Mason and I were half-watching Netflix, half-scrolling our phones, when he glanced at my shoulder and said the sentence that split my life in half.

“Have you ever thought about getting it removed?” he asked.

I laughed, because obviously he was joking. The constellation on my left shoulder was Cassiopeia, my grandmother’s favorite. She was this badass woman who taught herself astronomy in the 1960s when everyone expected her to master meatloaf, not the night sky. The tattoo was my little rebellion and my connection to her, five sharp stars etched in fine black lines.

“Removed?” I repeated. “You mean, like, lasered off?”

He nodded without looking away from the TV.

“It’s just… unprofessional,” he said. “For your career.”

“My career?” I snorted. “I work in graphic design, not corporate law. Half my co-workers have full sleeves.”

He shifted on the couch, jaw tight.

“It’s different for women,” he muttered.

“Yeah, we get better tattoos,” I shot back, still trying to keep it light.

He didn’t smile. Instead, he stared at my shoulder like it had insulted him personally.

“I just think you’d be taken more seriously without it,” he said. “I could pay for the removal if you want. There’s this clinic near my office—”

“You’d pay to erase my grandmother from my skin?” I asked.

His eyes flicked up to mine, then away.

“That’s not what I’m saying. Forget it. It was just an idea. You’re so sensitive sometimes, Ash.”

He turned back to the show, but I didn’t. I sat there with my hand over my shoulder, suddenly aware of the ink I’d loved for years. The conversation left a sour taste in my mouth, but I told myself he was stressed. His boss was a nightmare, his hours were long. People say dumb things when they’re burnt out.

I told myself a lot of things, back then.

The gym came next.

Mason announced one Sunday night that we were starting a new routine.

“We’ll go before work,” he said while meal prepping chicken and broccoli like some Instagram fitness coach. “Cardio every morning. You’ll feel so much better if you’re more toned.”

“I’m a size six and my doctor says I’m perfectly healthy,” I reminded him.

“It’s not about that,” he said. “It’s about being our best selves. Don’t you want that?”

At five-thirty the next morning, he stood over me in the dark, shaking my shoulder.

“Come on, Ash. Let’s go.”

I dragged myself out of bed and into leggings, telling myself this was fine, even good. Couples who work out together, stay together, right?

At the gym, though, he didn’t work out with me. He watched me.

He set the treadmill speed and incline, crossed his arms, and stood there, eyes fixed on my body.

“You can go faster,” he said. “You did three miles in college, remember?”

I increased the speed, heartbeat climbing with the numbers on the screen. When I glanced at him, his expression was intense, almost desperate, like if he stared hard enough he could carve me into a new shape.

“You know,” I panted, “this would be more fun if you were actually working out.”

“I will,” he said. “I just want to get you set up first.”

This went on for days. Weeks. Every time I slowed down, every time I reached for the speed button, I felt his eyes on me, judging.

The hair dye was the breaking point.

He came home last Tuesday with a drugstore bag and this weird brightness in his eyes, like he’d found the answer to a problem no one else knew existed.

“I got you something,” he said, pulling out a box of platinum blonde hair dye. The model on the front had fried, almost white hair.

“Absolutely not,” I said instantly.

“Just hear me out,” he insisted. “I think you’d look amazing as a blonde. More… I don’t know, fresh.”

“Fresh?” I repeated. “I’m not produce, Mason.”

“You know what I mean,” he said, his voice getting tight. “You’ve had the same hair forever. Don’t you want a change?”

“Not like that. My hair would snap off. And I like my hair. My grandmother had this color, actually.”

He rolled his eyes.

“You never try anything new,” he said. “It’s just hair. It grows back. It’s just ink.”

“Mason,” I said slowly, “you loved this tattoo. You tell people all the time it’s your favorite.”

“Things change,” he snapped. “Why are you so stuck in your ways?”

His hands were trembling. There was sweat at his hairline.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He dropped the dye box on the counter, the cardboard corner splitting.

“I’m fine,” he said, voice cracking on the word. “Just forget it. Keep the stupid tattoo. Keep everything the same forever.”

He stalked off to the bedroom, leaving the box on the counter like a threat.

By Friday, my stomach was a knot. I was tired from early gym sessions, on edge from walking around my own apartment like it was mined territory. When his friend Theodor texted about happy hour, I almost cancelled. I didn’t want to make small talk with his work buddies while pretending everything was fine.

But I needed a sense of normal.

