9. 9

9

Ember

O ver the next few days, I focused on finishing my homework and study stuff, because no matter what happened between me and Mr E, I still wanted to get those damn exam qualifications I’d been working towards. I didn’t want to be forever the loser who had to drop out of school after school, until I was finally banished from the last one. I needed those grades to get jobs, right? Even if I had no idea what kind of jobs I wanted.

“Hey Chica? Can I come in?” Dad Gray was in the doorway with a box in his arms, gift-wrapped with a bow on it.

“Yeah, sure. What’s up?”

He placed the box on my bed, and sat on the other side of it.

“Your mum and dad and me, we were thinking that you’re uh… you’re doing really well lately, and we wanted to treat you. Before you open it, I just want to say that we’re so proud of you, Em. You’re way more of a badass than any of us were at your age.” I’d never really seen dad Gray look this uncomfortable before, not because he didn’t believe what he was saying, but because him speaking without his iconic smirk on his face was just weird.

“Uh thanks? I haven’t even done my exams yet though. I might still fail them,” I whispered, because my focus was too much on the man teaching me now, instead of the studies I knew I had to focus on.

“Look, I know things have been hell for you, and I wish we’d been able to prevent all of that stuff, so you could just be getting on with your life like others your age, but what we can do is help you in the future. I know you’ve been focused on your art, and honestly, it’s so fucking good, I feel like others should see it, but-”

“Don’t show anyone, please! It’s… I haven’t drawn anything I want others to see, dad.” That wasn’t strictly true, of course, because every day I drew things for Mr E, and every day, he tucked them into his bag when he left, so yeah, those were his. I didn’t know if he kept them, or just binned them when he got home, but I liked to think he treasured them.

“This one was particularly good, but for some reason you trashed it?” Dad held up the crumpled sketch of Suzy the bitch being shattered like glass, and even with my angry lines through it, you could see enough to see what it was.

“Oh… yeah, that was… it went wrong.”

“I can’t see anything wrong with it, Chica. I think it’s fucking awesome,” dad said, gazing at the pic with a grin. “In fact… yeah … open the box.”

He nudged the parcel closer to me, and confused as fuck, I did as he said and tore at the paper, to be greeted by a plain box inside it. When I lifted the lid though… oh my god. What the fuck?

“Dad… this is…”

“Look, the second I saw this, I was like, it’d make an amazing tattoo… so yeah, just in case you wanna try that out for reals…” I was looking at a tattooing gun, with inks and accessories I couldn’t even figure out yet. Tattooing? Why didn’t I think of that? My dads had loads of them, and Blaze? My god, Blaze had covered most of his body with the damn things. I could tattoo people… oh god, people… wait .

“I know what you’re thinking, but you could practice on me, yeah? I don’t have many on my arms, so you could, I mean, I like this shattered effect. You could put flames on the glass shards or something? That’d look cool.”

“But dad-”

“If you make a mistake, it won’t matter, Chica. I’ll wear it with pride anyway, because you painted it. What do you say?”

Tattooing people. PEOPLE. Dad was saying I could start with him, but I hadn’t even let my dads, or my mum, touch me since what that bastard did to me, so how could I touch anyone to tattoo them?

“See, the beauty of it is this,” dad muttered, pointing to the contents of the box, “gloves, so you don’t actually need to touch anyone, and you can rest on things so you touch as little as possible, plus, of course… you’ll have this stabby bastard between you and them. Anyone gets fresh, just tattoo a fucking hole in them, see?” Suddenly I was filled with hope, because maybe just maybe, I could do this after all.

“And I could… you’d let me do one on you first?” Dad’s face lit up as he smiled wide, those small lines around his eyes deepening with his pleasure.

“Fuck yeah. I’d have the first ever tattoo by the next big star of the tattooing world! My arm would be worth millions, but I wouldn’t let any fucker cut it off, because… well, that’s my favourite arm. I use it for all kinds of things.”

“Ew, okay, enough of that. Dad, this is pretty amazing, thank you! I need a little time to look it all over and plan, and I need to re-sketch that for you, because it’s shit.” I snatched the piece of paper from his hand, screwing it up again.

“There’s this weird practice stuff in there, it’s supposed to simulate skin so you can tattoo it, but now I’m kinda wondering what else you can do with it.” I wondered if he was being rude again, but he rubbed his hand over his left arm, the scarred mess left behind after a bad burn, and I realised he might have been serious for the first time almost ever.

