Bird Shit

5th of July - 11:13 AM

This can't be happening. Not today.

Her mother was scared that all the champagne and scones would make it hard for her dresser to tie her in to her strapless dress, she definitely didn't thought of the possibility that she would get a tattoo right on her back for all the guest to see. There's no hair to cover it, and although she could use make up, it will still be there tomorrow and for the rest of her alive days. Poppie suddenly isn't so sure that there are many to come when her family sees it. When she looks at it herself she wants to die.

It's small, but certainly there and it is real Poppie realizes as she rushes to the bathroom to look over her shoulder in the mirror and beg Harry to wash it off.

'I'm telling you it won't come off and it will be sore to wash it,' he warns. Nevertheless he starts to rub the spot with a wet towel but the letters stay on and he was right. It is sore.

'Fuck,' she whispers as she stares to the black spot on her shoulder.

'I told you yesterday to not do it but you wanted to so bad,' Harry explains to her with some sympathy in his voice.

She turns to look at him, her fallen face matching his. 'You should have stopped me.'

'I tried, but all you kept saying was how pissed your mother was going to be and you kept squeezing my hand. What did you expect me to do?'

'I don't know,' she breathes. Poppie finds it hard sometimes to admit she's wrong but in this case she knows it is all her fault. There's no point in trying to make Harry feel guilty.

'Maybe you can disguise it?' He offers raising his eyebrows.

'It's a backless dress,' she deadpans.

Reality hits her that no matter what happens today it won't be a wedding. Henry must be a true fool to marry her with this on her back.

'Make up?'

Just like Poppie, Harry goes off a list in his head with opportunities but he knows just as well as her there's not much of a choice. Just like on his own body there are some tattoos that he regrets. Some of them he covered up with another, some of them are just there to mock him. Just like the one on his side he got last night.

'What am I going to do?' Poppie asks Harry as she leans against the sink she suddenly remember bumping in to yesterday.

'Whatever you want Poppie,' Harry whispers and he steps closer to her, reaching for her hips and for a moment Poppie closes her eyes.

It feels good to let him touch her and for a second they just stay like that and breathe.

'Maybe you can just say it is an honest mistake?' Harry suggest and he forces her with his hands to turn around.

With his finger he outlines the tattoo that he secretly loves more than all his combined. Even more than Ralph.

'Our names both start with an H and end with a Y. You could say it was the mistake of the artist.'

'Henry is stupid, not dumb,' she tells him although a small snigger leaves her mouth at how foolish this all this.

'You still want to marry him?' Harry asks her and the light at the end of the tunnel she felt for a moment because of Harry is gone.

'I have to,' she answers him while she stares in to his green eyes through the mirror.

Harry lets her go knowing that just like he predicted he will never be enough for her and Poppie lets go knowing that no matter how much she despises Henry, she will never be good enough for Harry.

'Then there's only one thing left to do. Cover it up with another tattoo.'

'With what?'

'I don't know. A heart, a flower. Something stupid.'

'Can you.. can you call the artist? I don't remember him.' She looks to the ground apologetic for this whole situation and for turning all of their life's upside down and then not even remembering it.

'Sure, I'll come with you. Best if I get your name covered as well then,' he says already leaving the bathroom to enter his bedroom and get dressed.

She studies his body but besides the butterfly tattoo she only vaguely remembers the birds on his chest. The rest of his skin is littered as well but she can't remember where he put her name. A sick part of her wants to see it though, her name on his perfect skin.

'Where is my tattoo?' She asks realizing how stupid it sounds. It's his tattoo of course.

'Here,' he says while turning his body to the right side, his muscles doing all sorts of funny things underneath his skin.

'Oh,' she breathes as she sees her name. 

Al the letters are beautifully done except for the I. She remembers now that she did that letter. The artist telling her it was the most easy. She remembers how Harry had laughed as she concentrated on the little stripe and how she had pouted when it didn't turn out as great as the rest. He had kissed her as the artist finished the thing and she had wondered if-

'Do you want me to be there?' Harry asks her as he sits down on his bed with his phone out.

'Yeah,' she says as more imagines of the night become clear.

Her will to piss her mother of bigger than her fear of needles. But she needed Harry to hold her hand. She will need him now again, just one last time.

'Probably best to erase all evidence of this night right? In case I show up at your door showing Henry whose boss,' he laughs but Poppie finds nothing funny about it. She wishes Harry wasn't right about it erasing evidence and shit. She wishes it wasn't necessary.

She listens to his phone call and watches his lips that she knows she has kissed a million times since midnight. Almost everything comes back to her except for what happened in this room.

'We can come in half an hour but he has to close up after that. It's a Sunday after all.'

'Okay thanks. Where is it?'

Memory may be coming back but she has no clue where the tattoo shop was. 'It's downstairs.'

'Great. I'll see you there then.'

She turns around to walk away because she desperately needs to call Henry to tell him everything is okay and maybe prepare him for a surprise tattoo.

Her phone is still gone but she's sure there's a phone booth somewhere outside.

Harry doesn't follow her outside and Poppie starts her search for a phone.