She touched two fingers to her temple.
“Oh…” Jared smiled and shook his head, trying to dismiss her concern. “My headaches aren’t brought on or made worse by loud noises.”
If it were that simple, he’d be able to avoid triggers and live a pain-free life. As it was, his injured brain delivered debilitating headaches on its own schedule. Stress and tiredness were big factors, which was wonderful, considering how easily he got worn out.
Nodding, Faye stood. “You really should do something for your birthday. I can get some drinks and snacks, and we can have a little party with the guys later if you want?”
Jared shook his head. “It’s just a birthday. No big deal.”
“Let me know if you change your mind. When I was your age, a birthday was a great excuse to go out and get hammered.”
Jared smiled. “And it’s not anymore?”
He wasn’t sure how old Faye was. Somewhere in her thirties perhaps.
“I’m getting close enough to forty to want to start counting backwards,” she told him. “Or forgetting I’m having a birthday at all.”
Jared wondered at how easily she could wish to ‘forget’ things. However, wasn’t that sort of what he was doing bynotcelebrating his birthday? “I don’t drink,” he told her. “Alcohol and brain injuries are a risky mix.”
Faye winced. “Sorry. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Why would you?” Jared asked.
“Non-alcoholic drinks and nibbles?” she suggested.
Jared shook his head. “I really don’t want to do anything.” He almost apologised but held the words in, debating how much of Faye’s desire to see him celebrate was due to mollycoddling him.
It was unfair of him to think like that. As soon as she’d offered him a job, he’d told her about his brain injury. She’d been satisfied enough that, although there were ongoing repercussions, none of them would affect his ability to design and ink tattoos. Despite her confidence in him, she treated him differently than the other tattoo artists who worked at Ink Envy, Liam and Ezra. He wanted to believe it was because he was an apprentice and because he was significantly younger than Faye, Liam, and Ezra, but he knew, deep down, that Faye’s almost motherly concern was because he was broken.
“Okay. Message received. No party,” Faye said, checking her watch. “I’ve got another client in five. I helped him design his tattoo. It’s a pretty intricate leg design, if you want to watch and maybe help out a little?”
“That would be great.”
“I’ll see you downstairs in five?”
Jared nodded.
He listened to her footsteps on the stairs until she’d gone too far and the only sound that was left was the buzz of tattoo machines on the next floor down and the occasional murmur of voices that didn’t clearly carry up the stairs.
He loved working at Ink Envy, but the combination of fierce concentration and constant buzzing seemed to be contributing to bringing on the headaches with increasing regularity. That day was no exception. A dull throbbing sensation had settled behind his eyes, and his neck and shoulders were sore. Not wanting to let the headaches defeat him and prevent him from working, he took some of the painkillers his previous consultant had prescribed with plenty of water—they were another reason he kept well away from alcohol—before following Faye downstairs.
* * *
Jared helped Faye lock up the shop before heading back to the room he was renting in a shared house. It was the cheapest place he’d been able to find when he’d made the rash decision to come to Leeds. Annoyingly, his room overlooked a busy main road, but that was his only complaint. His housemates were pretty clean and tidy, so the communal areas were always in a good state, plus he barely saw them.
There was a stack of post waiting for him when he got back. He flicked through the envelopes as he checked the notice board for messages from the landlady or his housemates—there were none—and then made his way up to his room. All the bedrooms had locks on the doors to protect their personal belongings. It felt a little untrusting, but he always locked his room just the same.
His post was a mixture of cards and official-looking letters from the local hospital. He checked those first, his brain making it hard to take in and process the information, so he could make a note of all the appointments he’d been sent on his wall planner. One of the joys of moving was that he’d needed to transfer his care from Surrey to Leeds, which meant he needed to see all the new specialists he’d be working with over the coming months and years: a neurological consultant, pain specialist, and a dietician. All of them would require him to miss time at Ink Envy, but he knew that wouldn’t be a problem. He put the envelopes into a bag, ready to go into the recycling bin that sat in the back alley, and then folded the letters up and stuffed them into his coat pocket to show Faye the next day.
Next, he opened the cards, reading each one slowly. One was from his parents, and the other two were from his sisters, Bianca and Cordelia. He read the messages they’d written for him, grateful for their brevity and the fact that they’d sent the cards. His parents had included a photo of him on an earlier birthday. There was a date on the back, but it took him far longer than it should have to figure out that it had been taken when he was turning seven. He had to do a lot of the maths on his fingers, which was frustrating. In the photo, he was blowing out candles on a cake, his chubby cheeks puffed out. His family were around him. He feltnothing. There was no emotion. No spark of recognition. Everyone in the photo, including himself, might as well have been strangers.
He stood the cards up on his bookshelf and added the photo to the scrapbook his parents had started for him, when he’d been in hospital. He took a few minutes to flick through it, staring at photos, award certificates, and letters that meant nothing to him. At the back was a bundle of get-well cards from dozens of people who had obviously cared about him on some level, but he couldn’t remember any of them.
He flipped to the back, where he had added in some bits and pieces he’d found while looking through boxes from his time in university. He paused at the piece of paper that had brought him to the city in the first place. All that was written on it was ‘J Leeds?’in beautiful cursive handwriting.Hishandwriting. It had bemused him that his handwriting had remained more or less the same after the accident. He’d spoken to the neurologist about it, who had explained that things such as knowing how to write or ride a bike were stored in a different part of his brain than the bit that had been damaged.
He stared at the note he’d apparently written to himself, but the mystery as to why didn’t miraculously unravel in his head. Naively he’d hoped that by coming here, he’d be able to figure out why he’d written it and what it meant. His parents had told him he hadn’t had any plans to move, but he couldn’t be sure that was true. Understandably, they’d wanted to keep him close and take care of him.
He closed the scrapbook with a sigh and shoved it back onto the bookshelf. Either he’d figure the note out, or he wouldn’t. Either way he was starting to create a new life, independent of his suffocating, if well-meaning parents, and he was becoming fond of it.
