medical faculty, he kept repeating on and on that my hands were off limits. My arms, too. Legs. Well, if I listened to him at all, I would not have any. “When I turned twenty-one. I gifted myself the treat.”

  “What does it represent?”

  “Alien spine, mechanical wings.” He follows the trail as I explain. His fingers trace gentle strokes along my vertebrae, then my left and right scapula. “And a few other things.”

  Before he showers me with questions, I grab his wrist and pull him against me under the water stream. I clean his belly. Reluctantly. His attention is elsewhere. “What’s the Slovak word?”

  “Vylú?eny?”

  “Probably. What does it mean?”

  He lets the water slide down upon his face and hair, slicking them back. Dirty thoughts emerge again in my mind. “It’s meant to be ‘outsider’.”

  He bent his head to the side. His freckles are so prominent under the low glow of the bathroom, I’m tempted to kiss every single one of them. Actually, anything would be easier than opening my heart so widely. But I want him to know me. All of me. “I wasn’t actively bullied during middle school years, but I was often voluntarily cast out of circles. High school was harder. Beaten up, insulted, robbed. It’s the same year I got the cut.”

  He immediately reaches for my nose and the bump that resides there. “Were you assaulted?”

  “Walking home. Jerks from class.” My hands travel down his back and finish their course over his ass cheeks. “One of them tried to file a complaint after I punched him back in the jaw. He lost a few teeth. My father took care of it.”

  “So, the tattoo…” I bury my head into his neck, plant a few pecks there while he continues speaking for me. “It’s alien because that’s how you feel?”

  “Felt. But, yes.”

  “What changed?” His breathing switches. He tries keeping serious, but I can feel him underneath my touch.

  “I grew up. Decided I’d stop excusing myself for being here.”

  “Do you regret doing it?”

  “No. It’s part of me.”

  He grabs the shower gel, the fruity one I’ve smelled on him the very first day, and starts rubbing us. “What about the other words you said to me?”

  “Which one?”

  “You know the ones.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I hum against his neck while he roams around my waist. “I said that you smell good.”

  “And laksa?”

  “It’s láska.”

  “Yes, this one.”

  My cheeks are burning. My stomach clenches. My hands lift to his face, each side of it. “It’s affectionate. Like a nickname.”

  “I require the exact meaning, I’m afraid.”

  Our eyes swirl and melt into each other’s gaze. Should I? Would I? Will it change something between us? Will I scare him off?

  My silence is enough of an answer, it seems, because his cheeks turn red and his eyes are fleeting. He doesn’t insist. And I feel a heaviness in my stomach. “Turn around,” he orders, and I obey.

  While he rubs on my back, he follows the lines of the biotech wings, the mismatched scrap, the screws, the threads, the armour I decorated my skin with. Only the sound of the water dripping and our regular breaths fill the room for atrociously long seconds. My mind would love drifting inside his and looking around for any particular thoughts.

  “Were you…lonely?”

  His sentences are carefully crafted. He’s walking on eggshells, and he knows it. I can tell lots of questions burn his tongue, but he’d rather keep them to himself if asking them meant possibly hurting me.

  “After Matej?” I ask. He nods against me, his hands barely washing anything. They move so slowly on my body, lingering where they feel great. “It wasn’t the main emotion, no. Maybe ‘lonely’ would have been better.”

  “Sad, then. You were sad.”

  “I was devastated. But… the way my parents handled it, it… It brought anger.”

  Surely, not having to cross his gaze makes the whole discussion easier. It’s probably the reason I continue uttering the words.

  His silence also invites me to continue. “They used… improper forms of treatment, they neglected his needs, they pushed away real medicine, and it… infuriated me. They didn’t understand him.”

  “What kind of treatment?”

  I wince. Would it even be wise to admit? “It’s not…important. It doesn’t matt–”

  “It was synergology, wasn’t it?” His voice is raspy, full of emotion. At first, I wonder why he’s the one to react so sensitively. “When nothing else seemed to work, they gave other sciences a chance.”

  He speaks for me, and I have to close my eyes, for the remembrance of my former anger resurfaces too powerfully with his precise rehashing.

  ”Is that…” He cuts himself off.

  Shoving away the unwelcome sensations, I try watching over my shoulder, but he’s standing too close to meet my gaze. I hum inquisitively, focusing on the sensation of his body against mine. It’s impressive just how perfectly tangled we both are. How our curves and edges align. When he doesn’t utter another word, I speak up. “What?”

  After a long, hard inhale, he eventually explains. “Is that why you acted so ferociously with me?”

  It takes a short moment for the bricks to get in place. For the pieces to form the puzzle. I’m not particularly proud of the person I was all these weeks ago. “Is that why you hated me so much? Besides the whole lab situation.” I face him again, accepting the knot in my throat. “You’ve been betrayed by it. Lost your brother to it.”

  The fact that he’s saying the words makes the whole situation a little easier, but these are words I haven’t admitted. They sometimes filled the silence in my head, but I would usually throw it aside quickly.

  “I’m so sorry, Alex, if only I had known...”

  His stare is infinitely compassionate, and I don’t suppress the tremor of my chin. I let the tears roll out with the stream of the shower. I let it out. All out.

  He couldn’t possibly be responsible for what happened to Matej. Yet, when he arrived at the university and declared his new subject, it felt like a pang directly in the heart. Like I was reliving his loss all over again.

  “Alexej…”

  I nod. That’s me. “Don’t apologize. It’s stupid. And immature. The way I treated you for something you didn’t do.”

  He imprisons my shoulders with his arms and waits for mine to return the embrace. Which I do. Immediately. “You deserve the world. You deserve to heal, to fulfill every dream, to acquire all that you want.”

  I feel bold. Bolder than ever. It’s so evident, so clear in my mind. It’s him now. Only him. I confess in a whisper against his ear. “It’s you that I want.” I squeeze his body harder. “Can I have you, please?”

  He forces my head away from his neck, and I would have grunted from frustration if I weren’t so on edge. So raw. So real. “Love,” I add.

  “What?”

  “Láska. It means love.”

  And he understands what I imply. His kiss is ever so tender. It breaks my heart, only to recompose itself better. Stronger. Without the tape, and the glue, and all the other stuff I shoved there to make it work again. And the sobs pour like a valve desperately waiting for the flood to heave out. The butterflies jostle, the lump disappears. Years off my shoulders in a snap.

  And it is all because of Andrew. “You can. You already do.”