Smudged Lines

Was the truth too costly? 

My life had become full of scribbles and lies, the lines smudged too many times to know the truth. 

Small town girl, eyes full of hope, I never thought my life would come to this. 

It had started out so simple, and then somewhere between first loves and now, it went majorly off course. All the lies caught up to them, and I no longer knew who I could trust. 

Everything was muddled, and no one knew the full truth of what had happened the day when everything changed. We'd become too twisted in our pain to look beyond it, believing the lies we were told, or perhaps wanted to believe. 

Our inked confessions began as a safe way to share our fears and hopes, but with this betrayal, everything was riddled with deceit, and I wasn't sure if any of us would ever find our way back to one another. 

And yet, their love was a permanent tattoo on my heart, three smudged lines I couldn't erase, nor would I ever want to, no matter how deep the pain pierced. 

But the music didn't lie, and my heart was nowhere near a love song. He'd made sure of that. When all you had left was your gut feeling, was it enough? 

*This is a why choose novel, meaning the main female character doesn't have to choose between love interests. This is a contemporary romantic suspense novel with some dark elements. This is an adult romance and intended for readers 18+ due to language and content. This series will contain MM. This does have a happy ending.