Page 68 of Shifting Gears

The place she’d chosen prevented her from seeing my back that Riku was working on, and, damn, she hadn’t been joking. He had a heavy hand. The ink he was putting on my skin would go nowhere for years.

An hour later, he was doing the final rinse over the fresh tattoo on my skin and gestured for me to look.

I stood up, feeling Sydney’s eyes glance over at me as I stepped up to the mirror, turned my back to it, and took it in.

Sprawled across my shoulder blades was a raven, wings spread wide, head held high as it sat frozen in time mid-flight.

Sydney walked up next to me, eyes wide in disbelief as she looked at my tattoo.

She didn’t say a word, but as I met her gaze, I could see she was on the brink of breaking down. She twisted away and walked out the door.

“Don’t worry about the payment,yaro. Just get her home,” Riku said as he placed a large piece of Second Skin over my tattoo.

I nodded and grabbed my hoodie. “Thanks.”

When I got outside, she was nowhere in sight.

“Fuck.” I made my way back to where I’d parked my car, and when I got down the steps, she was leaning against the passenger side, facing away from me.

I unlocked the car, and she opened the door and slid in. She buckled up and stared out the passenger window as I got in next to her.

“You good?” I asked as I started the car.

“Mmhmm. Please take me home, AJ.”

Her response was short, and her body language made me aware of how upset she must really be.

We drove through the streets of Tokyo as the sun got lower on the horizon, turning the sky a brilliant shade of pink and orange. I went to ask her what was wrong, but as soon as I started speaking, she turned on the radio and cranked it up, drowning out my words.

Fine, someone’s in a shitty mood. Not how I expected her to react to me getting a tattoo to honor her sister.

I parked my car, and she rushed to get out. I pulled the key out of the ignition before opening my door and following her.

We walked in silence from my car to the front door of her place. I didn’t usually walk her to the door, but I had picked up on how different her energy was on the ride home. Something was off. I wanted to give her every opportunity to get it off her chest.

We came to a stop, and she turned toward me.

“Why would you …” Her voice cracked as she stepped to the side of me, reached up, and gently touched where my new tattoo was.

I shoved my hands into my hoodie pocket, staring down at her as I thought about my response. “Because I owed it to her.”

She furrowed her brow, looking up at me, her eyes full of sorrow.

“I wasn’t there for Raven when it mattered, but she had left a mark on me when we talked. She was the first person I told about why I came here, and she called me straight out on my bullshit when I had made it out like it was no big deal. She asked me if the choice I made was what was best for me. It’s somethin’ I still keep asking myself.”

Her shoulders slumped as she turned away from me, trying to hide from me as she wiped tears from her face.

“Sounds like her. She could always help me and Regan see the light when we couldn’t. I didn’t think anyone else would remember her like that,” she softly muttered as she rubbed her face again.

“I did,” I said, voice rough as I remembered that night with Raven. “Still do.”

For a moment, it was just the two of us, standing there, completely understanding the pain we shared over the same person.

Then I turned to walk away, thinking there wasn’t much more that I could say in this situation.

“Wait,” Sydney said as she grabbed the back of my hoodie.

I paused and glanced behind me.

---