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I get to the shop and let the girl at the front knowthat I’m here for my appointment with Skye. I take a seat over by the windows and wait for a few minutes before noticing a petite girl walk out from the back room. She must be here to get a tattoo too, I think to myself, but when I look up at her, I notice her skin has not a single dot of ink on it. Strange, maybe she got a piercing?
She comes over to meand stops. “Hey, you Rylie?” she asks.
“Um, yeah.” I say frowning.
“I’m Skye.”
“Oh, uh, hi.”
She lets out a chuckle. “I know, I don’t look like your average artist. I have tats though, just covered up right now.”
Nodding my head in understanding, Skye leads me down the hall to a small enclosed room. Heavy metal blares through the entire parlor, but when she closes the door, only the dull thud of the bass can be heard.
“All right, now tell me. What do you want, and where do you want it?”
I pull out my drawling from my purse and passit to her. “Wow, this is amazing.” She says, looking it over. “Where would you like it?”
I pull up my shirt andam not surprised when she hisses through her teeth after seeing the scars. “I was told you would be able to work with these… to cover them up?”
“Yes, I can do that, but you know it’s going to hurt right?”
I nod, “Yes, I’ve already had other scars covered up. I know the pain.” She looks at me for a moment and gives me a sad smile before looking back at the paper in her hand.
“So I take it you want the shooting stars over each scar? Would you like them in colors or just black and grey?”
Shit, I didn’t think about colors. “Um, would colors work to cover these, or would it be best for black and greys?”
“How bout we just work with the black and greys? I’ll do lots of shading, and maybe add some silver dust around the stars?”
“Yeah, sounds great.”
“Ok, and what about the words?”
I pull my pants down a bit and show her the spot I want it, the spot that has the worst scarring. I don’t say anything, and she just nods.
“Ok, let’s get started.”
I lay back on the bed and she starts to put everything together on her stand.
As she starts to tattoo, she begins to talk to me to get my mind off of the pain. “If you don’t mind, could you tell me what happened?”
I take in a deep breath. Most people still know, even here, what happened to me,but luckily not all recognize me. When they do, their looks are, naturally, filled with sympathy. “My ex…um, he...” I don’t say anymore. The words refuse to come out of my mouth.
She cuts off thetattooing gun and looks at me in shock. “Oh my god, you’re Rylie Sullivan.” She says, tearing up. “I heard about everything on the news. I’m so sorry.”
I smile at her. “It’s ok. It’s been years now… time to move on.”
She hesitates before starting back up. “My husband knew Caleb.” She says quietly.
I freeze at her words. “They were best friends growing up. When Caleb moved to Perth, Dominic never heard from him again. Not until the trial on the TV started up. Dom was pissed. Even visited him in prison saying he’s lucky he’s not on the outside. Dom never heard from him again after that. He just couldn’t believe he could do such a thing. For a while he was even denying he could do it…until he saw your pictures.” She shakes her head.
Before I can stopmyself, “Caleb is dead,” quietly escapes my lips.
“Good riddance to him. How’d he die?”
“Shanked.”
“Deserved it for what he did. Good.”
