Page 36 of Dark Ink

I glanced at the old lady seated beside me, clutching her groceries to her narrow chest. I cleared my throat.

“He’s my brother,” I said in a small, embarrassed voice.

“Is that supposed to explain why you allowed him to come into the place and destroy it?”

“No,” I said pitifully. “It just—I—he was probably just looking for his medication. He gets quite distressed when he can’t find it, and listen, I’m terribly sorry for the mess and the noise and I’ll of course clean everything up and—”

“Ms Brady,” the landlord interrupted and then once more when I kept rambling on, “I’m sorry if I didn’t relay the seriousness of the matter, but there are holes in the walls and cabinets torn down. You should be worrying less about fixing the mess and worry more about me calling the police and having your brother arrested. I can’t have you staying there anymore.”

I begged for a second chance. Tried to offer more money. An additional security deposit. An extra month’s rent. Tried to argue that my brother was sick and I couldn’t afford the time or money to find a new place when I needed to spend my time tending to him. None of it worked.

I was being evicted. Again.

This was my punishment, for thinking I could just take pleasure. That I could meet my professor after school with the flimsy excuse of looking at my art. I had responsibilities. Bills. Work. Study.

Rian was the snake offering me the apple. I was so weak that I yearned to take it. That I let him give it to me on the floor of the lecture hall.

“I will offer you this piece of advice,” the landlord said as I fought back tears there on that bus bench—as another bus that could have been going to Dublin Ink closed its doors in front of me. “You seem like a nice young lady. I’d question whether your brother really wants to get better, Ms Brady. Because there will always be more walls to tear down in search of his ‘medication’.”

It was too far. Too far.

“You don’t know my brother,” I said, lifting my sunken chin.

“No, I don’t,” the landlord said. “But I’m suggesting you might not either.”

She hung up and I stared at the screen—7:32 blinked in red. Seven minutes and thirty-two seconds. That’s how long it took to destroy what I’d built over the last six months. Seven minutes and thirty-two seconds. Long enough for the tides to come in, as they always did, and sweep away the little castle of sand I’d stacked with my little bucket. Seven minutes and thirty-two seconds. I wondered if the Eithne that got on the bus would be at Dublin Ink in seven minutes and thirty-two seconds. I wondered how fast I’d have to run to catch up with her.

To catch up with the life I’d never have.

* * *

My legs shook like I’d been running as I stood in front of the desk at the college registrar’s office.

“I’ll be wit’ ye in just a moment,” the woman working the desk called to me.

She had an armful of manila folders and was wrangling them without much success into an old filing drawer. I sighed. Drew my fingers through my hair and propped my elbows on the desk littered with pamphlets for all kinds of other opportunities I’d never take.

“No rush,” I said.

My heart no longer beat wildly like it had last night at the bus stop. I no longer felt that urgency in my tapping toes, that excitement in my bloodstream. I no longer craned my neck to see if it was coming, finally coming, the bus to take me to Rian and the opportunity to escape it all, if just for one night.

Now there was a heaviness in my feet, a stiffness in my neck, a weariness in my bones.

“Sorry about the wait, dear.” She dusted off her hands and arranged herself in the office chair behind the big desk.

“I’d like to switch out of this class, please,” I said, handing across a form. “It’s no longer in line with the degree I need. A waste of time at this point.”

The woman lowered her glasses to the bridge of her nose and typed some information from the form into her computer.

“Now,” she said as she scrolled the page. “Now…”

I fought the heaviness of my eyelids as I waited. I was already exhausted and I hadn’t even begun all the work before me: packing, finding a new place, settling Stewart down, nursing him if he was sick again, finding him if he tried to run off. Then there was studying, working, eating. It was all too much. But Stewart had to be my priority. Getting him better. That was number one. I saw that now.

It had been silly, this fantasy with Rian. This alternate life where we pored over art in a tattoo parlour late into the early hours of the morning. Fingers brushing. Then knees touching. A spark of electricity. Then everything. All at once. His body. Mine. Art and clothes and us on the floor. This alternate life where I wasn’t just a whore who hid beneath lecterns. Because Rian loved me. Because with his love I was cleansed.

“Now…” the registrar said once more before slipping the form back across the desk toward my fingers. I hadn’t realised how tightly I’d been squeezing the edge, knuckles white.

“All done?” I asked.

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