Discovering April

by Sheena Hutchinson

  Rolling over to Jinx’s upside down little face, I hold him tight, trying to tell myself I can make it one freakin’ night alone.

  Suddenly, I hear my back door creak open. I’d know that sound anywhere, the way the lining of the door scratches against the kitchen floor. Then I hear footsteps tracing their way around below me. I jump up, gripping the sheets to my chest before willing my eyes to scan the darkness for a weapon. The only thing I see are my snow globes. The footsteps are making their way up the stairs and my heart begins to beat nervously. There hasn’t been a break-in in Angelica in years. My eyes stare as the knob twists in the darkness and my door slowly creaks open. Walking out into the moonlight of my room is Jared’s silhouette. Apparently, he must be thinking the same.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” he whispers, slipping into my bed.

  “Oh, why is that?” My smirk is lost in the shadows, but my sarcasm is there.

  “Some sexy show I was watching,” he whispers against my lips.

  I think we could find each other’s lips anywhere; we never seem to miss. I feel his warm hands around my cold body. I haven’t turned the heat on in the house yet. It didn’t seem necessary since I’m practically never here anymore. His fingertips explore my body, enticing the fire inside me to stir. Nope, definitely don’t need the heat on. I feel his hand slipping off my nightshirt, leaving kisses up my stomach in its wake. I don’t realize I’m gasping until his mouth meets mine and it stops.

  IT SEEMS LIKE THE entire day at school I’m carrying a smile along with my books from class to class. The whole class begins packing up our notebooks and books to indicate to the teacher her time has come to an end. She wraps up by telling us to read three chapters and write up a summary.

  “I don’t know why we pay so much money when all the teacher does is tell us to read,” I snicker to Ro behind me as we walk out into the hallway.

  “Psh, yea, like that is going to happen.” She rolls her eyes and snaps her gum. “Lets go grab lunch. I’m starved.”

  “Who’s waiting for you?” I whip around to inspect her face. Ro has become very transparent to me lately.

  “Who says it’s just one?” She winks in response.

  I’m laughing when I hear my name called from behind us. “April?”

  Turning around to meet the voice, I freeze and my smile fades. I’m staring straight into the deep blue eyes of Hunter Adams.

  “Can I talk to you for a sec?” he asks, his eyes pleading with me.

  I glance back to Ro, who is shaking her head not so inconspicuously.

  “I’ll meet you at the cafeteria.”

  “Are you sure?” Her eyes flick back and forth between him and me.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  Her stare hardens and I feel Hunter tense behind me. “I don’t like this,” she finally says before turning to stalk down the hallway to the stairs.

  I feel Hunter take a breath behind me and I realize Ro makes him a little nervous. She is a little bit of a wild cracker, but I don’t think she’s the one he has to worry about punching him.

  “You never responded to my text,” he finally mutters, looking at my hands and not my eyes.

  “I didn’t know what to say.” My voice sounds harsh, harsher than I think I’ve ever spoken to him. It hits me hard, and I can only imagine what it does to him.

  The silence between us grows and every footstep down the hall echoes in my ears. He finally speaks. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  I look up into his eyes and then down to those lips that I love. My breath hitches in my throat but my mind can’t seem to focus on any train of thought to actually make it to my mouth. I love him, but I hate him. He hurt me. He left me. He lied to me. Why am I sitting here debating how his lips would feel against mine again? Why am I falling into his trap once again?

  “I can’t do this!” I shake my head and back away from him down the hall.

  “April… please…” he calls after me, but I turn and run down the stairs.

  I fight back tears as I open the door leading to the hill.

  “So…” Ro pops out from behind the open door.

  “You were waiting for me?”

  “I don’t trust that guy. Probably had his jock friends waiting in the wings for back up.”

  “Back up for what?” I cock my head to look at her.

  “I don’t know. Maul you into submission, a gang bang … whatever the guys do nowadays!”

  “You have a twisted mind, don’t you?”

  She smirks at my question, but doesn’t respond. We begin walking to the cafeteria in silence until she finally asks what she really wanted to say. “What did he want?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t get that far. I freaked and left.”

