Page 57 of Beautiful Lies
“Why? Why did you need them so much?”
God, how could I make a non-addict understand what it’s like? There was a hole inside me I couldn’t seem to fill no matter what I did. Drugs had filled that hole, made me feel less empty. When I did heroin, it felt like I was injecting sunshine into my bloodstream. After the initial rush, the whole world took on a soft, warm glow. And I kept chasing that sunshine… chasing the light and the warmth…
“Connor?” she prompted.
“I don’t know what to tell you. Except that it was never your fault. Don’t ever think it was. You gave me everything and I gave you what was left of the broken pieces of myself.”
“Are you still broken?”
Probably. Maybe I always would be. Just like I’d always be an addict, no matter how long I went without doing drugs. But I was getting my life together and every morning, I tried to remind myself to be grateful for the good things in my life. “I’m gluing the pieces back together. With superglue.”
After a beat, she said, “My boyfriend gave me a tattoo when I was eighteen… bluebirds… but I messed it up with barbed wire. I regret that now.”
“Regrets are hard to live with.”
“Yeah, they are. I thought maybe you could help me out. I booked an appointment with you tomorrow night. Maybe you can work your magic.”
* * *
I wokeup in a cold sweat, my heart racing. Deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out.
“I expected better of you,” Marco said.“You let me down, Dylan Connelly… or whoever you are… and this kind of betrayal… it will haunt you, just like my ghost.”
Those were his final words. It had been him or me, and I’d chosen me. They shot him three times as I stood in front of him, my arms tied behind my back, a gun pressed to my head. I had watched him die, his words echoing in my head as the life drained out of him. He’d been right.
It haunted me, just like his ghost.
15
Ava
“Surprise me,” I said when Connor tried to show me the sketch he’d done last night after we hung up.
“You sure about that?”
“I trust you,” I said, walking over to his tattoo station.
“Ink is for life,” he reminded me.
I stripped down to my black tank top and set my army jacket and purse on the shelf behind the chair. “Unless you find an awesome tattoo artist who can cover up a bad decision.”
“I’m awesome and you trust me now?” he asked, trying to figure out if there was a catch.
“I’m taking a leap of faith.”
I climbed into the black leather chair and offered him my right arm. He grimaced at my current tattoo. He’d already told me, on numerous occasions, that barbed wire was so 1990s and every time he looked at my tattoo, it made him nauseous.
“If you don’t like it,” he said, prepping my skin. “will I get kicked in the balls again?”
“She kicked you in the balls?” Gavin asked, aghast. He looked over from his station, his tattoo needle poised above a guy’s shoulder. Strands of blond hair escaped the elastic holding his hair back.
“Maybe he deserved it,” AJ chimed in from her station.
Which started a debate with the customers in Gavin and AJ’s chairs, both of which happened to be guys. Unfortunately, half-walls divided the four stations, so everyone could chime in with their opinions and be heard.
You kick a guy in the balls once and you never live it down. While they talked, Connor applied the transfer, and I studiously avoided looking at my arm.
“Dude, I hope you’re wearing a cup,” Gavin said.
