For 12 years, I stared at the woman’s face tattooed on my husband’s shoulder and wondered why he refused to tell me who she was. Then I met her by accident in a bakery, and the look of fear on her face told me I’d been asking the wrong question all along.
From the first day I met Ryan, I noticed the tattoo. It wasn’t a name, or a flower, or some abstract design people pretended had deep meaning.
It was a woman’s face, a full portrait.
She looked young, maybe in her early 20s, with dark hair, thoughtful eyes, and an expression that always seemed strangely sad.
At first, I didn’t ask about it. We were dating, and I was trying very hard to be the kind of girlfriend who wasn’t threatened by things that existed before she arrived.
Every time Ryan wore a sleeveless shirt, there she was. Every time we went swimming, there she was.
Every time he rolled over in bed, there she was.
Watching.
Eventually, curiosity got the better of me.
“Who is she?”
Ryan barely glanced at the tattoo. “Nobody.”
Not enough to start a fight, just enough to remember.
Years later, after we got engaged, I asked again. This time, he laughed.
“There isn’t some big story.”
“So who is she?”
“My buddy was learning realistic tattoos.
He downloaded a random photo online and needed somebody to practice on.”
“It’s the truth.”
Even then, I knew he was lying. I just didn’t know why.
After we got married, the tattoo started bothering me more. Not because I thought Ryan was cheating, but because people don’t permanently tattoo strangers onto their bodies.
Not like that.
Not with that much detail.
Eventually, I asked him to cover it. Not remove it, just cover it. Anything would have been better: a compass, a mountain, a dragon.
I didn’t care.
Then he agreed. Then months passed. His tattoo artist moved away, money was tight, work was busy, there was always a reason.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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