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My hand fell limp at my side. Shite, the way the three of them were looking at me…was I blushing?
Mia smacked her gum again and moved so that she was facing me. She draped her legs heavily across mine.
“‘Scene?’” she asked, the scorn clear in her tone. “‘Scene?’ Aurnia, dis is our life. This is yer life.”
“I told youse she’d want nuthin’ to do with us after they got to her,” Jack mumbled. There was no warmth in his eyes as he stared across at me.
“Little Miss Better Than,” Lee said before going to set up the beer bottles on the back of the old leather seat again.
It hadn’t been much, that leather seat. It hadn’t been like the leather seat in an actual car that other kids got. But it had been ours, the four of us. It had been ours together.
I couldn’t lose that. I couldn’t. I don’t know if it was worth saving. Or whether it was because it was once again all I had.
“No,” I protested, “it’s not like that, I swear it. It’s just I know how dangerous Nick is and—”
“He must not be that dangerous,” Mia hissed. “Given how many times ye’ve crawl into his bed.”
I stared at her in shock. “I’ve never—”
“That’s not what we hear. Izza right, boys?”
I shook my head. What was happening?
I was being torn in half. And in half once more.
There was the Aurnia of Dublin Ink, doing her job dutifully, chatting easily with Mason and Rian. There was the Aurnia who slept with Nick, the new terror of the neighbourhood. There was the Aurnia who was “different”, who was “snobby”, who was trying to leave this wretched life before. There was the Aurnia who paced an empty apartment at night. There was the Aurnia who wanted these three people over anyone else. There was the Aurnia who was safe and protected by the strong, tattooed arms of a grumpy giant.
There was the Aurnia who ran from him.
There was the Aurnia who ran to him.
“All I’m saying is that with Nick in charge now we’re under his thumb in the neighbourhood. Like you said, he’s not going to let us rob a place without him getting his cut and his cut is one hundred percent. So, I mean, I care for you guys and I want you to have the chance that I’ve had at this tattoo parlour. I just mean that maybe there are other lives out there for us…if we want.”
What the hell did I just say? Why the hell did I just say it? It wasn’t like I’d changed my fate or anything. In many ways my life wasn’t all that different. I was sleeping on the floor now instead of a bed.
But I had some peace in the quiet of Conor’s apartment. I felt useful to Dublin Ink and not just in the social media I did behind Conor’s back, but even in the menial tasks: sweeping, taking out the trash, making the tea. I was contributing to something. I was a part of something.
I had Mason and Rian who encouraged my work, praised my efforts around the place, joked and teased me like big brothers. I could see myself one day as a tattoo artist despite Conor’s stubborn refusal to teach me. Shite…did I actually believe all this?
I did?
I did.
“This old junker will be drivin’ down that freeway over dere before you get out of dis life, Aurnia.” Mia’s words stung like a lash. Her laugh of disdain came in like a bruise. “That’s not how it works, eejit.”
“But—”
“You are who ye are. You come from what you come from.”
I stared into Mia’s hateful eyes. I could see it, the resentment. Was it true, what she said? Was I just playing house with Conor and the boys at Dublin Ink? Was I dressing them up as my family? Propping them up in corners like the parlour was my playhouse? Making their hands move the way I thought the hands of someone who cares move?
Conor yelled at me then pushed me away and avoided me. I kept believing that there was something between us. How blinded could I be?
“I…” I trailed off, my confidence gone.
I shrank against the sharp edges of the trunk as a small drizzle began in the junkyard. Mia and Lee and Jack all turned up their hoods, but I had none. They knew they might need one, being out in the elements.
I’d forgotten to because I had moved past the junkyard, past the exposure to the rain and sleet and biting winds.
