Rory
Ten
Iadjusted my position, grabbing the man’s hand once again.
My client kept moving anytime I put the needle to his upper arm.
He was the one who wanted the partial skull and grey scale forest. It involved a lot of shading, and he wouldn’t stop squirming.
His pain tolerance was shit. A normal session for something this simple would take me two hours, maybe three.
Except four hours later, and I still had a quarter left to finish.
“Rob, goddamnit, can you stop movin’?” I hissed. “I am almost done with this tattoo and then you can cry in peace. Keep your fuckin’ arm still.”
“Sorry, Ro. You know I’m a pussy with pain.”
“Then why did you want this as your first tattoo?”
“Because it will make me look badass.” I rolled my eyes. “Come on, Ro, I’ll be good for the rest of it.”
I continued the tattoo, letting my mind drift off as I got into my element.
Tattooing was one of my favorite things next to art.
It was the best way to distract my mind from everything else going on in there.
The road burn on my arm hurt and dealing with Rob’s wiggling didn’t help, but I’d take a pain pill when I was done.
Vesper said my road rash was healing nicely, but it was itching.
I hated the healing stage. The sensation made me want to rip the skin off my body.
Two weeks passed since that night and when I got home after Vesper patched me up, I was restless.
I hardly slept that night—I hardly slept in general, but sleeping at night invited monsters.
Trauma didn’t sleep when the lights were off.
Sometimes I was able to enjoy a few peaceful hours, but even that was rare.
Most times if I got a good day of rest, I survived on hope, a dream, and adrenaline.
The few hours of sleep I got while wrapped in Hades’s arms was a miracle, but didn’t affect anything.
I kept myself busy most nights, scheduling my appointments later in the evening or running the streets.
It was hard having a helicopter sister, but she couldn’t stop me.
She could have the police stop me, but unless they arrested me, they couldn’t legally force me anywhere.
I still had yet to figure out how she had the police in her pocket, but that was none of my business.
It got me out of plenty of speeding tickets.
Out of all the surrounding towns, Briarwood was one of the best. Our hospital had amazing pediatric, trauma, and cardiac levels with a fantastic mental health clinic.
I would know. I lived there for three years.
Figuratively. Although, I had to do a seventy-two hour psych hold after I tried to kill myself on my eighteenth birthday.
Jude would do a ‘celebration’ on my birthday, and though I knew my sister wouldn’t hurt me, my brain didn’t believe me.
For four years, I experienced pain and misery on that cursed day, and I was mortified.
Cinder asked what I wanted to do for my birthday to help both of us and it triggered a reaction.
And my response was an emotional suicide note and taking an almost lethal amount of Ambien and Oxycodone, but Cinder found me. She always found me.
My sister had to mourn the man who raised her while visiting me in the hospital.
It changed her. Hell that night mortified her.
It was my attempt to silence everything, but the memory belonged to both of us.
If I was honest, I didn’t think she fully healed from that night.
She also wore scars, but she hid hers better.
We had each other. Her protectiveness was suffocating, but I knew why.
I was learning to live and I knew nothing would magically cure me.
There wasn’t a medical miracle, a happy pill, or love that would take my internal scars away.
I had baggage and I wasn’t hiding it, but it wasn’t my defining characteristic either.
I took life one day at a time, and sometimes it was easier than others and other days I felt like the world was ending.
Trauma was peculiar. One moment I was fine, and the next I was overwhelmed by emotions or memories I couldn’t control because of a phrase or the feeling of tight clothing.
My therapist, God bless her, was a saint and helped me with coping skills.
For the record—beating up men and sleeping with random women was not in her book of coping mechanisms, but it was in mine.
I didn’t use sex as a coping mechanism all the time, because that involved people seeing me naked.
I covered my body in ink, some of my own designs and sometimes I let other artists tattoo me if I was close to them.
It took a lot for me to get comfortable with someone else touching me.
I couldn’t help but think of Hades and the way she touched my body.
For one fleeting night, I’d forgotten what it felt like to live in a constant state of fight or flight.
Even other one night stands had never felt like this or left a lingering feeling.
This was why I kept my therapist employed.
She was about to have a field day with this one.
When Cin first saved me and brought me back to Briarwood from Nevada, she found one of the best child psychiatrists in the state to help me, but she was a bitch.
When I told Cin that Dr. Minerva blamed me for what happened to me, claiming it was my fault for being a terrible child, Cinder wanted to kill her.
Instead, Cinder stripped her of her medical license and blacklisted her from ever working again.
Eventually, I settled with my current therapist, and she was a great fit.
I met Dr. Griffith when she was still Isabelle Griffith and working in the psych hospital for the last year of her residency.
She supported me with everything I did in my life, including when I dropped out of college to do tattoos.
Growing up, I thought I would have a different career.
I always loved animals and thought I would be a vet, but after what happened to me, I wanted to work with children in troubled homes.
I guess that was social work, but I couldn’t do the four years of college plus another to get my master’s.
I barely got an associate's degree. I met my best friend, Babs, there. If it wasn’t for her, I would have flunked community college.
I was twenty-six, so I had plenty of time to go back for something.
When Cin brought me back, I spent a year catching up, or trying to, but I did well.
I was homeschooled instead of attending public school since I didn’t know how to properly function with society at the time.
Crowded places still weren’t my cup of tea, but I was getting better at dealing with it.
Cinder gave me everything I needed if I never asked for it.
One day, when I felt ready, I might go back to college and finish my degree, but I was content with my life and my career currently.
One day, I’d finish it because I wanted to, and then I could actually leave my sister’s nest. Don’t get me wrong—I loved my sister.
She was the knight who saved the princess at the end of a Disney movie; just minus the happily ever after, and the fact she saved me more than once.
She opened SafeHaven in my honor to help women and children in hard situations, whether it was from financial burden or something closer to my own situation.
Cinder made it her mission to help people and I volunteered there sometimes, but it depended on the case.
I wasn’t going to lie and say I was made of steel when I wasn’t.
“Okay, we are finally done,” I told Rob as I wiped the final part of his tattoo. “What do you think?” He looked at the forestry work on his arm.
“Badass. Thanks, Rory.”
“Of course. Next time, I’m charging every time you wiggle.”
His face turned two shades darker. “Eh, it’ll be worth it.” He laughed as he paid me.
I had plans to go to Reject Paradise to bug Vesper, but I needed to change.
Cinder would be there sometime tonight, and I knew she would question why I had on sleeves.
I hated clothes. They were suffocating. I had a sensory issue with things being on my arms. It would make me overstimulated and I would have panic attacks.
I was miserable during the winter. The excuse I used on Cinder would have to be Pulitzer Prize-level.