We met them at a bar downtown that smelled like spilled beer and fryer oil. Mason’s friends were already two drinks in when we arrived.

I sat between Mason and Theodor, picking at nachos while they argued about some trade deadline.

“At least this one seems more stable than Rachel,” Theodor slurred suddenly, then clamped his lips together like he’d swallowed a grenade.

“Rachel?” I asked.

I’d never heard that name before. Mason had told me his last relationship ended years ago. Mutual breakup. No drama.

The table went quiet. Mason had gone to the bathroom two minutes earlier, and in his absence everyone looked like someone had just turned off the music mid-song.

“Who’s Rachel?” I asked again.

“No one,” Theodor said too quickly. “Just… someone Mason dated.”

“You mean his ex-fiancée,” another friend muttered, then shot me an apologetic look.

My stomach dropped.

When Mason came back, his face went white at the sight of everyone’s expressions.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Just work stuff,” I lied, forcing a smile. “We’re heading out.”

He studied each face around the table, jaw clenched, but didn’t push. On the ride home, he was silent, fingers tapping the steering wheel.

That night, after he fell asleep, I did something I’m not proud of.

I went through his old tablet.

It was stuffed in the back of his closet, the same one he’d told me was “broken” months ago. It wasn’t broken. It turned on just fine, and it was still logged into an Instagram account he’d claimed to have deleted.

I found her within minutes.

Rachel Reit.

Her feed was public. My hands shook as I scrolled through the photos.

Brown hair like mine. Same length, same loose waves. Similar build, maybe an inch taller. Oversized sweaters, vintage band tees, messy buns.

But what made me gasp out loud was the tattoo.

On her left shoulder.

Not the same design, but the same placement. Dark ink right where my Cassiopeia sat.

In every photo where she and Mason were together three years ago, we could have been sisters. The same way of tilting our heads in photos, the same half-smile.

I stared at my reflection in the black tablet screen, seeing both of us at once.

I barely slept.

The next morning, Mason hummed as he scrambled eggs like everything was normal.

I set his tablet on the counter next to the stove, Rachel’s Instagram open.

“I can explain,” he said immediately.

He was already crying. The eggs started to burn.

“You told me your last relationship was years ago,” I said. “You said it was mutual. No big deal. You didn’t mention being engaged. Or that she looks exactly like me.”

He turned off the stove and gripped the counter, shoulders shaking.

“She cheated on me,” he said hoarsely. “With my brother. At our engagement party. I walked in on them in my childhood bedroom. The room where I’d planned out our entire future. She destroyed me, Ash. She broke something in me.”

He wiped his face with the back of his hand.

“When I met you,” he said, “I thought it was fate. You looked just like her, but you weren’t her. You were… kind, and loyal, and good. I thought maybe I got a second chance.”

My stomach twisted.

“So you dated me because I look like your ex?” I asked.

“No. Yes. At first,” he said, the words tumbling. “But I fell in love with you. I did. I do. It’s just—every time I see that tattoo, every time you wear your hair that way, I see her. I see what she did. I thought I could handle it, but I can’t.”

He looked at my shoulder like it was a wound.

“I thought if I could just change those things,” he whispered. “Make you look a little different. Then I could stop seeing her when I look at you.”

My voice came out surprisingly steady.

“You need therapy, Mason,” I said. “Not a girlfriend makeover.”

He grabbed my wrist.

“You can’t leave,” he said, fingers digging into my skin. “Rachel said the same thing right before she cheated. If you walk out that door, I’ll know you’re just like her. I can’t let that happen again. I won’t.”

Pain shot up my arm. For a second, pure fear flooded me—because his eyes didn’t look like Mason’s eyes.

I forced myself to inhale slowly.

“I’m not leaving,” I lied. “I just need to use the bathroom.”

He stared at me like he could read my mind, grip tightening, then loosening just enough.

“Hurry up,” he said.

I slid my wrist out of his hand, grabbed my phone from the coffee table, and walked to the bathroom as casually as I could manage.

The second the door locked behind me, my heart started pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.

I sat on the edge of the tub and typed with shaking fingers.

Need you to call me right now. Emergency, I texted my sister, Sienna.

I counted the seconds.

One. Two. Three. Four.

My phone buzzed.

“Hey, what’s up?” I answered, trying to sound normal.

“Are you okay?” Sienna asked, voice sharp even through the tiny speaker.

Mason pounded on the bathroom door.

