Before I returned the picture to its spot on the shelf, I stared at it for a bit, tears stinging my eyes. Violet stood next to me waiting for me to explain the picture to her. I guess she just wanted something gossipy to take her mind off her breakup. What I hoped was her breakup, anyway. You never can predict what anyone was willing to put up to avoid being alone. “This is just a really old picture of my best friends and me when we were kids. I think we were ten.”
“You don’t keep in touch with either of them anymore?”
I swallowed the thick lump that knotted itself in my throat and placed the picture back on the shelf it came from, right next to the bulky album of letters that I never let anyone ever see. “Nah, sometimes the past is best left there, you know?”
Violet shrugged her shoulders and took off the boxing gloves, “Thanks for…trying to make me feel better, girlie.”
I took her in my arms and hugged her. “I promise you, you’ll be better off without him, Vi,” I whispered.
Silently, she hung up the gloves and walked out of my studio. I felt horrible not having the right words to say to her that would make her feel better, but my words now aren’t going to help her heal. Only time away from Matt would help her recover and get on with her life without him.That much I knew for sure.
Grabbing my own lollipop, I walked to the back of the shop and climbed up the stairs to my apartment. I barely got the little plastic wrapper off before I shoved the whole sucker in my mouth. Bitter sour apple burst onto my taste buds, making the bottom of my jaw ache all the way up to my ears while tears burned in my eyes. Quietly, with pursed lips, I tiptoed into my bedroom. My light was still on, and Bren was in the same exact position I left him in five hours ago. Five hours! I wanted to laugh, but I was too disgusted. Here’s my lesson to you: Don’t wish for a knight in shining armor. You’ll just end up spending most of your time doing lots of polishing. And that armor tarnishes faster than any other substance on earth; instead, spend that time on yourself.
I jumped in the shower to get ready for work. I blew my hair dry, played some Avenged Sevenfold at about the same decibels as a space shuttle liftoff, and sang even louder. Bren still didn’t wake up. I bet if I opened a can of beer,thatnoise would get him up.
Frustrated, I opened the shop and took my first appointment of the day, which was a very dear piece of art to me - the back of Michael Storkes. As soon as I saw the man’s determined smile, my frustrations melted away and calmness stole over my body. Michael and his wife had visited Stone Caresses for over ten years, maybe even more. When Auburn ran the shop, they would spend the day here, catching up and drinking together.
Two months ago, after a painful six-month battle with Stage IV breast cancer, Michael’s wife, Susan, passed away. The day after he buried her, Michael came to the shop in tears, burst into my studio, collapsed on the small couch, and asked me to draw up a portrait of Susan to go on his back. With shaky fingers, he handed me an array of photos of her and got up to leave. But I gently placed my hand on his shoulder and pulled him back.
Every tattoo tells a story. Whether it’s a silly story from a drunken night that you’ll never remember or the story of the memory of the love of your life, there wasalwaysa story.
I pulled up a chair next to my drafting table and asked him to sit down and tell me some of the best memories he had with his wife. Because that’s the story I wanted to capture and etch on his back, the love he had for her. He told me how they met at a dance in high school while he played in the high school band, and she danced with her date in front of him. He laughed as he told me she left her date at that dance and let him drive her home, instead. He reminisced about how they had an intense courtship and then he left to fight in Vietnam. He told me that right before he left, Susan looked at him and said, “True love always comes back.”
By the end of his story, Susan Storkes looked up, breathtakingly beautiful, from my paper, surrounded by everything that was ever dear to her. “Oh, my God,” Michael whispered over my shoulder. “I haven’t seen her look that alive in such a long time. Sage, she’s exquisite.I knew. I knew you could bring her back to life for me.”
Today, I finished her portrait on his back with a strange sense of triumph. Cancer would never affect her there; not in his memory, not in my picture. Screw you cancer, you don’t win everywhere.
Michael hugged me tight as he thanked me. With his fatherly arms around me, I wondered what it would feel like to be loved like that. To feel a love that waits through a war for you, that loves you enough to want to marry you, a love that battles cancer with you, one that walks by your side without ever judging or trying to change you. A love unlike Matt’s, with his cheating and hitting, and definitely unlike Bren’s, with his indifference and resentments. Truthfully, I couldn’t believe I just coupled the words “love” and “Bren” in the same thought. We hardly even tolerated each other anymore.
I knew real existed. I saw it in Michael’s eyes, and I’d also felt it, once, long ago. But, like I told Violet before, some things are best left in the past. Hidden deep alongside your secrets.And don’t tell me you don’t have secrets; everybody does. We just all have different levels of severity to them, and different ways we deal with them.
When I looked up, Bren was just walking into the shop. He looked perfect in his dress shirt and designer pants. Only his hair looked disheveled, but Bren always pulled that look off like he’d just mussed it to death.
He sauntered through the shop, saying hello to the girls and holding a half full bottle of water to spit in, a huge bulge of chewing tobacco wadded up under his lips. He walked over to me and squeezed my shoulder in a friendly-hey-buddy-how’s-it-going way. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” he murmured into my ear.
I had about thirty minutes before my next appointment, so I followed him into my apartment. He walked me right into my bedroom.
I must admit that I had a bit of the butterflies twirling around in my lower abdomen, thinking maybe I was going to get to whip out my girly parts and have some fun.
When Bren and I first decided to try for a romantic relationship, we’d set a slow, lazy pace of intimacy that I thought was sweet and cute. There was never any crazy-lusty-passion, or angst, no slamming me up against a wall. Everything was just…nice. Easy. Safe.
Right about then, I wanted to slam myself up against a wall and show him how itshouldbe done.
I practically threw myself on my bed, yanking off my clothes like I hadn’t had sex in four months.Oh, wait—I hadn’t. And looky there, I ripped my own damn shirt. Damn, I was good.
Bren licked his lips.
That was a damn good sign, wasn’t it?
He crawled himself over me with a devilish smile, opened his pants, wrapped a condom on, pumped himself with his hand, and dove in.
Yeah.
Read it again. Go on.
Dove right in.
No nipple twists this time. No rubbing the spot two inches from my fun-button that might have eased mycomplete dryness. No. Nope. Nothing like that. The idiot just dove in.
