For All You Have Left

Chapter Twenty-One The Tattoo

I don’t know how long we’ve been lying in the grass when I feel a cool breeze brush over my skin. I reach down and tug at my tank top, and my finger brushes the part of my hip where I know the A eternally rests. I stop, and then I feel Jorgen’s arm pulling me closer into him. I let him pull me, and then I rest my head on his chest again. His body is warm. It’s a sharp contrast to the cool night air that has settled in. I snuggle up to him and then close my eyes. But on the back of my eyelids is the letter A, and before I can stop my mind from wandering, it goes back four long years and stops in a tire swing under a sleepy, old oak…

“Andrew, let’s get tattoos.”

Andrew stops the tire with both hands, forcing my chest to collide softly against the thick, braided rope from which it dangles.

“That’s crazy,” he says, staring straight into my eyes.

I feel my smile starting to fade.

“And you know I love crazy,” he adds. He flashes me a wild grin, then starts to push the tire again. “When do we go?”

“Today,” I say, feeling the life return to my face.

“What do we get?”

I think about it for a second. “What about each other’s names?”

“Perfect,” he says.

We walk into the tattoo parlor. It’s not that scary, but I think the image I had in my mind was aimed to prepare me for the worst-case scenario. Even the peach vinyl, dentist-looking chair in the back doesn’t look all that menacing. The place is small, and there are ink designs completely covering the walls, but it’s clean. And after I had dreamed up the spur-of-the-moment idea, I had told myself that that’s all that really mattered — that it was clean.

I let a breath slowly pass through my lips when I feel Andrew squeeze my hand.

“You can change your mind anytime,” he whispers to me.

I shake my head. I’m not changing my mind.

He studies me for an instant, then flashes me a knowing smile and plants a hard kiss on my lips.

Andrew doesn’t even flinch as the guy covered from head to toe in tattoos presses Logan into his chest with a huge electric needle.

“Does it hurt?” I ask.

Andrew scrunches up his face a little. “It’s not that bad.”

I’ve heard that tattoos hurt, but maybe it’s all a big ploy to discourage kids from getting them. It seems as though the guy might as well be painting my name into Andrew’s chest with the felt tip of a permanent marker. Andrew’s face is fearless. In fact, I can’t even see an ounce of pain written on it.

I watch the guy covered in tattoos meticulously follow along the letters already outlined on Andrew’s chest with his big needle, until he eventually stops and backs away, allowing Andrew and I to examine the new ink.

“It’s kind of red,” I say.

“It’ll be like that for a little while, but it’ll go away,” the guy with the needle chimes in.

I study the tattoo again and then give the man my seal of approval before he covers it with a big piece of gauze.

“My turn,” I say, all but pushing Andrew out of the big, peach chair and climbing into it myself.

I get comfortable and then look up and catch Andrew hovering ominously above me.

“Now, you sure about this, babe?” he asks. “It won’t wash off.”

I laugh at the seriousness that seems to have devoured his face all of a sudden.

“You mean he’s not using washable markers?”

Andrew pretends to scold me with his eyes.

“I’m ready,” I say then, turning my attention to the needle guy.

The guy walks away and then comes back a minute later and transfers a stencil onto my skin.

“How does that look?” he asks.

I look at my hip. In small, pretty cursive lettering is Andrew’s name.

“Perfect,” I say.

The guy nods his head in satisfaction and then puts the needle to the skin on my hip, and it’s not so bad. I smile wide up at Andrew, and I almost laugh when he takes my hand. Whoever said getting a tattoo was painful was nothing but a…

My train of thought stops the moment I feel a sharp, gigantic needle digging a deep, rugged trench into my skin. I let out a squeal and squeeze Andrew’s hand as if my life depends on it. But the needle keeps tearing a jagged path into my hip. I bite my bottom lip — hard — and silently take everything back about tattoos being painless.

“You tricked me,” I shout. “You acted like this didn’t hurt.”

I try to sound playful, but I’m pretty sure it only comes out pained. Andrew scrunches up his face in pity.

“I’m sorry, babe,” he says, sandwiching my hand in between both of his.

I close my eyes, and I feel warm tears welling up behind my eyelids.

“Okay,” Andrew suddenly rattles off. “A. A looks good. We’re stopping at A.”

The needle guy picks up his torture device.

I look up from my agony and stare down at my hip. “But he’s not finished.”

“Baby, I think the A looks cool by itself. My whole name will be too much.”

I look down at my hip again and then up at the guy holding the needle. He clings to my gaze for a second, seemingly waiting for my permission to proceed. But then, I notice him glance at Andrew and then back at me, and then his mouth opens.

“Just the A looks pretty cool too.”

The needle guy is frozen in his place. His face tells me that Andrew got to him. I sigh and look one last time at the unfinished tattoo before I find Andrew again. He’s smiling; it seems pained, but he is smiling.

I know having Andrew in the little letters would have looked just fine because it looks just fine in the stencil that’s already there. But I’m also kind of happy that Andrew hates watching my pain just as much as I hate going through it.

“The A it is,” I finally say to the man holding the big needle.

Jorgen lifts his head, and the old memory vanishes just as quickly as it had appeared.

“You ready to go?” He whispers low and near my ear.

I tighten my arm around his chest. “Do we have to?”

He pauses for a moment.

“No,” he says and then lays his head back down. I feel his hand brush down my body and stop at the small of my back. “I could stay like this forever.”