The Matching Tattoos in See You Yesterday: Symbol Analysis and Study Guide

What the Matching Tattoos Are and Where They Appear

The matching tattoos are a pair of deliberately absurd, temporary marks that Barrett Bloom and Miles Kasher-Okamoto give each other during their shared time loop. Barrett's tattoo, chosen by Miles, is an anthropomorphized mozzarella stick wearing a cape, placed on her forearm. Miles's tattoo, designed by Barrett, reads “property of Barrett Bloom” with a rose, inked on his lower back. The tattoos first appear in Chapter 26, when the two visit a Capitol Hill tattoo shop called Ink & Paper. Barrett flips through design books and jokes about ridiculous options before Miles selects her design, and Barrett hands over her own sketch for his. The artist, Gemini, works on both of them in the same session.

The tattoos recur most significantly in Chapter 28, the morning after they are inked. Barrett wakes to a sore, hot sensation on her forearm and initially believes the pain means the loop has finally broken—that she and Miles have reached Thursday. But when she looks at her arm, the ink is gone. The skin is warm but bare, and even the hair Gemini shaved has grown back. The pain remains, pulsing beneath the surface, but the visible mark has vanished. Barrett later texts Miles, wanting to ask whether his “property of Barrett Bloom” tattoo is sore, but she holds back.

The tattoos also echo in Chapter 33, when Barrett and Miles visit Dr. Ella Devereux in Astoria, Oregon. Barrett wears a cardigan over “today's yesterday's bruise and broken skin,” a phrase that gestures at the physical residue of events that no longer exist in the timeline. The tattoos and the bruise share the same strange status: they are felt but not seen, evidence of a day that did not happen.

What the Tattoos Mean at First: Defiance and Intimacy

When Barrett and Miles decide to get tattoos, they are not making a casual choice. They have been stuck in the same September day for weeks—Barrett for three weeks, Miles for much longer. They have tried to pack every possible experience into a single twenty-four-hour period: attempting a Guinness World Record, riding the Great Wheel, sampling food at Pike Place Market, even buying a Porsche. The tattoos are another item on that list, but they carry a different weight.

Barrett reflects that the tattoos are “designed to be permanent, and yet we're getting them for the sole reason that they're temporary.” That paradox is the heart of the symbol. In a normal life, a tattoo is a commitment—a mark you carry for decades, a statement about who you are. In the loop, the tattoo is a promise that will be erased by morning. Getting one is an act of defiance against the loop's power to wipe away every choice. It says: we will do something permanent anyway, even if permanence is impossible.

The tattoos are also an act of trust. Barrett and Miles let each other choose the designs, which means surrendering control over something that will be written on their bodies. Barrett notes that she is relieved Miles picked her forearm, because she worried he might choose a spot that would expose parts of her body she is self-conscious about. Miles, for his part, allows Barrett to put a possessive phrase on his lower back, a placement that requires him to take off his shirt and lie facedown in front of her. The scene is charged with vulnerability: Barrett tries not to look at his back, fails, and finds herself thinking about what Miles said about making love to someone. The tattoos become a physical record of how far they have come from the hostile strangers of Chapter 2, who traded barbs in Physics 101 and accused each other of being uptight or combative.

What the Tattoos Mean After the Reset: Erasure and Memory

The morning after the tattoo session, the tattoos are gone, but the pain is not. Barrett wakes with a “tight, hot sensation” on her forearm and feels a surge of hope—she assumes the loop has broken. The discovery that the ink has vanished while the soreness remains is devastating. The tattoos become a symbol of the loop's erasure: everything Barrett and Miles do together, every connection they build, every mark they leave on each other is wiped away by the reset. The pain is the only trace, and even that fades within hours.

Barrett's reaction is telling. She had planned to wear the tattoo “like a badge of honor,” a reminder that she survived the loop and came out stronger. Instead, she is left with nothing but a phantom ache. The tattoos expose the cruel logic of the loop: it allows Barrett and Miles to experience intimacy, joy, and even permanence, but it refuses to let those experiences accumulate. The tattoos are a physical manifestation of the central problem of the novel—how do you build a relationship when every day starts from zero?

The tattoos also connect to the novel's treatment of trauma. Barrett carries the memory of the high school tennis scandal and the #debloomed harassment campaign, wounds that are invisible but still painful. The tattoos mirror that dynamic: they are marks that hurt even after they disappear. In Chapter 28, Barrett reflects that she and Miles have both been “trapping ourselves in these prisons of our own making,” and that they have both been yearning for connection. The tattoos are an attempt to break out of those prisons, to make a mark on someone else, but the loop keeps slamming the door shut.

How the Tattoos Connect to Themes and Characters

The tattoos are a concrete expression of several of the novel's central themes. They speak to the paradox of consequence-free living: Barrett and Miles can do anything—buy a Porsche, get a tattoo, break a world record—because nothing will stick. But the tattoos reveal that this freedom is hollow. The lack of consequences also means a lack of meaning. A tattoo that vanishes by morning is not a commitment; it is a gesture. The tattoos force Barrett and Miles to confront the fact that they want something more than a series of thrilling, forgettable days.

