Page 119 of Dirty Ink

This was who I was meant to be: loud, abrasive, perhaps slightly inappropriate at times. Okay, pretty much at all times. Colourful and bright and sparkling. I was meant to be the one who drew your attention and didn’t let go. Who danced because she would die otherwise, who showed her tits way too often because they—like all tits—deserved to be celebrated and “fuck the patriarch, free the nip” and because she goddamn wanted to. I was meant to be too much for some and just perfect for others. I was meant to love and to be loved, fully, completely, crazily.

In the end I didn’t have to catch Mason as he was boarding his plane. Didn’t have to beg the flight attendant to let me on board once the doors were closed. Didn’t even have to run all that far down the terminal.

Because Mason came running to me.

I saw him from a long way down and he saw me.

If you think running through an airport draws attention, try colliding into someone. Throwing yourself into their arms. Breaking down into tears as they do the same. Kissing each other’s necks and breathing in each other’s hair and digging into each other’s backs with greedy, earnest fingertips. Drawing their lips to yours like water from the well. Cupping their cheeks and staring down into their eyes and muttering a million words a minute, “I’m sorry— I love you— I’ll never leave— I never should have left— I was stupid— I was wrong— I want you— I need you—I’m never leaving— I’m staying— I’m staying.”

Try hearing them say all the same things right back.

Try letting them lower you slowly down, stilettos tapping gently on the floor.

Try sucking in a breath as they get down on one knee.

Try laughing through the tears as you say, “Sorry, but I’m already married.”

You’ll have an enraptured audience. You’ll have something they can’t look away from. You’ll have a show worthy of any Vegas stage.

You’ll have love.

Epilogue

Mason

Aurnia told me I absolutely could not marry Rachel at city hall. She was still pissed that I proposed to Rachel right then and there at the airport, in front of the KFC, without a ring, and to use her words, “without anyone to take a picture of it, save those asshole security guards who still won’t let me have access to their fucking cameras.”

I tried to tell Aurnia that Rachel and I didn’t need the whole wedding thing, we were already married. I tried to have Conor tell her that. But Conor just said he was staying out of it, only adding with a sigh that I should probably just give Aurnia her way. To use his words, “It’s just easier that way, man. Believe me, I know.”

“Every girl has a dream wedding,” Aurnia kept saying.

She’d been a pest for days, buzzing from one ear to the next as I tried to work.

“Not Rachel,” I told her.

“Every girl has a dream wedding,” she insisted.

I spun around on my stool. “Look, Rachel has never, not once, ever mentioned even the tiniest detail of what she would want for a…”

My words trailed off.

Aurnia beamed in victory. She flicked my forehead and said, “Every girl,” before skipping merrily away.

We managed to keep the details mostly a surprise. Rachel still thought we were heading to city hall exactly a week and a half after I proposed at the airport. It was the closest we could estimate from when we’d met each other to the first time we got married; it felt fitting, even if we couldn’t be sure it was entirely accurate. Rian was, of course, no help in the matter.

At first Aurnia didn’t believe me when I listed the things we would need to get in secret for Rachel’s wedding “dress”. Sitting across from me in the parlour, clipboard across her knees, she tapped her pencil against her temple and said with obvious mistrust, “So let me get this straight…you want me to get a high-low white feather burlesque costume that fans over the breasts—”

“Almost like indecently short in the front,” I said, remembering Rachel’s words like she was there whispering them in my ear.

Aurnia eyed me warily as she said, “‘Almost like indecently short in the front’. Um, silver pasties?”

I nodded. She just sucked her teeth.

Convincing her to paint a massive Eiffel Tower on the big wall of the parlour was a bit of an easier task. It was a bit tricky explaining why there was suddenly a big sheet of canvas covering the brick wall, but I told Rachel it was mould and maybe it was a sign that the house needed some work, and she easily bought it. Aurnia insisted that she get to marry us since it was her consistent badgering that got us back together. I didn’t have the heart to tell her about my conversation with Rian, about him revealing that I’d talked with my nan before her passing.

“It would only be right,” I told her as she flipped open her laptop to get licensed to perform wedding ceremonies online.

“Aurnia,” I tried to say, “Rachel and I are already married. You don’t need—”

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