Page 1 of Tears of Glass

Chapter One

My eyes are screwed shut. The buzz and hum of the pen, and the vibration of the base unit in the background is the worst part. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway.

The virgin skin, that one small space I’ve left untouched, stings with acute intensity as the pen gently drags its sharpened edge across the canvas my body provides.

This is my final reminder.

My final lesson learned. It will sit above my heart forever more. A constant reminder to never trust. To never feel. Every time I look at myself in the mirror, this will be one display I won’t be able to ignore.

“You okay there, Faith?”

I startle a little at Dan’s voice. We’ve been silent throughout the whole process. Actually, we’ve been silent for days. Both of us walking around aimlessly, lost and wandering in our own thoughts. Neither of us feeling, looking; sometimes I wonder if we are even breathing. If it wasn’t automatic for our lungs to inhale air would we still be remembering to do it?

Dan is grieving.

Al is gone. His fight against cancer and his zest for life finally over.

I’m grieving, too. But I’m grieving for Al, while also reeling from the smashing of my heart.

I can’t and I won’t ever let myself think of Elijah Fairclough again.

Liar.

Weak.

Pathetic.

Him, yes. But more me. I broke my one golden rule and fell for the lie he told. For the picture of perfection he managed to paint with his words and promises.

Anger bubbles inside me and my breathing hitches until there’s a small knot right under the place Dan is working his pen. My heart thuds a heavy boom. The pitter patter of the last few weeks has been replaced by an endless death march.

Al is gone. And I didn’t get to say goodbye.

“Breathe, Faith.” Dan’s voice cuts through my endless circling thoughts. Round and round they loop, never ceasing.

“I can’t.” I hold in my breath. I hate being weak. I hate the tears that keep sliding down my face, landing with a rolling splatter on the vinyl of the bed beneath me. But the tears still come no matter how much I want them to end.

The buzz of the machine stops and silence fills the air. “What are you doing?” I lean up a little and search Dan’s face. He has that look on it: the crease between his brows, his lips down-turned. It’s a familiar gesture when I lean forward and brush his sandy hair out of his eyes. He puffs a breath and blows the strands.

Dan’s built like a machine. Wide muscles, covered in ink. His skin is tanned from summer and everything about him is comforting and familiar. Even the old T-shirt he has on—once baggy but now stretched over his shitkicker build—is familiar.

Laying here, letting him ink my skin should be fun, just like old times. Before, I would have drunk and smoked through the process and we’d have chatted about everything and nothing to while away the hours a good job can take. Not today. I can’t talk around the axe slashed into my chest right above where he’s marking me.

“We should stop, Faith. You aren’t in the right headspace for this. I don’t want you to ever regret anything I mark on you.”

“Fuck off, Dan.” I scowl so hard it hurts my forehead. “Don’t give me that shit. You ink anyone, anywhere, it’s your job. Why am I any different?”

His head shakes and he looks at me like I’m an enigma he’s never going to understand. “Because most people who come and lay on this bed, don’t turn up on my doorstep a sobbing and hysterical mess only a few days before.”

My cheeks burn. I wish I could erase the memory of my arrival back home in Brighton, but I can’t.

I was a mess.

I’m not far off it now.

Everything hurts.

My head. My limbs. My heart.