“I got it the summer my cousin died,” he said. “Terrence. We were like this.” He crossed two fingers, then tapped the tattoo. “He got shot over a pair of boots. Stupid. The kind of stupid that follows you into the shower, into your sleep, into the way you smell cheap cologne and think of a casket.”
He walked out into the rain. The glass door swung shut behind him. And I sat there, alone with my dry pillowcase, staring at the ghost of his tattoo imprinted on my retina.
It was the ink that gave him away.
“I was lost,” Marcus continued. “Didn’t cry at the funeral. Didn’t eat for three days. Just walked around with this thing in my chest—hot, sharp, like swallowed glass. Then one night, I’m in my boy’s Civic, and ‘Put It On Me’ comes on. You remember that one?”