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Two years ago
“Damn it, El. If you don’t hold your pretty ass still I’m going to come over there and sit on top of you,” Kam warns, holding his camera up to his face as he looks through the view finder and snaps another picture.
“I’m sorry but this hurts.” I cover my face with my hands as the tattoo gun continues to prick the flesh directly above my right hip bone. “I don’t understand why you have to take pictures now. Can’t you wait until it’s done?”
“This is your first tattoo, butter bean. I need to capture the moment.” He moves the camera away and hits me with a wide smile.
“I’m pretty certain I won’t need a picture to remember this.” I look down at the burly man covered head to toe in tattoos, better known as Tulk, as he moves the ink gun back and forth, his hand dangerously close to touching my naughty bits.
“You say that now, but twenty years from now you’ll be glad I took pictures of everything,” Kam disagrees.
“I think some things are better left un-captured.” I lay my head back in the chair and look sideways at Kam.
“It’s going to look amazing.” He bounces on his heels, zooming in on the almost finished product before snapping another picture.
“Well it better look as amazing as yours or I want my money back.” I flash a grin at Tulk who simply grunts and continues on. “I still can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”
When Kam suggested we get tattoos I never dreamt we’d get matching ones, but then I saw the amazing piece he had designed and instantly I knew I wanted it too. It’s a feather that has a small section missing from one side where it’s broken off and turned into five tiny birds flying away. He says it represents life. I like to think in some weird way it represents the two of us.
“It will,” he reassures me.
“I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t have picked such a painful location.” I cringe when the needle hits a really sensitive spot.
“You could have done it on your arm like I did.” He gestures to the top of his forearm that’s wrapped in plastic.
“If I didn’t think my dad would kill me for doing this, I probably would have. This way he’ll likely never see it.”
“Unless you’re wearing a bikini.”
“Well lucky for me I don’t wear bikinis in front of my father.”
“Lucky for me you do wear them in front of me.” He lifts his eyebrows suggestively.
“You’re ridiculous.” I laugh, earning me a stern ‘be still’ from Tulk.
Kam hits me with a wide grin and I swear he becomes a hundred times better looking when he smiles at me like that. You would think after five years of friendship I would be immune to his charms, but alas, I’m anything but immune.
“Okay.” Tulk pulls the gun back and wipes across my skin, pulling my focus back to him. “I think we’re all done.” He straightens his posture before reaching behind him to grab a hand held mirror, extending it to me.
“Oh my god.” I cover my mouth with the hand that’s not holding the mirror, still in complete and total shock that I actually went through with this. “I love it.” I smile up at Kam who once again has his camera focused on me.
“It looks amazing, bean. I told you it would.”
Looking back down at the tattoo, I angle the mirror so I can get a really good look at it. It’s perfect. Everything that I hoped it would be. And what’s even better is that it really means something to me.
“Now I’m a part of you forever.” Kam steps up next to me as Tulk rubs some ointment on the tattoo and slaps a piece of plastic wrap over it, taping up the sides so it will stay.
“You’ll be a part of me forever anyways,” I counter, taking his hand once everything is covered and allowing him to pull me upright.
Kam smiles, tipping his face down to drop a kiss to the top of my head before pulling me to my feet.
****
Present Day
“Elara.” My eyes shoot open and I quickly look around, disoriented and confused. The reminiscence of the dream still heavy on my mind as reality slowly starts to filter in.
I blink several times, trying to shake off the image of Kam’s smile as my hand instinctively goes to the front of my right hip. I wish it was just a dream. Dreams I can handle. It’s the memories that haunt me. The ones that play out like I’m still there, experiencing the moment as if it’s actually happening, and then having to wake up to the same gut wrenching truth–that Kam is gone–then all I want to do is slip back into that dream world somehow. The one where Kam is still alive, smiling at me the way he always used to, snapping away on that damn camera that used to annoy the hell out of me but is now one of the things I miss the most.
