“I figured you’d come.”
“Can I come in?”
My boss stepped aside. His house was too clean, Mike’s old travel mug sitting on the kitchen counter like an accusation.
I didn’t sit down.
“Turn your head, Harold.”
“Alison.”
“Please. Just turn.”
He turned. I looked at the compass rose behind his ear in the flat morning light, and I felt something in my chest unclench and clench again in the same second.
“When did you get it?”
“Six months ago.” His voice was flat. “I should’ve told you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I was ashamed.”
I finally sat down.
“Ashamed of what? Of missing him? Harold, he was your best friend for over 20 years.”
“That’s what I told myself.”
“What does that mean?”
He sat across from me and put his hands flat on the table as if bracing for something.
“It means I got the tattoo because I loved him. He asked me to get it when we were teens, and I refused because I was a coward. And then he was gone, and I wanted to give him the yes I owed him.”
My boss’s voice cracked, and I looked away.