“Who are you talking to?” he shouted. “Why did you lock the door?”

I raised my voice so he could hear.

“Mom’s in the hospital?” I said. “What happened?”

Bless Sienna. She didn’t miss a beat.

“You need to come right now,” she said, voice shifting into believable panic. “She’s asking for you. I’m outside your building. I’ll drive you.”

“I’m coming,” I said. “Don’t hang up.”

I unlocked the bathroom door.

Mason stood right there, face red, fists clenched.

“I have to go,” I said. “My mom’s in the hospital.”

His expression flickered, cycling through anger, confusion, suspicion.

“I’ll drive you,” he said, reaching for his keys.

“Sienna’s already outside,” I said, moving past him. “She’s waiting.”

He followed me to the door, staying close enough that I could feel his breath.

“What hospital?” he demanded. “What happened?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “I have to go.”

The elevator would be too slow, too enclosed. I headed for the stairs and practically flew down all four flights, my purse thumping against my hip. I could hear his footsteps behind me, heavy and fast.

I hit the lobby door hard and burst into the cool evening air.

Sienna’s car was at the curb, engine running, hazard lights blinking.

I yanked the passenger door open.

“Go,” I said.

She went. The tires squealed as she pulled away before I even had my seatbelt on.

In the side mirror, Mason appeared on the sidewalk, phone in his hand, staring after us.

We turned the corner. He disappeared from view.

“Did he hurt you?” Sienna asked once we were a few streets away.

I looked down at my wrist. Finger-shaped red marks bloomed on my skin.

“Not really,” I said, my voice cracking. “I’m okay.”

We drove to her townhouse in the suburbs. The second we were inside and the door was locked, I collapsed on her couch and sobbed until my throat hurt. Sienna held me and let me ruin her T-shirt with tears and snot.

When I could finally breathe, I told her everything. The tattoo comments. The gym obsession. The hair dye. The tablet. Rachel. The wrist grab.

Her face went pale.

“That’s exactly how it started with Derek,” she said quietly.

I knew Derek in vague, bad-ex-boyfriend terms. I didn’t know details.

“He started with my clothes,” she said. “Said my skirts were too short. That my friends were bad influences. Then he started showing up places I didn’t tell him I’d be. The first time he grabbed my arm and left bruises, I made excuses. I stayed for six more months.”

She took my hands.

“Promise me you won’t go back there alone,” she said. “Promise me right now.”

“I promise,” I whispered.

My phone buzzed on the coffee table.

Mason had sent fifteen texts in the last twenty minutes.

Where are you?

Which hospital?

Why aren’t you answering?

Then:

You’re lying about your mom. I know you’re lying.

And then:

Please just talk to me. I didn’t do anything wrong.

I blocked his number and watched the messages stop.

The next morning, pounding rattled Sienna’s front door.

“Ashley!” Mason’s voice yelled through the wood. “I know you’re in there. We need to talk. You can’t just run away every time things get hard!”

My heart jumped into my throat.

Sienna rushed into the guest room.

“Stay here,” she said, grabbing her phone. “I’m calling the police.”

I sat on the bed with my knees pulled up to my chest, listening to Mason shout and hit the door. He sounded wild, like the version of himself I’d known had been cracked open and something raw and ugly was spilling out.

The police arrived fast. I heard a woman’s voice tell him to step away from the property. Through the upstairs window, I watched him argue with her, hands waving, face red.

The officer stayed calm, taking notes, listening. Then she said something that made him look up at the house. His eyes met mine through the glass.

I ducked back.

After they made him leave, the female officer came inside and sat with us on the couch.

“This is a pattern of behavior that often gets worse,” she said. “I’d strongly suggest you consider a restraining order.”

She handed me pamphlets on domestic violence resources and a card for legal aid.

“Don’t go back to that apartment without a police escort,” she added. “It’s not safe.”

I called in sick to work for the first time since I’d started there. My boss didn’t ask for details, just told me to take care of myself.

An hour later, my coworker Cooper texted.

Hey, are you okay? Mason just showed up here looking for you. He seemed really upset.

My stomach dropped.

Don’t tell him anything, I typed back. Please. I’m not in a good situation with him.

Got it, he replied. Already told him I didn’t know anything. Do you need help?

I warned him not to give Mason any information, then spent the rest of the day on Sienna’s laptop, falling into a rabbit hole of articles about coercive control.

Each bullet point felt like someone had been spying on my relationship.

