My Tattoo Linked Me To Him

After the breakup, I got a small black snake tattooed on my hip.

That night, I dreamed of a serpent coiling around my arm. It transformed into a man with a lethal smile and a body carved from marble. In the haze of the dream, I wrapped my arms around his waist and called him husband.

The next day, a high-level executive from the corporate headquarters was fast-tracked to our office.

I froze the moment I saw him. His face was a perfect, terrifying match for the man in my dream.

While the rest of the team buzzed with excitement, I kept my head down, my face burning as I joined the chorus of greetings.

"Welcome, Mr. Blackwood."

Later that afternoon, he cornered me in the breakroom, a playful, knowing glint in his eyes.

"Not going to call me 'husband' today?"

My ex, Harrison, was the golden boy of our university. When we graduated, I landed a steady job, but he said he wanted to pursue his Masters. As his girlfriend, I did what any supportive partner would do: I stepped up.

That "support" lasted three years. For three years, I was the sole breadwinner, paying for his life while he studied.

Every time the exam results came out and he fell short of the cutoff, hed complain about the "unfairly high standards" before looking at me with those puppy-dog eyes, dripping with guilt.

"Im so sorry, babe. I let you down again."

"Just give me one more chance."

Looking at the shattered light in his eyes, Id always remember him on the debate stage in collegeambitious, brilliant, untouchable. He used to say that a young mans dreams shouldn't be shackled by reality; that we had to fight the world to stay true to ourselves.

Back then, he radiated a kind of energy that made me feel like anything was possible. That was the version of him I loved.

So, Id grit my teeth and nod.

I can work a few more hours, I told myself. I can handle the stress.

I lived a life of extreme frugality. I became the office martyr, taking every overtime shift and every thankless task, just to ensure he had a quiet, comfortable environment to study.

Whenever he saw me coming home exhausted, hed stroke my hair.

"Once I get into grad school, Im going to make it all up to you. Ill give you the life you deserve."

I wanted to believe him.

I had fought so hard to get him in the first place. Back in college, I was the one chasing himbringing him breakfast, running miles beside him at the gym, standing in the rain with an umbrella just to make sure he stayed dry. I loved every second of it. When he finally asked me to be his girlfriend on my birthday, I felt like Id won the lottery.

My roommates used to tease us, saying we were like a couple straight out of a romance novel. I believed them. I thought I was the heroine who had finally won over her cold, brilliant hero.

But novels are smart; they end at the wedding or the grand confession. They stop before the credits roll on the mundane, soul-crushing reality of what comes after the "happily ever after."

In the third year, he finally did it. He got into his dream program.

The day he received his acceptance letter, I was genuinely ecstatic for him. I was beaming, my heart light for the first time in years.

He looked at me and asked, "Are you just happy because you don't have to support me anymore?"

I blinked, the smile faltering. I was happy because his dream had come truenot because of the money.

Harrison saw my stunned expression and let out a sharp laugh. "Just kidding. Lets go get a steak."

I tried to shake off the unease and forced a smile.

Later, I realized that people often use "just kidding" as a shield for the truths theyre finally brave enough to say.

What followed wasn't the reward hed promised. It was the "Slow Fade." The cold shoulder. The emotional desert.

Eventually, I couldn't take the silence anymore. I drove down to his campus and found him walking with a beautiful girl from his cohortBridget. He was leaning toward her, his expression softer and more attentive than hed been with me in years.

I confronted him, tears streaming down my face, asking if hed moved on.

Harrison just smiledthat same "ambitious" smile that used to inspire me, but now felt like ice. He told me to go back to work. My tears didn't move him. He was gentle, but it was the kind of gentleness a surgeon uses before an amputation.

"We just aren't on the same frequency anymore, Elena. You have to understand."

When he was drowning, I was the life raft he clung to. He whispered sweet things to keep me paddling. But now that hed reached the shore, he didn't need the raft. He wanted to push it back into the current and watch it sink so he wouldn't have to be reminded of how wet hed once been.

I wiped my eyes and turned away, my heart hardening.

"I loved you, Harrison. But I don't have to love you."

If he wanted to play games, he could play them with someone else. I might have been a "lover girl," but I wasn't an idiot.

I spent the walk back to my car cursing his name. I passed a tattoo parlor with a neon sign: REBIRTH STARTS WITH INK. 50% OFF.

It was a tacky slogan, but I found myself walking in anyway. Why not? Id spent three years being the "perfect, supportive partner." Id never done anything rebellious.

The artist was a rugged guy with a thick beard and a heavy Midwestern accent.

"Looking for something special, honey?"

He pointed to a classic black rose. I made a face. Too clich.

Then, my eyes caught a flash of something else. A small black snake. It was elegant, mysterious, and looked dangerous in a quiet way.

"I want that. On my hip."

The artist looked at me, surprised, then shrugged. "Bold choice. Lets do it."

I walked out an hour later, the skin on my hip throbbing with a dull, radiating heat. That same afternoon, I quit my dead-end job and sent my resume to Summit Media, the biggest firm in the city.

By evening, a chill set in. My body felt like it was humming with a fever. I crawled into bed, exhausted from the crying and the adrenaline, and fell into a deep, heavy sleep.

In the haze, I felt someone sitting on the edge of my bed. A man.

"So foolish..." he whispered. It sounded like a sigh of exasperation, or maybe... heartbreak.

I looked up and saw a face like something out of a dreamsharp, ethereal, hauntingly familiar yet completely unknown.

Driven by some primal instinct, I whispered, "Husband..."

I reached out and pulled him toward me, crying into his chest.

The next morning, I woke up feeling like a total lunatic. Clearly, Im more traumatized by the breakup than I thought, I told myself. It was just a dream.

Then, the luck started.

My resume didn't just get a look; I got an interview. Then, I got the job. Summit Media. A Fortune 500 company.

I threw myself into the work. I worked hard for three months, ignoring the lingering headaches and the weirdly vivid dreams, until...

"Whats the gossip today?" I asked, stirring my coffee in the breakroom.

My coworker, Sarah, leaned in with a conspiratorial wink. "Didn't you hear? The new Managing Director from HQ is here today. Rumor has it, hes a total smoke-show."

I was half-listening until the elevator doors opened. A man in a charcoal-grey suit stepped out, followed by a phalanx of executives.

I nearly dropped my mug.

That face.

It was him. The "husband" from my fever dream. The man with the washboard abs and the voice like velvet.

Life is a cruel, cosmic joke.

I ducked my head, my face turning a violent shade of red, trying to disappear into the carpet as we all chimed in, "Welcome, Mr. Blackwood."

Dominic Blackwood didn't acknowledge me specifically. He just gave a curt nod, offered a few corporate platitudes, and walked toward the corner office without a second glance.

But that night, he was back in my dreams.

He pinned me against the wall of a darkened hallway, his lips inches from my ear, his voice a low, teasing vibration.

"Why didn't you call me 'husband' today?"