Chapter 8 Ghosts, Grease, and Good Intentions
(Arlo)
It had been a week.
A week since the apartment last smelled like her shampoo—lavender and something citrusy, like bottled sunlight on cotton sheets. A week since her laugh had bounced off the bare walls, turning a shitty little apartment into a place that felt like home. A week since I'd heard her voice.
A week of chasing shadows, of calling her name into a silence that stayed sealed shut, of retracing memories like backroads, searching for the bend in the road where I'd lost her.
I checked everywhere I could think of—her old dorm, the little shop near the lake where she used to lose herself for hours in anime and illustration books. Even the tiny coffee shop where we had our first real fight and made up fifteen minutes later over lattes so sweet they felt like surrender.
Nothing.
So I finally dragged myself into work. The garage was already alive when I got there—classic rock crackling from a busted speaker, the smell of oil thick in the air, the grind of tools against metal, and the constant low murmur of engines being coaxed back to life.
There was something holy about it, in a rough, grease-stained way.
It didn't care if your heart was broken. The work still needed doing.
Milo was under a '76 Triumph, sleeves pushed up, dark curls stuck to his forehead with sweat and grime. Levi was leaning against the counter, sipping coffee out of a chipped mug that said "#1 Dad" even though he didn't have kids or, as he liked to put it, "none that I know of."
They both looked up when I came in. Levi whistled low, grinning around his cup.
"Damn, Arlo. You look like a scarecrow that gave up halfway through harvest season."
I dropped my backpack by the lockers, cracked my neck, and muttered, "Thanks Levi!"
Milo slid out from under the bike, wiping his hands on a rag. "Still nothing?"
I shook my head. Levi set his mug down with a clink. "So what's the move, lover boy? Gonna get her name tattooed on your forehead? Or maybe one of those big dramatic Instagram captions with, like, a black-and-white photo of a rain-covered window?"
"Jesus, Levi," Milo muttered.
"What?" Levi raised a brow. "This is my version of emotional support. Think of me as a clown at a funeral. Unwanted, confusing, but technically still doing something."
"I don't know what the hell I'm doing," I muttered, my voice rough and too low in my throat.
"I'm lost. I feel like I'm walking in circles in a room that keeps shrinking.
I want her back. I love her. But of course she's not gonna believe that now.
Not after everything. And I can't even find her to apologize. I can't do anything."
I let out a breath that sounded more like a growl, ran both hands through my hair, and leaned hard against the counter like maybe it would hold me up better than my own spine.
Levi leaned forward on the counter, mock serious. "Then allow me to bless you with Levi's Five-Step Plan to Win Back Your Girl. Step one: Stop looking like a kicked puppy. Step two: Don't send a hundred texts. Step three—"
"Stop talking," Milo said, chucking a socket wrench at him. Levi caught it with one hand and grinned like a show-off. "I will call everyone I know to look for her," Milo promised, "and then you can apologise and grovel, but it might not be enough."
Levi took a sip of his coffee, then pointed the mug at me. "And if all else fails? Show up on a bike looking like a sad outlaw and say something poetic but manly. Chicks dig that shit."
Milo sighed. But I couldn't help it, I cracked a small smile. Levi raised his coffee mug like a toast. "Here! To emotionally-stunted men doing the bare minimum."
******
Back at home, I didn't even take off my boots. Mud clung to the soles like guilt, dried and cracked, flaking off with every step. I tracked it across the hardwood floor and didn't bother to care. The house had stopped feeling like a place that needed preserving.
I moved through it like a ghost—half-there, half-aware.
Just enough to keep breathing. Just enough to follow the hallway to the bathroom and hit the light switch.
I stepped up to the sink and gripped its edges like I was bracing for an earthquake.
The porcelain was cool beneath my hands—sharp-edged, solid.
Something real. I leaned in until my reflection filled the mirror.
What looked back at me wasn't unfamiliar, just..
. heavier. Like someone had layered time and regret over the face I used to recognize.
The same eyes, but duller. The same jawline, but tighter with all the things I hadn't said when it counted.
I looked like a man who'd been dragging around too many ghosts for too long.
I dragged a hand down my face, fingers catching in days-old stubble, then reached back to tug the collar of my shirt aside, just enough to reveal the ink etched across the back of my shoulder.
There it was.
The tattoo.
A tiny, tilted matchstick, inked in soft blacks and gray, flame long gone, like it had burned out quietly and no one had noticed. Tucked high on my shoulder, just under where most shirts would hide it. I hadn't looked at it in a long time.
Flashback – Age 18
We were sitting behind the train station, Lyra and me, legs dangling off the edge of a crumbling concrete loading dock like we didn't have anywhere else to be. Maybe we didn't. Or maybe we just didn't want to be anywhere else.
In a lot of ways, I'd already lost everything.
Family. Home. Lyra was the only constant in a life that changed direction every five minutes.
She sat close but not touching, a cigarette burning down between her fingers like it was racing her heartbeat.