Isolation from friends. Check.

Criticism disguised as concern. Check.

Attempts to change appearance. Obsessive monitoring. Explosive anger when control was threatened.

One sentence stuck with me: Abusers often escalate when their control is threatened.

I thought about the hair dye.

About the way his voice had snapped when I said no.

Sienna found me crying at the kitchen table, surrounded by printed articles. She called a therapist friend, who referred us to someone who specialized in relationship trauma.

That’s how I met Dr. Swanson.

Her office was in a quiet building downtown, with soft lighting and chairs that didn’t squeak when you shifted. She had a presence like a weighted blanket—steady, grounding.

I told her everything.

Rachel. The tattoo. The gym. The wrist grab. The threats. The wall of comparison photos I’d seen in my imagination, long before I actually saw the real thing.

She listened carefully, taking notes, her brow furrowing occasionally.

When I finished, she set her pen down.

“You’re in danger,” she said simply. “And you did exactly the right thing by leaving.”

She explained that Mason was projecting all his unresolved trauma about Rachel and his brother onto me instead of dealing with the original wound.

“He’s trying to rewrite the past by controlling you,” she said. “That kind of behavior often escalates.”

She offered to write a letter supporting my restraining order petition. Judges, she said, take this kind of obsessive, tracking behavior seriously.

Leaving her office, I felt validated—and terrified. Hearing a professional say the danger was real made it impossible to minimize.

That night, I made the mistake of looking at Mason’s blocked messages.

There were over fifty now.

I scrolled through apology after accusation after plea.

I’m sorry.

You’re overreacting.

You’re just like her.

Please don’t do this.

The last message made my skin crawl.

I found Rachel on social again, he wrote. I told her about you. She says you’ll cheat too. You’re both the same.

The idea of the two of them talking about me like a problem to solve made me feel sick.

“We’re going to the courthouse tomorrow,” Sienna said when I showed her. “No more waiting.”

Filing for a restraining order was both simple and brutal.

In a small fluorescent-lit room at the county courthouse, I filled out forms that asked for every detail. Every threat. Every grab. Every “you can’t leave” and “you’re just like her.”

Seeing it all written in one place made the pattern impossible to deny.

The clerk told me a judge could see me that afternoon for a temporary order. We waited three hours in a hallway full of other people holding similar packets.

When my name was called, the judge read through my application, looked at Dr. Swanson’s letter and the screenshots of Mason’s messages. She asked a few questions about the wrist grab and the times he showed up uninvited.

Then she signed the temporary restraining order.

Five hundred feet. From me. From Sienna’s house. From my workplace.

He’d be served within twenty-four hours.

I walked out of the courtroom lighter and heavier at the same time.

With the order in place, I arranged a police escort to collect my things from the apartment.

Two officers met us there—a woman and a man. They explained we had exactly one hour. Mason was required to stay away while we were inside.

Walking into the apartment felt like stepping into a crime scene.

Everything looked the same at first. The couch we’d watched Netflix on. The blanket we’d fought over. The half-finished puzzle on the coffee table.

Then I saw the wall.

He’d printed photos from Rachel’s Instagram and mine, arranged them side by side. Under each pair of photos, he’d written notes in red pen.

Same hair length.

Tattoo placement identical.

Smile angle matches.

Cycles.

I could barely breathe.

The female officer immediately started taking photos.

“This supports your case,” she said quietly. “This is not normal heartbreak. This is obsession.”

Sienna squeezed my hand.

“Let’s get your stuff,” she said.

We moved fast, grabbing clothes, shoes, my laptop, important documents. Every drawer I opened felt like it might hide another piece of evidence.

In Mason’s nightstand, looking for my spare charger, I found a black notebook.

The first page started innocuous.

Daily Routine Observations.

Then it went dark.

Every page was filled with notes about me.

7:18 a.m. – leaves for work.

Purple sweater, jeans. Hair down.

A note in the margin: Rachel wore red sweater in similar weather.

Tuesday lunch – salad, unsweet tea.

Comparison: Rachel ordered burger. Ashley healthier.

He tracked what I ate, what I wore, when I deviated from what he called “Rachel’s patterns.”

The notebook went back months, long before he ever mentioned my tattoo.

The officer took it gently from my hands.

“We’ll need to keep this as evidence,” she said. “This will help when you go back for the permanent order.”

We finished packing with minutes to spare. I left my key on the kitchen counter next to a note saying I’d pay my half of the rent through the end of the lease.

