There was one thing that I couldn’t fit into the ending of the book in a way that didn’t disrupt the flow. All the places I kept noting for it to go felt forced, but because I opened this side story into the book, it also needed to be closed.
Fade
Erez settles on his stool and leans over my thigh. He adjusts the stand with his ink, wipes, and other mysterious tools. For as long as I’ve been coming into his shop and asking questions, I rarely remember the answers. My attention is generally on Erez himself. Not his job.
The first pricks of the needle poke my skin, and I close my eyes to zone out. The constant low buzz of the tattoo gun and the rhythmic pinching of the needle is lulling as long as it’s not over bone. He’s on the meaty expanse of thigh today, so it shouldn’t be too bad.
Erez stops and laughs quietly.
I open my eyes to find him turning his head toward me with a smile. “The last time you were here, naked on my chair while I inked Enby into you—” He taps the non-binary cat on my hip with his gloved hand, “—you were lamenting about how frustrated you were with the guy you liked being oblivious. And I commented about how frustrating that must be for you.”
A grin slides across my face. “I remember.”
He shakes his head and rests his forehead on his arm, quite near my dick. I tangle my fingers into his hair. “I’m sorry. Fuck, Fade. You must have been stupidly annoyed with me for so long.”
One of my shoulders rises in a shrug. “I have the outcome I hoped for, so it’s all worth it.”
Erez picks his head up and meets my eyes. “Yeah? You think five years of me being blind as fuck and self-absorbed was worth it?”
“Absolutely,” I answer. “I think you fail to understand how completely in love with you I am. Finally, you love me in return.”
“Fairy tales rarely have the ending you hope for.”
“You’re right. Mine is better.”
He shakes his head and turns his attention back to the tattoo. The buzz starts again. “You think so?” he asks after a minute.
“Yes. Six months ago, I would have thought that I knew you pretty well. I didn’t. You weren’t living at all. You were nothing but a shell of a person. I’ve learned so much about you and the person you truly are. Not the emptiness of the person you’d been for so long. I loved that man for five years, but this man, the man who is learning to live again… I’m so fucking in love with him, it’s gross.”
The tattoo gun has stopped now. He’s not looking at me, but he’s listening. Erez sighs and glances at me again. “I’ve loved you just as long, you know. You’re the only person I let get close, even if I kept you at a distance. Maybe something inside me recognized you subconsciously. I needed you.”
I touch his hair again, and he smiles before turning his attention back to the tattoo. We’re finally beginning the piece that’s going to cover my body, and today he’s working on a tail.
I’ve always loved the time we spend together. Being in this chair has a way of marking moments. Every three months, I’d have an appointment for the next thing. Each was a milestone. Maybe they’ll continue to be milestones, just of a different kind.
My phone rings, and Erez pauses the needle. He wipes my leg then stands to reach for my phone where it’s sitting on the table. He hands it to me and goes back to tracing the lines.
It’s my brother, so I answer. “Hey, Shye.”
“Hey. What’s that noise?”
“Tattoo.”
“Ah. Tell Erez hi.”
I relay the exchange then ask, “What’s up?”
“You guys are coming to Nevaeh’s party this weekend, right?”
“It’s still happening? What’s going on there?”
Shye sighs. “I cornered Kyra is what happened. I felt like a damn bully, but I was determined to make her understand that she’s being shitty by not putting her daughter first. All kids, regardless of their parental situation, deserve to have adults in their lives who put them first. People who make time for them and show them that they’re a priority. They’re wanted and loved and cared for. It shapes them. What kind of parent is Nev going to see her as if she sees Mom’s exes constantly being forced from her life because her mother’s current partner is jealous? What message is that sending to Nevaeh? Not just in regard to how her mother thinks of her presence but also about relationships. I didn’t even touch on the fact that Kyra doesn’t bother waiting any length of time to introduce her kid to a new partner—partners which have historically not stuck around long—which means Nev is always seeing people come and go. I figured one battle at a time.”
He takes a breath, and I stifle a chuckle because my brother is incredibly long winded.
“I hoped I finally got through to her since she’s agreed before when I’ve made the same argument but in fewer words. Imagine my surprise when she confronted her girlfriend and told her that I will be a constant figure in Nevaeh’s life and if she couldn’t accept that, then they weren’t going to be together. The girlfriend left, but Kyra isn’t entirely unhappy about it. I think I respect her a little more now.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” I say.
“Kyra came from a home just like the one she’s creating for her daughter. I want to break that cycle, so Nev doesn’t repeat it. I want her to have more than one consistent parent in her life.”
What he’s not saying is that he wants to give Nevaeh what we also never had but wanted. Longed for. It’s not the number of parents a child has that matters. It’s the energy, effort, and love those parents show to their child. It’s making them feel loved and wanted.
