More Than Lies (More Than #1)(126)

All humans know pain; some more than others. I’m sure there are people that know greater pain and loss than I do. Kylie, one of my best friends, is one of them. Where my other half was stolen from me and living a completely different life from what I saw in pictures—one without me in it—Kylie wakes up every day without the hope of ever seeing hers again.

Her agony is much bigger than mine.

She doesn’t have hope left. Even the little sliver of it I do possess is enough to get me through the hardest of days. She doesn’t have that.

Ten months ago, a guy I grew up with, my best friend practically my whole life, was killed. Kylie and I witnessed the senseless accident unfold right in front of us. We were in her car, and she was driving behind Trent. He was on his motorcycle. The three of us were headed home on New Year’s Eve night when a man, driving drunk, swerved into our lane—into Trent. He was thrown from the bike being killed on impact.

That scene isn’t something I like to think about. It hits too close to home from another wreck that occurred a decade before the one that ended Trent’s life.

For most people, high school graduation night is a celebration and looked back on with fun memories. For me, it was the worse night of my life. Maybe even the end of my life if I’m honest with myself. The way I’m living now isn’t exactly living. I’m merely going through the motions, looking for distractions from the pain that has been clawing at my chest for so long—too long.

Pain.

That’s why I’m sitting where I am now. Because of pain. Because I need a different kind of pain to mask the other one. Only it isn’t working like it used to.

“Are you purposely jabbing me with the needle, Shawn?”

I’m sitting in my brother’s tattoo parlor, Wicked Ink, in Oxford, Mississippi. He’s hovering over my leg, inking the vacant real estate.

My younger brother isn’t usually this rough when he’s working on me or anyone else. He’s a very skilled tattoo artist, but something is bothering him. I see it plain as day. I saw it when I walked in. But Shawn’s not exactly the most open person, so I kept my mouth shut. And it’s not like I want to talk about the things rolling around in my head either. I need the hurt. I crave the sting of the tattoo gun heating my flesh as my brother creates another piece of art that bares a soul; a dark reminder of what I’ve lost.

I’d imagine this would hurt an ordinary person. Fuck, I hope I’m not becoming numb to the physical pain of getting a tattoo. If I have then what the hell am I going to do now to ease the burning sensation in my chest?

No, I’m just thinking too hard. I’m not giving myself over to the needle.

“What?” He stops, retracts the tattoo gun away from my body, then glances up, looking me in the eyes. There is a brief moment of confusion on his face before his brown eyes slide down, viewing the red, inflamed area on my thigh that now displays a black pocket watch with the time of 1:53 stopped on it.

That was the exact time—one fifty-three in the morning—when my heart stopped beating, and the world crashed down on top of me. I remember because it was the exact time I was staring at, from across the living room at my parents’ house, when my mother wrapped her warm arms around me and told me my girlfriend was dead. I wanted to die too. It felt like I was dying. Too bad I didn’t, because then I wouldn’t need this pain. I wouldn’t have to live with so much despair and anger burning inside of me if I’d died that night.

That happened a little over ten years ago, and it turned out to be a lie. Not on my mother’s part; she unknowingly told me something that wasn’t true. Whitney wasn’t dead. She was very much alive.

“Stop being a pussy.” Shawn gestures with his hand that’s holding the tattooing machine. “Isn’t me torturing you the reason you come here?” His question comes out more as a sarcastic sulk than an actual question. “I don’t know why I even agreed to do another one.” He places the gun down on the tray next to where I’m reclined on his table.

“Because I asked you to.” This is on me. I should’ve never divulged the reason behind every inked surface on my body, but a couple of months back, Shawn and I got drunk, which is a rarity, even on my days off, but we got to talking. He confessed everything that had gone down at the beginning of summer with Taralynn, his girlfriend, and the stupid reason why he almost lost the best thing that’s ever happened to him. I, in turn, told him too much about my past. “And if you refuse, I’ll go to Vegas and get Chance to do them.”

It’s an empty threat, but the “eat shit and die” look he gives me tells me he doesn’t know that, and it worked. It’s not that I’m against getting tattooed by my buddy, Chance. He’s an equally talented tattoo artist as my kid brother. I can’t explain why I only want my brother to do mine. Maybe the answer is as simple as he’s my brother. He’s someone who won’t question the whys or the meanings of each tattoo; he just does as I ask. Any conversation during the ink session is monotonous, although I would miss this time together if he were to refuse me. It’s the only way we really know how to connect.

When Shawn was in high school, he started apprenticing at a local tattoo parlor in our hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi. During my first year in medical school I was home visiting and that’s when he finally talked me into letting him ink my skin. That night, tattooing became my outlet, my release when the pain and pressure inside became too heavy.