I dip my head to capture her words with another kiss. There’s more to say; I’m not fool enough to think that we’ve resolved everything that happened in the five years between us, but I’m also not fool enough to stop kissing her when my body and mind are screaming at me to make sure she knows I’ll never let her go again.

“I know, beautiful. It’s okay.” I soothe her between kisses. “I promise. It’s okay.”

Whatever we need to figure out, it can be tomorrow’s problem. Or next week’s problem, for all I care. If we can find our way back to each other after five years apart, there’s nothing between us that can’t be fixed. I’m sure of it.

Kissing a line down my neck, her fingers find my belt buckle, but they pause before it comes undone. I’ve closed my eyes to enjoy the sensation of having her hands on me again, but she’s gone so still. When open them, she’s studying my forearm.

“That tattoo.” She almost chokes on the word. “Is that…”

I raise my arm so she can see. The tips of her fingers lightly graze over the ink, following the words underneath the torn-paper design. Her lips move as she silently reads, and when she drags her eyes to meet mine again, they’re lined with tears.

“Those are my words,” she whispers.

“This was one of those moments when there was a clear before and after,” I quote. The passage is inked in my memory as much as it is on my skin. “She was never going to be the same again. Those minutes and hours in the time before seemed to stretch out of reach now. She was never going to get them back. There was only forward. Only what was ahead of her. And she had to face it.”

Twin tears fall silently down her cheeks. “Ryan…” She trails off, shaking her head.

I kiss one tear away, then another. “There has never been another woman for me, Scarlett.” I cup her face in my hands and swipe my thumbs over the wetness on her cheeks. “If I couldn’t have you with me, I wanted your words.”

As if a dam has finally broken, she throws her arms around my neck and kisses me passionately, our teeth clicking together with the force of it.

Maybe this is one of those moments she wrote about, where there’s a clear before and after. I knew it was when she left, and now that she’s back again, I can feel it the same way. There’s only what’s ahead of us. We can face it together.