Our dad did that, but our mother’s visits were forced by the courts because in this country, there’s some stupid stigma that a child is always best off with their biological parents. As a child of this system, I adamantly disagree. There’s nothing worse than feeling unwanted by a parent. For some reason, courts disagree with this, though. The goal is always to reunite the child with their bio parent.
By the time the system finally catches up, damage has been done. The sense of being unwanted, unimportant, insignificant, a mistake, unloved… It settles in deep and sends the message that a parent never stays.
That’s what Shye is trying to tell Kyra. That’s the message he’s trying to prevent Nevaeh from subconsciously learning. Family means something different than what she was born into. It can be redefined, and Shye is trying like fucking hell to give it a positive connotation.
Maybe not just for the little girl. Maybe for himself, too. I think he needs that healing as much as he wants to prevent her from needing it.
“How’s the little girl you rescued?” Shye asks. “Think she’s ready for a playdate?”
I shake my head even before I vocalize it. I didn’t tell him any details. Only a modified version of the truth—that I was in the right place at a time when a little girl needed rescuing.
Lana is doing relatively well, but she does not do well with crowds of loud children—I imagine shouts of laughter reach a pitch similar to screams of pain and fear. She also doesn’t do well with a lot of adults around, especially males.
“No,” I answer. “Definitely not yet. Please don’t take this as a reflection of you, but she doesn’t do well with men. Erez doesn’t come around either.”
Shye sighs. “I hope she learns to trust again.”
“I hope she always has a healthy wariness but that it doesn’t prevent her from having a happy life,” I counter.
“That’s a strange thing to say.”
“Is it though? Women are taught from a young age to conduct themselves a certain way so men leave them alone. Lana’s only memories are of men abusing her. Yes, I hope she heals—absolutely—but I don’t want her to trust blindly.”
“That’s… Fuck. What do I need to teach Nevaeh?”
I smile. “You need to teach her to be strong, independent, confident, and intelligent. Show her she’s worth being spoiled and taken care of but what consent means. Teach her to defend herself if the situation calls for it. Be the example of what a man should be.”
Shye sighs. “She deserves a happy ending.”
“She does. Definitely. But teach her to make her own instead of waiting for it to be provided to her.”
She chuckles quietly. “You’re a dad too. Aren’t you?”
“Unofficially. I think it’ll always stay unofficial, and that’s okay. I’ll be there for Lana as much as she needs and wants me, but I think it’s healthiest for her to stay where she is. She’s safe, and there’s never going to be a question whether she’s safe again as long as she’s there.”
“I take it you haven’t found her parents yet?”
“That’s not my business, to be honest, but from what I’ve heard, no. There’s evidence to support that parents were selling their infants. There’s evidence that these children were trafficked. Seriously, they might not have even been born in the States, Shye. We don’t know. They’re digging and following trails, but… We may never know the entire truth.”
Erez is studiously concentrating on my thigh. These questions, one which weren’t explored to their fullest extent when she was alive, are being looked into because of Alice. But she was one kid. She might have come from Hell, but she had a new family that would protect and love her.
Now, it’s not just one kid, and those questions have become incredibly important when we consider there has been twenty years of abuse. In those twenty years, the children have grown up. Where did they go once they aged out of these sick fucks’ taste?
“I’m sorry. I hate the ugliness in the world. I hate it especially for her.”
He doesn’t know about any of the others. He only knows about Lana, and that’s because I accidentally mentioned her, so I had to give him something.
“Me too. But hey. These little kids need happy endings, right? What is in our power is doing everything we can to make sure they get them.”
“Yes!” he says. “So, see you both this weekend, right? Erez is coming?”
“He’ll be there,” I agree, and Erez glances up with a smile.
“Good. See you then.”
We end the call, and I watch Erez. “I didn’t tell him everything. I barely told him anything.”
“I know. I trust you.”
“I just… I don’t think I will ever be in a place in my life where I can give her the kind of support and family she deserves.”
Erez meets my eyes again, the tattoo gun turning silent. “It’s okay.”
“I feel like I need to and maybe it’s expected of me.”
“It’s not and you don’t. As you were just saying, what someone wants for you isn’t necessarily what’s best for the child in question. You’re right that Lana is going to thrive better where she is right now. In five years, or even ten, if that changes, you revisit the question. It’s not like you’ve walked away from her when she needs you. You’re there almost every day, visiting.”
“How do you know that?”
He grins. “Aven is a tattletale.”
“Am not,” Aven’s disembodied voice says from his phone. It makes me jump.
Erez chuckles. “Just because someone wants a specific ending for you doesn’t mean that’s the ending you have to have.”
I sigh. “I want you as my happy ending.”
He grins. “Good. I’m going to be a hypocrite and say I wasn’t giving you a choice.”
Laughing, I grip his hair and haul him up so I can kiss him. “Love you.”
Erez sighs. “Love you too.”