Page 58 of Devilish Ink

I shook my head. My interest in Ryleigh might have started because of Rian, but whatever was growing between her and me was real. It was bigger than us. Bigger than this.

And…if his life was so perfect, how the fuck did he end up in a rehab centre?

My gaze settled on a Polaroid selfie of Ry and Rian, cheeks mashed together as they made faces at the camera. I leaned in closer for a better look.

She had fewer tattoos then, but that wasn’t the most noticeabledifference. It was something in the eyes. A brightness. I saw flashes of it sometimes, especially when Ry was tattooing. There was a joy in her that had been nearly extinguished.

Now I mostly saw a darkness, the suspicious guardedness of a wounded animal.

I found my hands curling into fists.

So many times I wanted to grab her and yell, “Who did this to you?”

But I didn’t. I couldn’t push.

She would tell me when she was ready. I just had to be patient. To give her time to trust me. To open up. I just had to keep refusing to let her push me away.

I checked on the blood pudding before walking into the living room, a soft dawn glow coming in through the window.

I kept an ear open for signs of Ryleigh waking as I carded through Rian’s records, a collection of indie punk and indie folk, from Radiohead to Mick Flannery to Declan O’Rourke, all music that Alan would call,“shite to cut your feckin’ wrists to”.

I took pictures of band names I’d never heard of to listen to later.

Then I scanned the titles on his bookshelf, mostly art and tattoo books and magazines.

I studied the art that he’d picked to decorate his walls.

A large colourful painting on canvas labelled “Dublin Rooftops”, but I didn’t see any rooftops in it. It was too wild, too organic in the way the curved shapes moved around the piece.

There were a series of line drawings of an orchid and…was that a pussy?

Some of them had creases in them as if they’d been crumpled and smoothed out.

How strange.

Did Rian do these? It didn’t seem like his style.

Returning to the stove to flip the blood pudding was like coming up for air after too long under water. My lungs ached. Aweariness settled in my bones as if I’d had to fight my way toward the surface.

It was strange, learning about your own brother through his things. But I was desperate.

Rian was still ignoring me when I visited his rehab centre every morning. I’d earned nothing but sad smiles from the receptionist and blasts of icy cold air to the face as I left.

But I’d do it again. And again.

Just like I returned to Ry again and again for a needle in my skin, I’d return to the rehab centre for a knife in the heart. As many as Rian wanted to stab me with his refusal to see me. I could handle the pain.

Rian might be stubborn. But I would be immovable. I’d prove I was serious with my persistence. Just like I’d proven it to Ry.

“I thought I smelled something tasty.”

I turned to find her leaning against the wall outside the bedroom, one bare foot atop the other, fingers pushing back messy bedhead, her bottom lip held between her teeth.

Nothing on but my shearling-lined coat hanging open.

I smiled because she was the girl from the Polaroid. Playful. Eager. Eyes flashing with mischief. She wasn’t hiding anything from me except a little bit of her hips and tits.

I never wanted Ry to have to go back to being the scared, haunted woman I met at Dublin Ink.

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