Page 2 of Ink

“What’s that?” she hesitantly asked.

“What’s your name?” he asked. She smiled and grimaced when her lip cracked open, and blood ran down her chin.

“Sorry,” she whispered, taking the cloth that he gave her.

“It’s clean, and you have nothing to be sorry for,” Ink insisted.

“Thank you,” she breathed, “my name is Charlotte, but everyone calls me Charlie, and yes, I know it’s a boy’s name. It’s a long story, and I really don’t want to bore you with it.”

“Well, Charlotte, I’m not doing anything for the next hour, and I don’t think that it will be as boring as you claim,” he said. “I’m Ink, by the way.” She giggled again and he thought that it might be the most magical sound he had ever heard. Ink was always a sucker for a damsel in distress and from the look of it, Charlie was in a good deal of distress.

“Your name is very fitting, Ink,” she said. “I guess that’s why you named your shop Ink, right?” he nodded and started walking to the back of his place.

“Come on, Charlie. I have a sub that I can share with you, and I’ll even throw in a few chips if you agree to tell me about how you got stuck with a boy’s name.” She followed him to the back of his shop, and he wasn’t sure how he was going to help Charlie, but he was sure of one thing—there was no way that he’d let her go back to her abusive ex.

Charlotte

Charlotte Blue was supposed to be a boy. Her father liked to point that out to her at every turn. Hell, her mother gave her a perfectly good girl name and her dad changed it to Charlie. Everyone started calling her that and before she knew it, the name stuck. It grew on her over time, but she still hated that her father wanted her to be the son he never had.

She seemed to be a disappointment to all the men in her life. Her ex-husband liked to tell her just that while he beat her black and blue. For some crazy reason, she kept going back to him, even after their divorce was final. Honestly, she had nowhere else to go. Her sister would let her stay with her for a few days, but then, she’d tell Charlie that she had to go because she didn’t want Zeb to show up at her place, asking where she was. She couldn’t blame Ella. She was in danger just by letting Charlie stay with her for a few days. Zeb knew that Charlie had limited resources as to where she could stay, and he found her every time she ran. That’s when she’d promised to go back home with him, trying to keep her sister safe all the while knowing what kind of beating would be waiting for her at home. Aftershe found out that she was pregnant, she knew that going back to him again couldn’t happen. For the sake of her daughter, this time she needed to make a clean break.

“I can’t thank you enough for the half of sub, Ink,” she said. She had been hungry all the time since starting her second trimester, not that she was about to tell a perfect stranger about her baby. Charlie was lucky enough not to be showing yet because the last thing she needed was for Zeb to find out that she was almost six months pregnant with his baby.

“No thanks are necessary,” Ink insisted. He seemed like a pretty decent guy, but then, she thought that about Zeb when she met him too. Sure, Ink was a little rough around the edges, but he seemed to be compassionate; letting her hide out at his shop, because going back out to her ex-husband wasn’t an option.

“So, would you like some chips?” Ink asked. She remembered what he wanted to trade for those chips, and telling her sad story about her disappointed father wasn’t something that she usually shared.

“I’d love to tell you some nice story about my nickname, but I just don’t have one,” she insisted.

“Well, then, how about you just tell me the truth?” Ink asked.

“Okay, my father was old-fashioned, and I guess he wanted a son,” she started.

“That’s not old fashioned, Charlie, that’s just your dad being a dick,” Ink said. Her gasp filled the room followed by her giggle. “Sorry if I overstepped, I just call them like I see them,” he said.

“No, you’re right,” she insisted, “my father was a dick to me my whole life. It’s part of the reason why I don’t see him or my mother very often. I’m close with my sister but I think that she’s sick of me taking Zeb back every time he tracks me down.”

“I take it that Zeb is your ex?” Ink asked.

“Yes,” she admitted. “We were married for three years before he started hitting me. I ran away and ended up in a women’sshelter and they helped me to get divorced from him. We’ve only been divorced for five months now, and I thought that I was rid of him, but then, he found me and our relationship turned into this vicious cycle of me running, Zeb finding me, and me agreeing to stay with him when he threatened to hurt my friends or my sister. I couldn’t let them get hurt because of my shitty decisions, so I agreed to his terms.”

“That’s horrible, Charlie,” Ink said. “I’m sorry that you had to go through all that.”

“Yeah, but it was my fault too. I was the fool who married him. I trusted him and took him at his word when he told me that he’d keep me safe and protect me from everything evil in the world. I guess that I just didn’t count on my husband being the evil that I had to worry about.”

“Yeah, the ones we end up loving the most are the ones that can hurt us the worst,” Ink said.

“Spoken like someone who has personal experience,” she said. Charlie was doing most of the talking and she realized that she didn’t know much about the guy who had granted her sanctuary.

“Yeah, I have plenty of personal experience. I have an ex-wife who ran off with my best friend after we were married for five years,” Ink admitted.

“Oh, that is pretty awful,” Charlie breathed. “Did you catch them together?” she asked.

“No,” he whispered, “I found out when Lena left me a note, telling me that she was in love with Todd, who happened to be the best man at our wedding, and that she was leaving me. I honestly had no clue that she was seeing him. I guess I was kind of blind to what was going on around me at the time, but looking back now, the signs were there,” he said.

“Yeah, I get that. After Zeb started hitting me, I realized that the signs of him being an abusive ass had always been there, Ijust refused to see them because then I’d have to admit that I made a mistake marrying him,” Charlie breathed.

“Well, I’d tell you that you can’t be responsible for other’s actions, but I’d be the pot calling the kettle black,” Ink said. He handed her some of his chips and she thanked him.

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