How can I fly away from him when he is the one that clipped my wings?
Girl meets boy.
Boy and girl become childhood friends.
Girl and boy fall in love.
Boy cheats on girl in last year of college and breaks her heart.
It's the same tragic story that'...
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Four Months Ago
The buzz of my machine drowns out the thoughts of Charlie as I finish up the design on my client's rib cage.
It's been a few weeks since I ran into Charlie at the store, and my thoughts have been on a fucking loop since. My brain taunts me, replaying her holding that pregnancy test in her hand. Every day, I pick up my phone, intending to call her to find out if she's okay. To see if she needs anything-food, chocolate, anything else she might be craving. I keep from doing it by reminding myself I'm the last person she wants to hear from.
It doesn't stop me from reading and learning everything about pregnancy and what she's going through.
Charlie may not be mine anymore, but I will always be hers. I should have always been hers, but I let someone get into my head and became weak when temptation was in front of me.
Nothing I do will ever make up for what I did, but I can become a better person from the destruction left in my wake.
And I'm trying.
Some days, I think I succeed, but then on days like today, where I'm fighting the urge to call her and barge my way into her life, I know I'm still that selfish prick who fucked someone else.
It's how I know there's still work to be done.
I'm making progress in therapy. We've mainly tackled my reasons for straying, but I'm struggling to accept them, so that's what I'm working on now. It's hard for me to reconcile the person I was before Rihanna came into my life to the person I became after she was in it.
But it's a start and more than I had seven months ago.
I pull my machine away from the human skin canvas before me, checking my work. Satisfied, I grab the bottle of Green Soap and squirt it onto a paper towel to wipe away any excess ink, blood, and plasma built up on the piece.
Besides the music drifting through the shop's speakers and the noise from Rune and Bear's stations as they sling ink, it's quiet between my client and me.
They're used to it. They know I don't speak anymore unless I have something someone needs to hear, and right now, the only person I got meaningful shit to say something to is my Charlie-girl.
"All good?" I ask, letting him view the finished piece in the mirror.
"Fucking bet, Kea," he says with a wide grin. "I think it's your best one yet."
"Glad you like it, man. Let's wrap it up, then we'll get you out of here."
As soon as he's ready to go, I send him over to Frankie to finish up. Her real name is Frances, but she's threatened to slice our nuts off with the dull and rusty blade she keeps in her boot if we ever called her that. She also made sure to play show and tell when she made the threat.