The tattoos also connect to the theme of vulnerability as the foundation of genuine intimacy. Barrett and Miles do not get matching tattoos in the usual sense—they do not choose a shared design. Instead, they let each other choose. That act of surrender is more intimate than any matching symbol could be. Barrett gives Miles a phrase that claims him as hers; Miles gives Barrett a joke that only he would find endearing. The tattoos are a private language, a way of saying “I trust you with my body” without saying it aloud.

For Barrett, the tattoos are also a step toward confronting rather than outrunning her trauma. She has spent the novel trying to reinvent herself, to become “New Barrett,” but the loop keeps forcing her to relive the same day. The tattoos are an attempt to create something new, to leave a mark on the world, but their erasure forces her to accept that she cannot skip ahead to a version of herself that has already healed. She has to do the work of facing her past, which she eventually does in Chapter 40, when she confesses the tennis scandal and the post-prom encounter to her mother.

For Miles, the tattoos are a rare moment of playfulness. He is introduced as the “shy scientist” who wants to repeat experiments to confirm results, the student who volunteers the correct definition of physics and bristles at Barrett's indifference to the subject. The tattoo session shows him loosening up, laughing at Barrett's design, and even making a joke about being shirtless. The tattoos are a sign that the loop has given him something he lacked: a reason to be spontaneous. But they also remind him of what he stands to lose. In Chapter 42, after the loop ends, Miles admits he was hesitant to leave—he was afraid of what would happen when the loop stopped protecting him from the consequences of his choices. The tattoos, which were supposed to be permanent and vanished anyway, are a preview of that fear.

The Tattoos as a Symbol of the Bond That Survives Erasure

By the end of the novel, the tattoos take on a third meaning. They are gone, but the bond they represented is not. In Chapter 41, Barrett tries to trigger Miles's memory by bringing him snacks—a cookie, a bagel, mozzarella sticks. The mozzarella sticks are a direct callback to the tattoo, a joke that only the two of them would understand. Miles experiences déjà vu but does not remember. The mozzarella sticks fail as a memory trigger, but they succeed as a symbol: the connection between Barrett and Miles is built on shared experiences that the loop tried to erase, and those experiences are still real, even if Miles cannot recall them.

When Miles's memory returns in Chapter 42, he and Barrett embrace and kiss in the library. The tattoos are not mentioned, but their absence is meaningful. Barrett and Miles no longer need a physical mark to prove their bond. They have moved from the loop's world of temporary gestures to the real world, where choices have consequences and relationships can grow. The tattoos were a rehearsal for that transition: they taught Barrett and Miles that they could trust each other with something permanent, even if permanence was impossible. When the loop ends, they are ready to make real commitments—Miles calls Barrett his girlfriend, and they plan a date to see Pride & Prejudice.

The tattoos ultimately symbolize the novel's argument that connection is not erased by forgetting. The loop wiped away the ink, but it could not wipe away the feeling. Barrett wakes on the morning after the tattoo session with hope, pain, and a memory of joy. Those are the things that survive.

Study Questions

Why do Barrett and Miles let each other choose their tattoo designs, and what does that choice reveal about their relationship at that point in the novel?

Answer: Letting the other person choose is an act of trust and surrender. Barrett and Miles have spent weeks as reluctant partners, bickering and keeping their guard up. By allowing each other to pick the designs, they are saying that they trust the other person with something personal and permanent—even though they know it will not last. The choice also reveals how much they have changed: Miles picks a silly, affectionate design for Barrett, and Barrett picks a possessive, teasing phrase for Miles. They are comfortable enough to be playful and vulnerable with each other.

The tattoos are “designed to be permanent, and yet we're getting them for the sole reason that they're temporary.” How does this paradox reflect the larger situation Barrett and Miles are in?

Answer: The paradox mirrors the time loop itself. Barrett and Miles are living through days that feel permanent—they experience real emotions, real pain, and real connection—but those days are erased every morning. The tattoos are a physical version of that experience: they are meant to last, but they vanish. The paradox also highlights the emptiness of consequence-free living. Without consequences, actions lose their weight. The tattoos are Barrett and Miles's attempt to create weight in a world that refuses to let anything stick.

What does Barrett's reaction to the tattoos' disappearance in Chapter 28 reveal about her emotional state?

Answer: Barrett wakes with hope, assuming the pain means the loop has broken. When she sees that the ink is gone, she feels devastation. The tattoos' disappearance forces her to confront the fact that the loop is still in control and that her experiences with Miles will not accumulate. Her reaction also shows how much she has come to value her connection with Miles—she wants the tattoo to be real, to be a lasting record of what they have shared. The phantom pain she feels is a symbol of her grief: the bond is real, but it cannot be seen or held.

How do the tattoos connect to the novel's themes of vulnerability and intimacy?

Answer: The tattoos are an act of mutual vulnerability. Barrett and Miles expose parts of their bodies and their tastes to each other, and they accept marks that the other person chose. This is a form of intimacy that goes beyond words. The tattoos also show that vulnerability is necessary for genuine connection: Barrett and Miles cannot build a real relationship by keeping their guard up. They have to let each other in, even if the loop will erase the evidence. The tattoos are a practice run for the real intimacy they achieve at the end of the novel, when they confess their love and plan a future together.