Despondent | (Completed but editing)

Chapter 41.

"Ready?" Dio asks, lifting the tattoo gun up and just slightly above my thigh and the traced design. I nod and he anchors his arm on my shin, pressing the gun to one of the many lines on my tattoo design. I expect myself to cringe and flinch back when he starts tattooing, but I don't. It doesn't feel painful at all, nothing more than heavy pressure. It feels like someone has a ball point pen and is just putting pressure down in some sort of a pattern.

"Does it hurt?" Jason asks from the chair in front of the bed type thing I'm laying on.

"Not at all," I say, shaking my head.

"Good," he says, stroking my hair.

"So, you're from London, right Lana?" Dio asks me.

"Yes," I say, looking down at the art pierce coming together on my leg.

"Is it nice down there?" He asks me.

"Some parts are, of course everywhere has its rough parts, but I do miss it down there, yeah," I say.

"I've been there once, just a little bit after Jason was born, I went to Piccadilly and shopped on Oxford Street," he tells me.

"I love Piccadilly, apparently it's London's Times Square," I say and all three of us giggle.

"Well, I don't know about that," Dio says, wiping away some of the blood seeping of OF the holes he is making in my leg.

"Dad, how do you feel about scarification?" Jason asks his dad.

"I don't know, I know a few people who have had it done but they all say it kills them," Dio tells his son.

"Fair enough," Jason says.

Jason's POV.

"Fair enough," I say, I've been toying with the idea of scarification for a while now, I want a florally type design just on my ankle. I guess it would hurt quite bad, but I'd be willing to do it still. I guess I'll have to see how I feel when I'm bored of getting tattoos.

"How long is this going to take?" Lana asks, her British accent sounding more prominent than usual.

"Probably about another hour," my dad tells her, and I sigh.

"Don't be like that, son, go and grab us some coffees would you?" My dad asks.

"Yeah, what do you guys want?" I ask, standing up.

-

"Lana you can just look at yours you know!" I tell her, looking at her sitting on the chair with a long thin cloth covering her design, shielding it from her eyes.

"I'm waiting for you," she whines, my dad only finishing off the last shadings of my design. With one last wipe at my back he scoots over and sets the gun down, tapping me on my back to let me know that I'm done. Lana smiles at me, standing up as I do. We both walk over to the lengthy mirror that is propped up against the stairwell, my dad walking over and holding another mirror behind me to allow me to see it.

Once again, my dad has done an amazing job with the tattoo and it's so finely detailed, giving it such a realistic look. I look over at Lana's design which is beautiful, each line beautifully detailed with the right shading. I look at Lana and she looks at me, excitement clear in her eyes.

"Oh hang on," Lana says, reaching into her pocket and grabbing the money to hand to my dad. She walks over to him with it in her hand, holding it out. My dad shakes his hand and raises a hand into the air.

"My treat," my dad says, clearly shocking her.

"Wow, Dio, thank you so much," she says, turning her leg to view her new tattoo at different angles.

"No problem, you don't mind if I get a picture of it do you? Just so I can hang it up in the shop," my dad asks and Lana nods, hiking her shorts up to reveal her hip, so my dad can get a good view of her tattoo.

"Thanks," my dad says, locking his phone, "let me just get you guys taped up then you're free to leave."

My dad applies a sterile absorbing pad to her tattoo, wrapping some bandages around it. He talks her through how to look after it and what to expect, and the duration of healing time too. He quickly finishes with her and state that I'd be stupid if I didn't know what I was doing with tattoos by now.

We say our thank yous and goodbyes, before heading back into the car. I start the car up immediately, pulling my shirt over my head as the car begins to warm up. "I can't believe I've got a tattoo," Lana says, fastening her seatbelt.

"Me too," I agree.

"It didn't even hurt at all," she says.

"Not even the bit on your hipbone?" I ask.

"That was just like tiny beestings, like it's not pain at all, and the bit on my thigh was just like pressure," she tells me as I begin to pull out of our parking spot and drive down the road.

"My first tattoo was painful," I tell her.

"What one was your first one?" She asks me. I put my right hand on the steering wheel in place of my left one, flipping my left wrist over to show her the small cross placed directly in the middle of my wrist.

"That's cute," she says.

"I've kind of grown tired of it, I'll get it covered soon," I tell her.

"It's so weird to be honest, I'm a sixteen year old girl from England who has a huge thigh tattoo, I live in New York on my own, and I'm the only person in my family to even leave the country. Why am I not out doing normal teenage things?" She says.

"You are doing normal teenage things, you're just doing them independently I guess," I say with a shrug, not really having the slightest clue what I'm talking about.

"I guess."

AUTHORS NOTE

•I guess I should just tell everyone early, I'm going to go and see my friends and family on Friday morning and I won't be back untill Wednesday the 26th. I won't be updating then as I'd like to spend some time with my friends and family, but I will be updating as soon as I get back. I might even write a few chapters whilst I'm on trains and buses and stuff, but I don't know yet. I hope this is okay! It might be good for me to take a small break from this too! I'll have a chance to really think of some ideas for this book, and I promise I'll note down any good ones! X