Elena contacted Kayla several days later.
The message was brief.
“Owen sent me a picture of your tattoo. I am so sorry. I didn’t know he was doing this. If you want to speak, I will answer anything.”
Kayla read it with her stomach tightening.
He had photographed her arm.
She remembered him holding his phone near the chair while Casey cleaned the finished tattoo.
She had thought he was saving a picture for her.
Now she understood who he had wanted to show.
Kayla replied the next morning.
“What did he say when he sent it?”
Elena forwarded the message.
“Some people don’t forget what mattered.”
Kayla stared at the screen.
The name was not an awkward tribute.
It was a message to another woman, delivered through his wife’s skin.
Elena called after Kayla agreed.
Her voice was quiet.
“I told him I was engaged because he kept contacting me. I wanted him to stop.”
“How often?”
“More than I was comfortable with.”
Kayla closed her eyes.
“He told me you were friends.”
“We hadn’t been close for years.”
There was a pause.
“I blocked him after the photograph.”
Kayla looked at the letters on her arm.
For days, she had felt anger whenever she saw the name.
Hearing Elena speak made it harder to attach that anger to the wrong person.
“Thank you for telling me.”
“I don’t know why he thought I would want this.”
“Neither do I.”
Elena offered to send the relevant messages. Kayla accepted and thanked her again.
They did not become friends.
They did not make plans to confront him together.
One woman had been used to send a message.
The other had refused to receive it as a declaration of love.
That was enough.