Her eyes were half-lidded, watching the sun bleed out across the sky in sickly golds and purples.
Trains screeched and roared in the distance, heavy and indifferent.
I was shaking. Cold or hungry or cracked open from the inside—take your pick.
We had been together for three years, if you could call it that.
Three years of wandering from house to house, of splitting stolen food, of stealing time in alleyways and bus stops.
She held my hand when I was too wrecked to hold it myself.
"You really saved me, Lyra" I whispered, voice brittle, like I hadn't spoken all day.
Lyra didn't even look at me at first. Just flicked her plastic lighter open and closed, the tiny flame jumping and vanishing with each click. Her grin came in slow, sideways. Like I'd told a bad joke she liked too much to admit.
"Yeah, well," she said, eyes still on the horizon, "you better remember that."
"How?" I asked, trying to smile, even though my ribs ached from the inside out. "Tattoo your name on my heart?"
That got her attention. She turned, and something sharp glinted in her gaze—like heat behind a sheet of glass. "Yes, why not?"
"I was kidding.." I said quickly. But she was already standing up, brushing the dirt off her jeans with fast, angry hands.
There was no grin this time. No flick of her lighter or teasing swagger.
Just tension—tight in her shoulders, her jaw, the way her mouth pressed flat like she was swallowing down something bitter.
Her boots crunched across the gravel as she turned away from me, shoulders stiff, spine straight like she had to physically hold herself together. Hands jammed deep into her coat pockets, not like she was cold, but like she was trying not to feel anything at all.
Classic Lyra. When she didn't get her way, she didn't argue. She vanished.
So the next day, I stole forty bucks from a corner store when the cashier wasn't looking. Walked six miles in the cold to a back-alley tattoo shop with flickering neon and zero questions. I flipped through a binder of flash art until I found it. A matchstick.
Small. Simple. Burned-out. Black and gray shading, tilted slightly left—like it had just fallen, spent, used up, and forgotten. It was a symbol. Not of rebellion. Not of rage. Not even of destruction.
It was survival.
The burned-out tip wasn't about failure. It was proof that I'd lit up. That I'd burned hot, fast, and bright through something that should've killed me. I made it through because she stayed.
She stayed when I was twitchy and tired and shaking through withdrawals, stealing snacks from gas stations and hope from thin air. She held my hand like I was still worth touching. Like I hadn't already gone too far to come back.
The tattoo was a shrine. A gravestone. A quiet thank-you scratched into skin, because I didn't know how to say it out loud.
It was a brand for the debt I thought I owed her.....Now
I dragged my fingers across the ink now. It didn't feel like survival anymore. It felt like a chain. A lie I let fester because I thought pain made me whole.
I never thought of covering it. It was part of me.
A scar in ink, etched during one of the darkest, strangest chapters of my life.
At first, that tattoo meant everything. But over time, like everything tied to Lyra, it became.
.. quieter. Faded in my mind, even if it stayed vivid on my skin.
Just another shape in the chaos of my body. Forgotten. Dormant.
Berrie never asked about it. Never touched it. I'm not even sure she noticed. I've got a lot of ink—stories sprawled across my arms, ribs, collarbones. Symbols, words, fragments of old selves. Maybe she saw it. Maybe she didn't. But she never brought it up.
Because that mark, once sacred, now just felt like a lie I was still wearing. A weight I didn't even realize I carried until she left. Until her absence scraped everything raw and I started taking inventory of every way I had failed her.
This was one of them.
Keeping the past too close. Letting it stay, quietly pulsing under my skin, when I should have let it go the moment I fell in love with her.
The moment Berrie came in like warm light through a cracked window and started stitching me back together with nothing but patience and tea and the softest goddamn laugh I've ever heard.
Kill the ghost etched into my skin.
Not because I hate the boy who got that ink, but because it's time he stopped defining me. I kept it out of sentimentality. Out of ego. Out of some warped sense of loyalty to a time that nearly broke me.
But I don't need a monument to my mistakes anymore. So I pulled out my phone. Stared at it for a long second. My thumb hovered over the screen. I opened my contacts and found his name.
Kyle – Ink Theory Tattoos. I hit call.
"Yo, Arlo," Kyle answered, cheerful as ever. "Been a minute. You still alive?"
"Barely," I said. My voice was hoarse. "I've got a tattoo I want to cover."
"Come in tomorrow. I'll make space. You sure?"
"Yeah," I said. "It's time."
*******
The smell of garlic hit me before I even heard her voice.
I blinked into the late morning light, still shirtless and groggy, and wandered into the kitchen like I'd forgotten what food even looked like. March was already there, wearing her oversized flannel and fuzzy socks, hair up in a messy bun, flipping something in a skillet like she owned the place.
Because, honestly, she kind of did. She'd let herself in with the spare key Berrie gave her. No knock. No warning. Just March.
"My little brother's on the verge of becoming a caffeine-based life form," March said, not even looking up from the stove. "When's the last time you saw a bed, Arlo?"
