Sketch pulled on some gloves and dragged his cart over to me. “You good with whatever again?” he asked. “It’s just the pain you’re after anyway, right?” he said, blunt as fuck. He stared at me, needle in hand. His eyes were ringed in darkness, a sadness in them that betrayed his real anger.
“Yeah, do whatever,” I replied, admitting nothing.
“Sit still,” he ordered as he scanned my chest and arms, deciding on what and where he wanted to tattoo. He leaned forward. “The girl you’re looking for,” he said, “her name’s Hope, right?”
I frowned and nodded. “Yeah, why? You heard anything about her?”
“Nah, nothing. I like the name though.” He pushed me back in the chair. “Sit still.”
I took a swig on the whiskey as he started to tattoo across my chest, the now familiar burning itch from the tattoo needle sending shivers down my arms. The tension in my shoulders started to fade and I leaned my head back and stared up at the ceiling, relishing it. It wasn’t so much pain that the tattoo gave me; it was only a distraction. But a distraction was exactly what I needed.
Forty minutes later, Sketch sat back and I opened my eyes, realizing that I must have fallen asleep at some point. That was fucked up for sure.
“Thank fuck for that. Your snoring was beginning to become an issue for me,” he said, turning off the machine. He grabbed some wipes and dragged them across my sensitive skin. “All done.”
I looked down but couldn’t make out what he’d done. “What is it?” I asked, standing up and walking toward the mirror on the wall. I stopped when I got close, staring at the letters forever burned across the place above my heart. “Hope,” I said on a swallow. “This some kind of fucked-up joke?”
I turned back to him, the pain of Hope burning in my heart. I glared, feeling angry and relieved all at the same time. Like I’d finally found her even though I hadn’t really.
“Gotta have hope, right? Every motherfucker needs it or you’ll go insane,” Sketch said, lighting up a Camel. “Now you can always have hope with you wherever you go. You should be thanking me.” He was right but he was also taunting me, trying to tip me over the edge because he was pissed off and angry with whatever shit was going on in his life right then.
I scratched my head and turned back to the mirror, my fingers tracing across the bleeding name. “That’s fucked up. You know that, right?”
“It’s motherfucking poetic is what it is, Crank.”
I turned back to him. “Crank?”
A smile grew on his face as he slouched back in his chair. “You ain’t heard then?”
“Heard what?”
“You got your road name, brother. Congratulations.”
I swallowed, feeling sick inside. “Crank?”
“Yeah. Brothers decided since you knew so much about it, and that you probably saved Stone’s life with that knowledge, that it’d be a good way to commemorate the moment forever.”
I squeezed my eyes closed. I’d gained Hope and lost myself to crank all over again. Story of my goddamned life.
“I gotta get out of here,” I replied, and started out of the room.
“I need to fucking wrap that shit up, Crank, wait!” Sketch called after me.
But I wasn’t waiting for him or anyone else. I needed air. I needed the road. I needed to get blind drunk and sink myself into a woman so I could start this day—no, this life—again.
Everything was fucked up, and I still didn’t know where Hope was. I’d left her in the garage, crying, and then I’d let her listen as I’d fucked Maria up against the wall. And then I’d walked away like nothing had happened. But something had happened. We’d shared a moment or some shit. So why had I walked away from her? Why had I sunk myself into the first woman I bumped into?
I was an asshole, that was why.
I should have never have left her that night.
I touched her name on my chest, my fingers coming away bloody. I froze in the doorway of Sketch’s room, a worrying thought coming to me like a whisper on the wind.
“She can’t be,” I whispered to myself.
“Can’t be what?” Sketch asked from behind me, his hands full of Saran wrap and tape.
I dragged a hand down my unshaven face, feeling even more sick. “Hope,” I said, brushing his hands away as they tried to wrap up my tattoo. “Hope’s outside.”
