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She’s serious.
Just as serious as I was before. She’s willing to risk everything.
To have everything... maybe.
“Fine.” The coolness of my voice surprises me, almost like a curtain drawing over something I hadn’t even realized was open. “You want out, you’ve got it. I’m done with fighting for this, Wynona. I’ll go on tour. And when I’m back... we’ll see.”
I’m walking away before she answers so I won’t wait for it, search for it in her eyes.
“We’ll see,” she says softly behind me, like it was a question.
Chapter 23
Wynona
We’ll see...
I’m an idiot.
The kind of idiot who sits on a sketchy park bench at midnight alone. The kind who cries for what’s completely her fault, what was entirely avoidable. Who cries and cries and cries and can’t stop.
Like an idiot. Like a stupid baby.
He’s gone now, so I can’t explain it to him. How being strong and making the right decision when it’s hard, especially when it’s hard, is a kind of addiction. How once you get momentum, the scariest thing is losing it.
How one day soon, I hope he’ll thank me. I hope he’ll wait for me. Wait for us.
I sit on the cool park bench under the murky moonlight. The traffic noises are all far away, like even they don’t want anything to do with me.
Maybe this is a kind of cowardice, ending things before he can. Doing it on my own terms.
Maybe.
Probably.
But I saw him that night, and I’ve seen him countless other ones. Other nights when he’s played, whether it’s just for me or in front of people, and that look in his eyes like he’s too lucky for words.
He’s never really talked about it, but he doesn’t have to.
It’s joy. Plain and simple. Pure and unadulterated.
This—playing music—is Emerson’s dream, and going on tour is part of it.
And I won’t take that away from him. Whatever the cost.
I get up and start walking home. I try not to search the streets for him coming back, to fight for us one more time. Even though he’s done it enough. Even though I shouldn’t.
But there’s no one there. He’s not coming back.
And I don’t blame him.
I go back to my apartment, pat my dogs, and go to bed.
My tears are polite. They wait until all my makeup’s off, and I’m tucked in bed, with my dogs snuggled in beside me, to come and take over. And then, I keep turning to the other side of the pillow to find they’ve conquered it, and it’s wet already.
**
The next week is one day. I schedule every client I can.
There’s a solace in it, losing myself in my art. Getting the curve of a wolf tattoo just right. Seeing the image in my head sketched onto an arm, a bicep, a leg, a lower back.
A person going away the same, but not quite. Making their body into art, a monument, a memory.
Expressing something.
About tattoos, I always hear people say, “I don’t have anything that I like enough to be sure that I’d want it there for so long,” and I get that. I’ve thought it myself.
And yet, we are given these bodies with no choice. Some parts we like, others not so much. And yet, by and large, we stick with these parts, whether or not we are sure we want them there for so long.
So I have a sort of respect for the wild ones, the ones who say ‘what the hell’ and stick out an arm, a leg, a neck. Get something imprinted there that lasts.
Our bodies change as we age, there’s no choice in that. Taut skin sags. Hair thins and goes silver, then white. Bad posture catches up with us and wins. But I’d like to think that even though they fade, these colors I etch into people’s bodies, it’s a bit different.
It’s one of the few things we can and do choose about these skin sacks we walk around in.
Then again, I’m biased. I have to be.
I’m a tattoo artist. I’ve got a few myself.
**
The seventh night of the seventh day I’ve been back, I’m at my place with Josie and Sierra, just like old times.
“So, tell us,” Josie says after Sierra’s passed her the Moose Tracks Tom and Jerry’s, “the insider scoop on marriage.”
“Oh.” Sierra tosses her red-brown hair with an impish smile. “So, all those dark, terrible things that Nolan wouldn’t want me to tell you?”
“Definitely,” I confirm.
“Well... he does leave his dirty socks on the floor sometimes,” she recounts, eyes narrowed in faux thought. “But that’s nothing compared to the satanic rituals he does every full moon.”
We crack up, and Josie elbows her, her mouth full of ice cream. “Jerk.”
“No, honestly, it’s great,” Sierra says. “Not all rainbows and roses. And we fight, like all couples. But I’m happy. Though yeah, it’s a bit of a mindfuck.”