I didn’t owe him that, but I wanted every legal thread cleanly cut.

That night, back in Sienna’s guest room, I slept for eight straight hours.

It was the first time in weeks I hadn’t jerked awake at every sound.

The next weekend, Sienna, Cooper, and our friend Althea helped me move into a small one-bedroom apartment downtown. Cooper brought furniture from his storage unit, including a beautiful wooden desk perfect for my design work.

We spent Saturday painting the bedroom a deep blue I’d always wanted but Mason had called “too dark.” Althea joked about “banishing bland beige” while we rolled paint in wide strokes.

By Sunday evening, my artwork—pieces I’d made before Mason and ones I’d been too scared to show him—covered the walls. My Cassiopeia print hung above the bed, stars crisp in white ink on black paper.

For the first time in months, the space around me felt like mine.

Work became my anchor.

I threw myself into a rebranding project for a tech startup that wanted to ditch its bland corporate look. Color, typography, motion graphics—all the things that made my brain light up.

Without the constant static of Mason’s commentary in my head, my ideas came faster, bolder. My boss noticed.

“Your last few concepts have been incredible,” she told me, leaning against my cubicle one afternoon. “There’s a confidence in them that wasn’t there before. I want you to lead the next big client project.”

I said yes before self-doubt could open its mouth.

Cooper and I started having lunch together more often. We’d walk to different spots around downtown, talking about everything from typography to movies to the weirdness of adulthood. He never pushed for more than friendship.

His presence was a quiet reminder that not all men wanted to control or reshape the people they loved.

Three months after I left Mason, I walked into a tattoo shop with a design I’d drawn myself—tiny stars to scatter around Cassiopeia, like the night sky expanding.

The artist, a woman named Maya with bright green hair and gentle hands, listened while I explained.

“My ex tried to make me remove this,” I said, touching my shoulder. “This is me reclaiming it.”

She nodded.

“We’re not removing anything,” she said. “We’re adding to it.”

The buzz of the needle was sharp but grounding. When she was done, the constellation looked complete, surrounded by new stars that were mine alone.

“Take that, Mason,” I texted Sienna with a photo.

Weeks later, I learned Mason had shown up at one of Theodor’s parties, fully expecting I’d be there, even though the restraining order prohibited him from being anywhere I was.

I hadn’t gone—I’d cut ties with that friend group—but the fact that he’d gone looking was enough.

I called the non-emergency police line and reported the violation. Two days later, an officer called to say Mason had been arrested for contempt of court.

At his hearing, the judge extended the restraining order and ordered him into a domestic violence offender program and therapy as conditions of his probation.

Seeing him in court in an orange jumpsuit, wrists cuffed, stirred up complicated feelings—guilt, pity, anger—but none of them were enough to override the relief when the judge said the words “three more years.”

Dr. Swanson reminded me that his healing journey, if he chose to pursue it, was separate from mine.

“You are not responsible for his recovery,” she said. “Protecting yourself is not cruelty. It’s survival.”

Over the next year, my life slowly expanded.

My boss promoted me to senior designer, with more creative control and a salary that made my rent feel manageable instead of terrifying.

Cooper and I formed a trivia team with a couple of coworkers. Thursday nights at a bar called The Copper Fox became our ritual.

“Control Alt Defeat,” Cooper wrote on our answer sheet the first week. We were terrible at sports questions, but we crushed pop culture and design.

We high-fived when we got things right. We rolled our eyes when we bombed an entire category. I laughed more during those nights than I had in the last months of my relationship with Mason.

On a hiking trip with Cooper and his friends, I met Jefferson, and my stomach did a weird flip.

I’d seen his face before. In Rachel’s photos.

Mason’s brother.

For the first hour, we did an awkward dance of pretending not to recognize each other.

Finally, on a flat stretch of trail, he fell into step beside me.

“I’m Jefferson,” he said. “I think you know that.”

“Ashley,” I replied, even though he already knew.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “For everything. For what happened with Rachel. For whatever my brother put you through.”

We walked in silence for a minute.

“Mason told me she cheated on him with you at their engagement party,” I said. “That he walked in on you.”

Jefferson grimaced.

“That’s not exactly how it happened,” he said. “Rachel broke off the engagement months before anything happened between us. Mason refused therapy. He refused to accept any version of the story that didn’t make him the betrayed hero.”

He kicked a rock off the path.

