It was the day before Beck's birthday, the first time around. We'd been dating for ten months, two weeks, and five days.

"This isn't a birthday present," I declared as I slowly pulled my shirt off. There wasn't a lot of space in his RV for me to fling my clothes around, so I just dropped it on the floor to join my socks. "I might like for this to happen again when it's, you know, not your birthday. Or mine."
"I think that can be arranged." He grinned.
"Depends on how it goes. I might also completely hate it."
"Never heard anything that would make me think you'd hate it."
"Yeah, and we all know how everyone else's opinions mirror mine."
He smirked, but his eyes stayed glued to me. I relished the feeling, for once, without words, but matched his smirk as I undid my belt and slowly shimmied out of my jeans.
"What's that?" He sounded a little surprised.
"What?" I wrinkled my forehead, my lip curling a little. I was trying, damnit, and he didn't have to break the mood. We'd been through all the relevant equipment in sex ed class.

"I didn't know you had a second tattoo."
"You never asked."
"Well, I'd seen most of your skin by then."
"I've never been an exhibitionist about personal stuff."
"Your rebel star isn't personal?"
"Well, yeah, but that was—showing my mother she can't order me around. Saying nobody can. Hiding it would've defeated the point."
"Hey, you go sit in the corner when I tell you."
"Because I want to. No other reason."
"You're cute when you listen."
"Shut up!" I stepped out of my jeans and punched his shoulder. It wasn't a light punch, but he took it, and grinned a little more.

"C'mere." He crooked his finger, and I stepped closer to the bed. "I want to touch it."
I held myself still as he carefully traced the brambles, and outlined the butterflies. I liked it.
"Who designed it?"
"I told Cat what I wanted, and she drew it."
"Somehow that doesn't surprise me. What does, though, is that you actually let someone touch you there for that period of time. I mean, you could call it kind of intimate."
"Are you jealous?" It wasn't something I heard often, since most boys were too scared of me for him to have to worry about someone else 'stealing me away'.
"Maybe a little. He got to before I did." It was good to hear.
"He was professional about it. I would've punched him senseless if he wasn't. And...well, I wanted to be able to wear a miniskirt and not have people able to see my tattoo."
He nodded. "Did you get this at the same place you got the star?"
"No, different place. This one was the first that sparked the whole 'you're not doing anything else to your body' tirade from Mom."
"She's seen it?"
"Hell no. But she saw the charge on my card. And I didn't know if she let the place know I was underage. So I went to a different place for the star and my piercings."
"Ah." His finger wandered over the ink again.

I could be patient. Besides, it was… well, nice. It might sound stupid, but in that moment I felt like he was taking his time to get to know this bit of me that he hadn't seen before, and cherished it. That was the thing about Beck—why I loved him. He would love every part of me, no matter how weird or screwed up. Well, that, and the fact that he'd stuck around. Guys had never stayed around before.

"You know, this might sound kind of weird, but this luna moth-" His finger ghosted over it as he spoke. "-kinda reminds me of you. You know, the light green, pale, a little weird, but still beautiful. And it's not trying to fly, not fighting to get off the thorns. You'd almost think it's kind of happy, in its own way."
"I—since when were you an art critic?" I had never really thought about my tattoo before then. It was just something I liked.
"And this monarch butterfly could be me, chilling there with Luna..."
I turned, laying back on his bed next to him, my feet still on the floor, and propped myself up to examine the tattoo as well.

I hadn't taken a good look at it in a while, though I had stared at Cat's drawing so often while the tattoo was still healing that I could give you a decent sketch of it by heart—nowhere near Cat's level of finesse, though. I still had her drawing in my box of the few things precious to me. On an impulse I had gone back to the shop the day after, and the guy hadn't thrown it away—I don't know why, but I was grateful.

"Yeah, I guess it could," I murmured. The monarch wasn't badly injured, with only a few small spikes protruding through its wings, and none through its body. It was facing outward, though, with its back to the brambles and its legs curled in, as if it wanted to impale itself—though it wasn't succeeding.

If you wanted to, you could see that as a metaphor for Beck. If you wanted. He had the most normal life out of all of us—two parents who loved each other and were plenty lax with him. He was good guy, sweet, kind, good grades. He knew what he wanted to do with his life—act—and didn't get distracted by any of the other things he was also good at, like singing or playing the guitar. He knew how to solve all the problems he had—the RV being a case in point. I think sometimes the reason he hung out with Cat and me and Andre was to get a taste of a life that wasn't quite so—easy.
I mean, that's one way you could look at it.

"Mmmm, sweetheart, I'm probably suicidal enough for both of us..." I murmured as I sat up, grabbing his head and pulling him to me for a quick kiss. That turned into a longer kiss, that continued as he shed his plaid overshirt, then his undershirt, and…

Suffice to say that was the end of the conversation about my tattoo.
But what he had said stuck with me. When Beck asked me several months later if there was any nickname it was okay to give me in private, I said "Luna". He smiled at that. I think he remembered, too.

After I went home, I took Cat's drawing back out and stared at it. I don't know if Cat had our little group in mind when she drew it, or if it was a subconscious thing, or if Beck's artsy interpretive mood was catching.

The most eye-catching butterfly was also the most damaged, with its body almost torn in half, twisted at an unnatural angle on the thorns, blood dripping down. Its wings were pierced enough that it was obvious it would struggle to fly, but the colors still shone clear.

I later learned it was a European Peacock Butterfly. Cat had drawn it almost to a "T". Leave it to her to know her butterflies. In a moment of delirium, I thought it could almost be one of her deranged self-portraits she drew in kindergarten—she'd shown me them once during the rare times I went to her house, usually when her brother was in the hospital.

The last two were black and yellow—different wing shape, but similar coloring. The larger of the two was trapped, pinned by the smaller, which was impaled over the larger on the spike going through the middle of the larger one's wing. The lower one might've been okay, but it seemed resigned to its fate, keeping the trapped wing flat. The smaller butterfly's wings were completely torn, and it was limp, weighing down on the wing of the larger one below it.

At the thought that this could be Andre with his grandmother—or God forbid, Robbie and Rex—I folded it back up and shoved it into the box in the hurry, slamming the lid shut and shoving it away from me.

I had bloody and dying butterflies on my leg. Not my friends. Not anything symbolizing my friends, or anybody else.
Sometimes I worried about how good Beck was for my mental health.