The Girl With Tattoos • Original Version

The Girl With Tattoos (25)

Staring at the ceiling with nothing but an over sized t-shirt on, my mind was racing with thoughts of nonstop murder and the people I've left behind. 

And Bann.

Just the memory of his face so close to my own and his icy blue eyes haunting me as I tried to shut my eyes and sleep. They stuck to me like my tattoos.

About 2 hours ago, Blake drove me home in an awkward silence. Blake never once looked at me and kept the radio down to a low rumble. He was soaking wet and shining in the sun and when he dropped me off, he just waved and drove off. It was like the life was sucked right out of him and he couldn't look at anyone. Not even random music made him smile. I don't know what happened out there in the water, but whatever it is, it left Blake like this.

I ate a quick sandwich before getting ready for bed and a nice long sleep, but no. Here I am, at 1 am doing absolutely nothing but imagining Bann's electric eyes and Blake's dead ones.

Please Lord, let me sleep peacefully tonight.

✦✧✦

Sundays were never my favorite days. It made me think of what most people were doing.

Church.

Religion is such a sensitive topic, I sometimes can't handle it.

I never went to church because my dad thought Christian's were the reason our world is like this. Why gays aren't accepted, that druggies can never change, how women are still mistreated.

He only thought this way because him and his dad were drug addicts and were always told they would never be the same and somehow, they connected it back to God, something they had no knowledge about. Don't ask me how. Don't ask me why.

Because I can't answer.

My dad was beyond just addicted to the smoke and alcohol. Sometimes I like to think maybe he just thought the drugs kept him alive to make me feel better. He would smoke in the living room, chug beers and vodka and throw them at the wall behind him where family photos were hung, which were all now broken and in the small piles of glass underneath it.

And the drugs were passed on to me when he left, to go where ever the hell he went.

Smoking was my stress reliever with music playing in my ears. I would get many stares and disgusted looks when walking down the sidewalk. I mean who cares? It's not like I smoke a pack a day, more like one a month. I only cared about what I did with the cig when a kid was present. I tried my absolute hardest to blow away the aftermath so they wouldn't breath in the chemicals. They were just so small and open to the fact that they could die because of second hand smoke. But, no one realizes what I do to help their child; they just see another kid dying from smoking.

I don't think I'm addicted, nor do I smoke everyday. Only when I needed some stress off my shoulders and when I found my best friend after 2 years of hiding, was told his brother died the same exact way mine did, that Ryker was locked away in his room because of me and Crater - who was still missing - and I just talked to two living people about things I barely even liked to think about, I needed something to lift all this shit off of me and fast.

That thing just happened to be smoking.

His partner in crime was music. It just spoke to me.

Sometimes, it made me cry. How someone can take something that isn't talked about much, such as suicide, and make a song about it. Connect to people in ways words can't. Add a beat, good vocals and some instruments and you got yourself something that could save a kid from their demons, help someone concentrate, relate to people without even realizing it.

I know music helps me, and it's a fact it helps others.

twenty one pilots was a good example.

They teach kids, and people of all ages, that it will get better. They have purpose, they have meaning, they have happiness.

Something I think I'll never get.

I know for a fact that I shouldn't have stolen that pack of cigarettes from my dad and light it. I know I shouldn't have liked it. 

I know I shouldn't have.

Walking down the sidewalk, a few miles from my house, wasn't weird anymore. Being alone and smoking, blasting Good Times through my head phones didn't bother me like it would've 3 years ago, maybe even 2.

But talking to people and communicating to someone still scared the shit out of me.

And I don't think Bann got that.

I think he believes it's one big, connected scar in my mind; the death of Chase, my brother who tried to protect me with everything he had, and got rewarded with death and my life as a kid who was forced to live with a family I didn't know than covered in tattoos for a home in return.

The fact that Chase is gone isn't want what left me stained; it's that I never told him what was happening to me.  He didn't know I never really went to school, that I wasn't even enrolled. He didn't know the scars weren't from dad. He didn't know I was getting abused outside of the house too.

The fact that I was covered in tattoos isn't what made me the way I am today, it was the fact that Peter was the nicest man I have ever met and just one little mistake from my end landed me a letter written in his own blood stating that I left too many tracks. The fact that I caused an innocent man to die when all he did was help me.

Maybe I'm over thinking it, but I don't care. It was the truth.

And one day I will pay for my mistakes and I just hope that time is soon so I don't make another.