“Does it still hurt?” His hand froze as he looked up from the box, and his usual smirk reappeared.

“Nah… just wondering all kinds of shit you don’t wanna know about, Chica. So… you like this?”

“It’s perfect, dad, thank you so much!” I almost wanted to hug him, but that inner people-phobe inside me was holding me back, and I could see he understood. He grinned as he stood up, his eyes darting around the room for a moment.

“We love you, kid, so just know that when you’re ready, we’re all here for you. What you said the other day, I don’t think you were entirely wrong, but we took on board what you said, so maybe we can still turn things around, yeah? All is not lost yet.”

I didn’t get a chance to argue with him, because he’d left the room, but that was probably the most sensible conversation I’d ever had with dad since everything that happened, and it felt like he was trying. Like he understood that I’d lashed out, but I still loved them, and if there was stuff they could fix now, for Ash, for Phoenix and Cole, then maybe like he said, all isn’t lost yet.

Ethan

WEEKENDS WERE USUALLY BUSY, catching up with a few friends, doing all the stuff I didn’t have time for during the week, visiting my parents and catching up with them, and the boring stuff too, like laundry.

What I didn’t expect was the next thing that came through my door via hand delivery. Was Suzy still trying her luck? I’d chosen not to address the note she’d sent, nor had I been in touch with her, because I didn’t want her getting the wrong idea, and also, I really didn’t want Ember working out where she lived, in case she tried speaking to her or something. I wasn’t sure what to do about Ember, because truthfully if I met her out and about, and she wasn’t my student right now, I’d have been attracted to her.

She was bright, and intelligent, and she could talk about all kinds of subjects with maturity and humour, and yet there was something so soft and vulnerable about her, but it was hard to see at first with the armour of her gothic makeup and clothing.

Did I look at her, and wonder if there were tattoos and piercings I couldn’t see adorning her body? Well, because I was a fucking predatory asshole, yeah, I really did. I never thought of myself that way, but my attraction to my student was fucking with my head like you wouldn’t believe.

That run in with her dads had me unnerved though, because they’d just warned me against the very thing I’d almost done, and I had to wonder if they’d listened at the door and knew everything, or if they were just guessing, or even warning me pre-emptively.

Even if they were just guessing, I knew I’d be under their scrutiny now, when I was there for Ember’s classes. I knew that they could be listening at any point, and I’d have to watch everything I said in future. Teaching her just went from the best part of my days, to the most challenging, and maybe the most dangerous.

Anyway, back to the envelope that came through my door on Sunday afternoon. I’d checked outside for the sender at the time, but there was nobody in sight, so I guess I’d missed hearing it when it came through.

It just had my name on the front, but it wasn’t Suzy’s handwriting this time. I unsealed the envelope and drew out the thick page within. When I unfolded it, I instantly knew who it was from, but I was stunned by the image on the page. It was me . Me; sketched with painstaking detail, down to each hair on my head, and each speck of stubble on my cheeks. Every crease of my lips, and the familiar grin on my face were drawn so beautifully it could almost have been a photograph. When had Ember even sketched this? When had she looked closely enough to remember this much detail?

Did she walk all this way, just to post it through my door, or was she using public transport? Even riskier, was she hitching with other drivers? Something about her made me wonder if she’d go for such a risky option, while some part of me wanted to go to her house, and drag her aside and demand that she be more careful. What I should be doing, is warning her to stay away from my home, maybe even away from me.

I took the picture with me to the bookshelf, retrieving the display book I kept there, opening it and leafing through sleeve after sleeve, each containing an Ember Cross original. I’d kept every single one she’d ever drawn for me, the angry aggressive ones and the funny ones, the ones mocking the subjects I taught her, and the ones depicting her hate for the world, and all the people in it.

Finally I found an empty sleeve, and gently eased the sketch into it, smoothing it down after it was in place. She drew most of these during those precious moments with me, and I couldn’t part with a single one of them. They were mine, just like I wished she could be.

“Fuck me, I need help,” I grumbled as I slid the display book back among the books and reached for my phone. I needed a distraction, because right now I was wallowing, and thinking about the one woman, the one girl, I couldn’t have.

How fucking frustrating that the first time I actually reached out to the person who could distract me, they didn’t even answer their phone.

In the end, I grabbed a beer from the fridge, and grabbed the remote, scrolling through the movies on offer, desperate to find something to distract me from my thoughts.