The Butterfly Effect (Rewritten)

Epilogue

The tattoo parlor smelled sterile and hummed with the sound of permanent art being injected into flesh. I spotted Natalie, the tattoo artist I had met with two days earlier. Where I lived, you could get a tattoo at seventeen with parental consent. I peered over my shoulder to my mom who had signed the paperwork. She was speaking to my dad over the phone. I walked over to Natalie.

"Hey there, Emory." Nat grinned. "Ready for today?"

Natalie had a voice and smile that could ease anyone's fears. She was a dark-haired twenty-six-year-old fresh out of apprenticeship and forging a tattoo career for herself. During our consultation, she helped me design the tattoos I wanted when I only had vague ideas to go on. By the end of the consult, the images had come to life as if by magic. I knew I had hired a passionate artist.

"Yeah, I've been waiting for this for a while." I hopped on the chair.

Natalie slipped into a pair of gloves and began to sanitize my arms. "I can give you some numbing cream if you'd like."

"No," I shook my head and laid back on the chair, "it's fine."

Natalie grabbed her tattoo gun and set to work.

It was as if I were getting scratched by a cat. Every stroke locked in ink that would stick with me forever, but I avoided peeking. Instead, I closed my eyes and controlled my breathing. After getting clawed by a hellhound, breaking an arm twice, and getting fractured ribs from a car crash, the pain of a tattoo was virtually nonexistent. But maybe that had less to do with sensation and more to do with strength. The pain wasn't registering as pleasure anymore. I wasn't sitting through pain as a punishment to harm my body. I was rewarding myself by branding a show of my strength for the world to see. I was showing the world I would not be broken by my past. I was a warrior, and the tattoo was a testament to that.

My mom came over, no longer on the phone, and squeezed my free hand.

At one point I allowed myself to see the progress Natalie had made. I was breathless. A black silhouette of a tree extended from my wrist and up my arm. The leaves flowed with a beautiful watercolor technique. Bright blooms of yellows, oranges, greens, blues, pinks, reds, and purples blended together to form a thriving tree that hid my scars.

I didn't ask to get the scars covered because of shame, but because it wasn't me anymore. I wanted a lasting reminder of the person I grew into. There's a misconception that being strong means standing tall against everything that's thrown in your path and winning. I'm here to tell you it's not. Strength is being beaten, broken, and bruised by everything, but getting back up and fighting despite how impossible it feels. Every morning I did that, and every morning it got a little easier.

Natalie only let me stay six hours. She said we could come back tomorrow to touch up any spots she missed, then book another day to get ink on my other arm. I examined the tattoo while my mom paid Natalie. Beside the tree, next to the leaves was the silhouette of a butterfly, its body made with a semicolon to symbolize my life wasn't finished yet. Standing next to the tree trunk was a silhouetted cloaked figure.

"I hope you find a good career that allows tattoos," my mom expressed her concern as we left the shop.

I shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe I'll write a book."

Maybe, just maybe, that book would change lives.

Four weeks had passed since I received my tattoos. On my other arm I had gotten a vibrant red rose with two leaves on each side to wrap over the scars on my wrist and above it, an image of the blade I used to destroy Suicide. That one had healed faster than the arm with the tree. Each time Megan I went out to run errands for our mom, people complimented my tattoos. A few older folks from the previous generation crinkled their noses or shook their heads in distain, but I couldn't be bothered to care. No one was going to burst my bubble.