Six words.
I am agitated. The small space smells like mouthwash and sterilization, And incense is burning, it's making my head hurt.
I pace like a caged animal. Gone. Gone gone gone.
Hey, Andrew, was it?
I acknowledge the question with a twitch.
This is going to take me about ten more minutes, so just… calm down, a'right?
I do not want to calm down a'right. I want to shake the tattoo artist by the front of his stupid flannel shirt. I want to smash his smug, pierced face into the glass counter that houses the jewelry. It's six fucking words. Six. Six words in her handwriting.
I have waited for this long enough. I waited until after.. The day. I waited until the dirt covered her and I could no longer see the coffin. Her parents didn't even cry.
Claire didn't, either.
Fucking six words.
John did.
Six fucking words. How long can it take?
Okay, man. You ready for this?
I fucking paid you in advance and tipped you big. Do you fucking think I'm ready?
Chill, man.
DO NOT TELL ME TO CHILL, MAN.
Woah, man. A'right. Come on back…
And later, later I sit next to Brian, who sits across from Bender, who is sitting next to Claire.
Four of us sit comfortably in a smoky booth,
(no longer awkwardly a party of five, trying to sit five people in a booth always made the waitress laugh.)
And Claire and John and I
Smoke too many cigarettes,
And all of us drink straight shots of tequila and talk about a year ago, a year ago the day she died, we had met.
And we fucking couldn't fix her.
And underneath the bandage on my wrist, lined up neatly next to my own set of scars,
(the night She Died, I found her in the bathroom. I knew she was dead, So I picked up John's old switchblade and tried myself.
I didn't want to live without her)
Is my first tattoo, six words long,
Scribed in her loopy, messy handwriting.
AN: For Cuba.