“I tried to get him help,” he added. “He said he just needed to find someone who wouldn’t leave.”

Hearing that didn’t make what Mason did okay, but it did close a loop in my head. He’d been offered help. He’d refused.

“I’m glad you got out,” Jefferson said. “For what it’s worth.”

We spent the rest of the hike talking about movies and breakfast burritos and his ridiculous dog. Normal things.

Six months after that, I saw a flyer at Dr. Swanson’s office for a local organization that helped women leaving controlling relationships.

I went to an orientation, then a training. Soon I was sitting with women in coffee shops and community centers, listening to stories that felt painfully familiar.

One woman told me her boyfriend hated her tattoos and kept asking her to laser them off.

“He says they’re unprofessional,” she said. “He even offered to pay for removal.”

My chest tightened.

“My ex did the same thing,” I said softly.

Her eyes widened.

“You left,” she said. “How did you know when it was time?”

“When I realized he wanted to rewrite me,” I said. “Not grow with me. Rewrite me.”

Helping others didn’t erase what happened, but it alchemized some of the pain into something useful.

My mom drove up for a weekend that fall, bringing groceries and a determination to fuss over me.

We were cooking dinner in my tiny kitchen when she set down her knife and studied me.

“You’re different,” she said.

“Older?” I joked.

“Bigger,” she said. “In a good way. You take up more space. Your voice is louder. You’re not constantly scanning the room to see how someone else is reacting.”

I thought about Mason, about the way I’d monitored his mood like it was my job.

“I used to shrink around him,” I admitted.

“I know,” she said. “I could see it happening. I’m proud of you for walking away.”

We hugged in the kitchen, the pasta boiling over behind us.

Sienna and I took a sisters’ weekend to the beach to celebrate surviving the hardest year of my life. We laid in the sun, ate overpriced seafood, and stayed up late talking.

“Matching tattoos?” she suggested on our last morning.

We found a shop a few blocks from the boardwalk. I sketched a small wave pattern—simple, clean, continuous.

“Resilience,” Sienna said. “And the fact that we always ride things out together.”

Maya wasn’t there, but the artist who inked our ankles was kind, making sure we were absolutely sure.

I walked out of that shop with my skin buzzing and my heart light.

One year to the day after I left Mason, my tiny apartment was full of people who loved me.

Sienna. My mom. Cooper. Althea. Even my boss stopped by with a bottle of champagne.

We cooked dinner together, filling the kitchen with steam and laughter. When we finally sat down, Sienna raised her glass.

“To my sister,” she said. “For choosing herself when it would have been easier to stay. For doing the hard work. For being the coolest aunt-to-be my daughter could ever have.”

“You’re pregnant?” I yelped.

She grinned and pulled a tiny onesie from a gift bag. My aunt is cooler than your aunt.

I cried. A lot.

Two years after leaving, life was so different it might have belonged to someone else if I hadn’t felt every step of the way.

I had a promotion. Freelance clients. Trivia nights. Hiking weekends. A support network that didn’t require me to be small to stay.

I was casually seeing someone from Cooper’s hiking group. They loved my tattoos, my messy hair, my tendency to go on long rants about typography.

“Your shoulder is gorgeous,” they said on our third date, tracing the lines of Cassiopeia and the cluster of stars around it.

“My grandmother taught herself the constellations when women weren’t supposed to care about science,” I told them. “This was her favorite.”

“Sounds like she’d be proud of you,” they replied.

On what would have been my grandmother’s birthday, I drove to her grave with coffee and a blanket. I sat on the grass and told her everything.

About Mason. About leaving. About the restraining order and the courtroom and the notebook full of my routines. About the wave tattoo with Sienna and the stars around Cassiopeia.

“He tried to erase you,” I said, touching my shoulder. “I added more of you instead.”

The afternoon sun caught the ink, making the skin around it glow.

That winter, I booked another appointment with Maya.

“Ready for phase three?” she asked, grinning.

“Andromeda,” I said.

We designed her to wrap around Cassiopeia, the chained woman in the myth who was rescued. In my version, she didn’t wait for a hero. She broke her own chains.

The needle buzzed. The pain was sharp, then dull, then strangely soothing.

When Maya was done, I looked in the mirror.

Cassiopeia. Stars. Andromeda.

My grandmother’s sky and my own story, stitched together in dark ink across my skin.

My body. My choice. My story.

Permanent. Unapologetic.

Exactly as I wanted it.