Silent Is The Heart

CHAPTER 8

Aaron

Staring up at the sign above the doorway of the two-story brick building across the street, the mid-morning sun breaks through the clouds, warming my face. I’ve never been to a tattoo parlor before. I didn’t even consider whether such places were open this early, but there seem to be people inside through the shop window. Do people actually get tattoos right after breakfast? A man steps out of the liquor store behind me, carrying a case of beer. Stranger things have happened than getting a tattoo before noon, I guess.

Adjusting the strap of my messenger bag on my shoulder, I let out a long breath and eye the door. S caring about patients and coming home to a quiet, humble life.

I miss that Aaron Manicki. I hadn’t realized how much until I saw that photo of Easton. Some logical part of my brain asks me how I think being here is going to get that version of me back.

Swallowing at the thickness in my throat, I shake out the anxious sensation in my hands. I shouldn’t be here. I know that. I’m still such a mess, clearly. I’m standing outside the business of one of my former patients, for crying out loud. I should be at home listening to self-help podcasts or possibly finding a second job to dig myself out of debt, not spying on Easton Bennick.

Except I crossed the line before I even got here. Didn’t I?

I… couldn’t help myself.

Maybe it was the appeal of thinking about something else other than my own problems because I gave little conscious thought to protocol while looking through Dr. Norton’s old files. I told myself that I’m in charge now—his files are under my management. Both are true, but I knew well and good that only curiosity sent me rifling through them, not a substantiated medical obligation.

What I discovered turned curiosity into a full-blown obsession. Easton never came back.

He left Hampton Hills about a month after I did. That’s basically where his paper trail ended. There were a few notes about follow-up inquiries, but he failed to respond to any of them. He never returned for any check-ups or any of the continued therapy that was available to him.

Innocently perusing his file was nothing untoward, but now I wish I hadn’t read it. I wish I could find an ethical reason to justify this need I have to know why he cut all ties with his program. It’s been the only occupant of my thoughts the entire week.

There were resources available to him at Hampton even after he was discharged, but without taking advantage of them, he might have thrown away precious chances at restoring his voice. Why hadn’t he come back? How had he fared after he left?

He was a teenager from a broken home who’d suffered trauma and had a vocal disability. I was a college graduate from a stable home life and look how lost I feel. I learned the hard way that life is not a bed of roses, but Easton had already been dealt a rough hand before coming to Hampton Hills. I have to know that things got better for him. It’s no excuse for being here, but it’s all I’ve got.

I just… need to witness something good , one thing from my past that turned out right. If I stop to think about how selfish that makes me sound, I might not go through with this.

With that, my feet move me across the street, although I’m about as confident as a kid on ice skates for the first time over this foolhardy snooping mission. The second I’m inside the shop, it’s apparent I’m woefully out of place.

The large open room nearly spans the entire floor of the building, sectioned off throughout by low partitions that surround workstations. A woman with blue hair, a nose ring, and fully tatted sleeves is working on a female client’s stomach just beyond the desk. In the stall across from her, a large man with a scary build is inking a man’s exposed backside— fully inking it. My word. There are at least three more artists at work deeper in the room, each marking bare flesh under fluorescent lighting. The thrum of rock music is drifting over the room from somewhere, melding with the ambiance of tin signs and framed tattoo model photos on the walls. It’s as though this is where night comes to meet the day, and yet everyone here seems to be acting as though that’s perfectly normal.

The space is a vast contrast to mine and Jason’s home. He’d turn his nose up at this in a heartbeat, but I tell myself he’s not here to guide my decisions anymore. As much as that instills a sense of guilt in me, it also feels liberating.

Continuing my perusal, I have to admit that what seemed rough and bold at first has a classy professionalism about it. Black tile flooring, polished to a shine. Pristine white paint on the drywall. Everything looks clean and tidy, and the workstations are impeccable. I’ve been in hospitals and clinics that couldn’t hold a candle to this level of hygiene. It’s not at all what I expected.

Hell, how did I know what to expect?

“Are you here for an appointment?” a woman calls out.

Right. There’s a reception desk. I had no clue people made appointments. Clearly, my knowledge of tattooing is from inaccurate films that only portray drunk people making spontaneous mistakes in the middle of the night.

Straightening my dress shirt collar over my sweater, I smile at the familiar face.

“Hi. No. Um… I stopped by your booth last weekend at the festival…”

“Oh, yeah! You’re that old friend of Easton’s, right? I totally forgot your name to mention to him.”

I said I was an old friend? We were friendly, certainly, but that’s a far stretch from patient and therapist. This is getting worse by the second. I need serious help.

“Aaron,” I supply, grateful she didn’t ask me my name that day.

Would it have mattered? Maybe he won’t even remember me. If he does, he’ll probably wonder what on earth I’m doing here. I can’t say I’d blame him.

“I…just moved back to town and thought I’d drop by to catch up with him. Is he working today?”

Slapping the cap back on the end of a marker, she chuckles. “Not this early. He’s still upstairs.” Leaning on her forearms, she gives me a curious once-over and then shakes her head, grinning. “All right, you look harmless. I can’t believe I’m getting to meet someone other than Wolf, who knew Easton as a kid. Go through that door. There’s another one at the top of the stairs,” she informs me, pointing to a black steel door at the far end of the parlor.

Nodding dumbly, I thank her and make my way down the aisle between the tattoo stalls. The buzz of the tattoo guns hums in my ears as the black door gets closer.

Where is she sending me? Is it a VIP room? Something more illicit? What have I gotten myself into?

Depressing the door lever, I push through to an empty stairwell. When the door clicks closed, it’s as quiet as a tomb. Only the sound of my breathing and a pool of sunlight from a window over the landing above are my companions.

I could turn around and leave, go back to the cottage, and look at job ads. I could fry up some eggs to fill my stomach that’s always so twisted up I never feel hungry anymore. I’m sick of eggs, but they’re a cheap, nutritious meal. I could go visit Mom and Dad, but I’m tired of pretending I have my shit together in front of them, and I need to save my gas to get to work. I already logged a few unnecessary miles coming here.

Staring up the darkened stairwell at the pool of light at the top, ascending feels like it would be a pivotal life choice. I pinch my eyes closed, shaking my head at that fortune cookie-sounding logic; but in a way, it’s true.

I have no friends. The ones I had in Seattle were just colleagues or friends of Jason. I spent eight years there, and there’s no one I was really close to. It took losing Jason for me to realize that. Everyone I knew, everyone we knew, were the kind of people who weren’t really friends, but rather just acquaintances, and definitely not the kind of people who still check on you a year and a half after your life implodes.

I need… roots. New roots. A starting point to be my sounding board for my future, no matter how bleak things seem right now. Something that makes me feel like I’m making wise decisions and being a good human being—the way I felt years ago. If finding inspiration in the past gets me there, I think I need to take that chance. I can’t stand feeling like a ship adrift at sea much longer. Something’s got to give.