When I knock on Noemi’s door, she opens it immediately.

I step in.

She takes my coat and shuts the door behind me.

I gather her to me, and for a long moment, we stand in the entryway, adjusting to the novelty of being together like this. Shields down. Hearts exposed. No hidden agendas. No duplicity of any kind.

Just love.

Hers, confessed in a text message. Mine, declared somewhat more ostentatiously via the flashy ink art on my back.

“Is that tattoo real or one of those temporary things that come off after a week?” Noemi asks, looking up. “Please tell me it’s the latter! I can’t bear the thought of you going through all that pain again just to get me to pay attention.”

“First,” I say, my lips curling up. “What kind of man would declare real feelings with a fake tattoo? Second, I did get you to pay attention, didn’t I?”

She smiles. “I would’ve come around on my own in a week or two.”

“Would you?”

She sighs and nods. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“I’m not.” My expression grows more serious. “There was another reason I did it.”

She gives me a quizzical look.

“Atonement,” I say. “Or maybe catharsis. Or both. I needed to cleanse myself for our fresh start.”

“Perhaps I should do the same…”

“God, no!” I widen my eyes in exaggerated horror.

“Why not?”

“My back is loud enough for both of us.” I stare into her hazel eyes as I slide my hand from her back to her belly. “And even for three or four or five of us later.”

“I love you, Julien Boitel,” she says. “If you don’t want me to write it on my body, then you’re going to hear me say those words every day.”

“Promise?”

She nods.

I kiss her brow.

She strokes the side of my face. “I half expected you to show up here still wearing that white mask you had on during the game.”

“The doc fitted it to my face to protect my nose from getting punched again,” I say, smiling. “He wasn’t going to let me play otherwise.”

“So it’s broken?”

“Yes. But fortunately, not in a way that requires surgery. It’ll heal on its own.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” She motions me in.

I take a few steps toward the sofa in her TV room, then stop. For some reason I prefer to stand while I recount the part of our “origin story” she doesn’t know.

The part where I hung myself. Was saved by my mom. Almost died again a week later.

She listens without interrupting as I tell her all of this.

When I’m done, she clasps her hands over her head. “And here I was, calling it a ‘prank’ and a ‘joke’… You must’ve been so bitter! Why didn’t you say anything to me earlier?”

I shrug. “I guess I was ashamed. I guess I felt that telling you about the full effect your prank had on me would make me look like an even bigger loser.”

She shakes her head, smiling sadly. “If there’s a loser in this room, it’s me.”

“Why would you say that?”

“You’ll know in a sec.”

She goes to the bedroom and returns a couple of minutes later with an old notebook.

Thumbing through it, she finds a page. “Read from here.”

The notebook is a diary written in a neat, pretty handwriting. The way Noemi used to write at school. The entry she’s opened begins by summarizing her day and then talks about me.

I glance at her, a question in my eyes.

She nods. “It’s OK, read on.”

I do, and I can hardly believe what I’m reading.

I miss him so much! … Why did his stupid parents have to move? … How I wish he hadn’t blocked me from all his social media, so I could tell him that I’m sorry. And that I’m in love with him.

“How is this—” I stare at her, flabbergasted. “How is this possible? I had no idea!”

“I paid a price for those confessions. Remember ‘the Cats’? They stole this diary from my schoolbag and…” She expels a ragged breath. “They stole it and—”

“It’s OK, sweetie, you don’t need to give me the details.”

“I do,” she says with a faint smile. “I want to. But I’ll do it another time, when I’m feeling a little less emotional.”

Taking a step toward her, I pull her to my chest. “Will you marry me, for real?”

She looks up.

“I know it’s too soon to ask,” I say, stroking her hair. “Please don’t feel like you have to say yes just because you said you love me.”

Noemi tips her head back and draws in a deep breath as if bracing herself to say something difficult.

Damn my impatience!

“I’m getting ahead of myself,” I say quickly. “You want me to earn your trust first, to prove that—”

“I still have your ring,” she says.

I peer into her eyes. “Does that mean…”

“Yes.” She grins. “It means yes. But no big wedding.”

I frown.

“Not that I don’t trust you to show up—I do—but I’d rather not go through the motions again.”

“Got it,” I say. “It’ll be just you, me, and the mayor.”

She smiles. “Our parents and siblings can come, too, if they want to. And your friend Roland. I might even invite Melissa.”

“That’s almost a crowd.”

She gives me a mischievous smile. “May I see your tat? I wonder if it’s as impressive up close as it was on the screen.”

I yank off my sweater and T-shirt and turn around.

She trails her fingers along the outlines of the petals, the leaves, and the words on my back.

“Still impressed?” I ask teasingly.

“More than impressed,” she says. “I’m awed at how similar it is to the one you had eight years ago.”

I spin around. “I went to the same parlor and picked an identical pattern for the double rose.”

“Of course.” She steps back and pulls her sweater off.

I admire her pretty bra for a half second before I free her yummy breasts. My eyes, hands, and mouth have been deprived of them for two weeks. And a month before that. Much too long.

Not happening ever again.

My eyelids grow heavy as I fill my palms with her soft flesh. “I have another, more mystical explanation to the tat. Are you up for it?”

“Try me.”

“It isn’t actually similar, or even identical to the old one,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s the same tattoo.”

Her eyes bore into mine, searching.

“It was there all these years, gone into hiding so it wouldn’t confound our rational minds. But it hadn’t been erased. It couldn’t be erased as long as its message remained true.”

She reaches up for a kiss, her eyes watering with emotion.

My eyes threaten to follow suit as I encase her face with my hands and voice that indelible message. “I love you, Noemi Dray.”