"Last week. It looked lonely," I muttered, rubbing my eyes like that would help the fog.
"Good."
I grunted and dropped into the kitchen chair. She moved around the space like she'd built it herself—boiling pasta, slicing bread, drizzling olive oil like some kind of domestic goddess who refused to admit she cared.
"You hungry?"
"Yeah."
She tossed me a piece of bread. "Good. Because I made too much."
A few quiet minutes passed—just the sound of sizzling, the occasional scrape of a spoon. It should've been peaceful. But March? She wasn't just here for lunch. She never was. And sure enough, after a moment, her eyes flicked toward my shoulder.
"You got a new tattoo?"
I tensed. Just enough to make it obvious. Her gaze narrowed, and she pointed with the corner of her spatula. "I see the plastic. Don't try to act like you're suddenly wrapping your wounds in cling film."
I exhaled slowly, looking down. The bandage wasn't doing a great job hiding anything. I hadn't even thought about covering it up better before she came.
"I covered one," I said.
"Why?" she finally asked, soft but firm.
"It was for Lyra," I said. "Back then. She asked me to do something to remember her... and I did. But it doesn't feel right anymore. I didn't want it on me. Not now."
"What'd you cover it with?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
She raised her hands in surrender, stepping back to the stove. "Alright. Fair enough."
She finished plating the pasta, set a bowl in front of me, and leaned on the counter with her own. "Look, I'm proud of you. Honestly. Letting go of old ghosts? That matters."
I nodded quietly, chewing on a bite of garlic bread, unsure where this was heading but knowing she wasn't done.
"But," she added, "you're still focused on the outside."
I looked up.
She met my eyes with that same tough-love steadiness that had pulled me through worse. "The shallow stuff. The visible stuff. Burning letters. Covering ink. Getting closure. Trying to clean the mirror, but not checking what's behind it."
"March..."
She cut me off, gently. "What are you doing to fix the inside?"
I didn't answer.
She set her fork down. "Arlo... you didn't have the easiest life.
I know that. Being homeless at fifteen? That kind of instability rewires people.
Getting high just to sleep. Stealing to eat.
Running from everything because everything felt like a threat?
That leaves bruises on your soul. And they don't just go away because you found someone to love. "
I swallowed hard. "I just want to find Berrie."
"I know," she said, her voice softening. "I know you do. But then what?"
I looked down at my hands.
"You find her, and maybe she forgives you. Maybe she doesn't. But what's changed, Arlo? You haven't healed the damage from before her. And until you do, it's going to keep leaking out of you. Even when you don't mean it."
I tried to say something, anything but my throat felt too tight. She didn't let me off the hook.
"You have to ask yourself if you love Berrie... or if she's just the first person who made you feel seen. Safe. Chosen."
My voice came out lower than I expected. "That's not fair."
"Maybe not," she said. "But it's true. And if you do love her? Then prove it. Work on yourself."
I raised an eyebrow. "By doing what, therapy?"
"Yes," she said, not even blinking. "Start with that."
I scoffed. "I'll talk to people. I'd rather talk to you. Even Levi with his emotional support clown act and therapy-by-jokes routine."
She smiled faintly. "We'll be here. Always. But we're not professionals and we can't do this for you."
I let that sit for a while. Just the sound of a fork scraping ceramic between us. Finally, I nodded.
"I'll think about it," I said.
"Good," she said. "Because you deserve to heal. Not just for her. For you."
*****
And that's how I ended up in a therapist's office.
Two weeks later. One full notebook of excuses.
Three canceled appointment slots.
Zero sleep the night before.
The room didn't look like what I expected.
No couch. No candles. No dreamcatchers or bowls of polished stones or weird pastel art whispering, "breathe deeply, you are safe.
" It was just a chair. A window. A bookshelf filled with books that probably had titles like The Emotionally Absent Father and Healing the Inner Child.
And across from me, the therapist. Her name was Jess. Late thirties, maybe. Wore jeans and a soft-looking cardigan. No clipboard. Just a legal pad and a pen she didn't seem in a hurry to use.
I sat there on the edge of my seat, hands in my lap like I was back in middle school waiting to get suspended.
"Hi," I said, my voice rougher than I expected. "I'm Arlo. Uh... do I, like, introduce myself? Like in AA?"
The therapist looked up, a small, understanding smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "You can introduce yourself however you'd like."
I nodded, feeling stupid, exposed, but weirdly relieved. "Okay, cool. Hi, my name is Arlo, and I'm messed up... and I've messed up."
The therapist smiled gently and set her pen down like she knew what was coming.
"Good," she said softly. "Because now we get to find out why."
And just like that, I knew.
This wasn't going to be about fixing what was broken on the outside.
This was about opening doors I'd kept locked for years.
About dragging into the light the things I thought I'd buried deep enough to forget.
About finally facing the demons I'd left curled up in the corners of my mind—
the ones that had waited, patient and quiet, for the day I was finally too tired to run.
And. I. Am. Scared.