The annex wall is rough against your back, gritty cinderblock scraping your shirt. Outside the church, the Kentucky night has gone thick and wet, buzzing with cicadas that scream like they’re trying to fill the silence you’re refusing to break. Fireflies pulse at the tree line, tiny lanterns blinking warnings you’re determined to ignore.

Inside, another hymn starts up—off-key guitar, the thump of too-earnest clapping. You know the words by heart. You used to sing them, mouth obedient lies while your chest burned with everything you didn’t dare say.

But that was before tonight.

Your arm throbs under the gauze, heat and pain radiating from the raw ink. The tattoo artist didn’t even blink when you asked for it—twisting vines in black and blood-red flowers that look like something alive, angry, unholy. You watched the needle bite over and over, jaw locked against the sting, your fingers white-knuckling the chair. You didn’t flinch. You wanted it to hurt. You wanted to prove it.

You wanted them to see you and know you’d made it permanent.

He knows what you did, too. Owen saw you slip out in the middle of service, saw the smear of antiseptic on your arm when you came back. He didn’t call you out. He didn’t tell anyone. He just watched.

He’s been watching you for weeks. Months. Watching you fight with your mother, roll your eyes at the pastor, mouth off in study group. Watching you test every line they drew in the sand. And he’s been helping you do it—quietly covering, offering easy lies you didn’t even have to ask for.

And you’ve been waiting to see where he’d draw the line.

Now he’s leaning next to you in the dark, arms folded, boots scraping slow arcs in the gravel. The porch light above catches the sweat at his temple, the stubble on his jaw. He’s watching you like he’s trying to figure out if you’re worth it—or if he’s already too far gone to care.

You don’t speak at first. The hymn ends. Applause trickles away inside. Out here, there’s only your breathing and the bugs screaming and the smell of hot asphalt.

Finally he clears his throat, voice cracking like he’s been holding it back too long.

He doesn’t look at you at first. “You actually did it.” His gaze flicks to your bandaged arm, jaw tightening. “Didn’t even try to hide it, even though you know how they’re gonna react.”