  “Oh,” is her only response. The infamous Ro is left speechless.

  “He said he was sorry…” I whisper before reaching for the front door to the cafeteria.

  “They always are, aren’t they?”

  It’s a rhetorical question, I realize when she heads on inside ahead of me.

  I’M HOPPING OUT of Jared’s Jeep in his driveway later that afternoon while my mind is still swirling with a million thoughts and memories. I’m staring at the wilting daisies that divide the driveway between our houses when Jared breaks me out of my reverie.

  “You coming?” He points towards his house.

  “Jared.” I spin around as he pauses to glance back at me. “I think I want a tattoo.”

  “A what?”

  “Tattoo – you know, the permanent ink in your skin kinda thing.” I point to my imaginary bicep through my leather jacket.

  “Where did that come from?” He braces both his hands over his head against the support bar of his Jeep. The way his eyes are peering at me while his strong arms are pressing against his long-sleeve shirt makes me have to glance away. I brace my own arm against the bar and swing myself back into the passenger seat.

  “Let’s go. I want to get one today.”

  “Today? Don’t you want to put more thought into this?”

  “Nope.” I finally meet his dark chocolate eyes again and it’s his turn to glance down, avoiding my gaze.

  “Okay,” he concedes, hopping up into the driver’s seat and placing his key in the ignition. “Now, this is the crazy April I remember!” His last word is just barely audible as the engine roars to life and he shifts into reverse.

  It takes twenty minutes to drive a few towns over to the only tattoo shop within a few miles. I know I’ve made the right decision because I haven’t changed my mind once. If anything, I think I’m kind of excited. I want something permanent; I want something I can look at everyday to remind me to never go back to where I was before. My pink slip from the amusement park can get lost, my scar can heal, but a tattoo is forever … and just within reach.

  “You ready?” Jared cuts off the engine and turns to me, seeing my eyes zoning out once again.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be!” I squeal, slipping out of the Jeep and heading inside before he has a chance to convince me otherwise.

  The bell chimes with my arrival and I lock eyes with a guy twice the size of Mack, covered in ink, with five piercings on his face alone. I’m wondering if he has them elsewhere when he interrupts me.

  “How can I help you, little lady?”

  “I want a tattoo!” I finally get it out before I feel Jared’s hand on my shoulder.

  “Do you have an idea of what you want?” He stands up straight and I didn’t seem to realize just how big he was. He’s clear over six feet tall and I find myself a little intimidated.

  “Uh…” I glance around the shop for inspiration. My eyes scan the tribal tattoos and then the wall of flowers before it hits me. “I want a daisy.”

  “A daisy?” He looks at me sarcastically.

  “Yes, and woven through it an infinity symbol, please.”

  “Is that all?” The smirk on his face growing.

  “Yup.”

  “And wher
e would you like this?”

  “On the inside of my wrist, right here.” I point to the soft flesh right below my palm. The same arm I was thinking of cutting with the knife.

  “Okay, little lady— have a seat right here and give me a minute to draw it out for you. I’ll be right back.”

  I hop up on the chair and let out a sigh of relief as I peer over at Jared. He is glancing at the artwork on the wall.

  “Why the infinity symbol?” he asks, his back still to me.

  “We learned about it in math. It stands for something that never ends. I Googled it when I got home and it also means eternity, empowerment, and everlasting love. That’s why girls wear it on necklaces and rings and junk, but it means more to me.”

  “Oh?” He sounds amused.

  “Yea… I like the way it loops around just like the way life loops back around. The way everything comes around in the end. You’ve said life is a series of choices, but I think it’s also a series of opportunities, a series of lessons, a series of moments all strung together that loops around into a lifetime—it’s a lifetime of moments. Every decision, every person that has entered my life, has shaped who I am today.”

  He lets me finish my long-winded explanation, before asking me one more question.

  “And the daisy?”

  I pause, wondering if I’m being too transparent. “Because you’ve shaped my life the most.”

  I see his head drop to look at his feet, but his eyes never meet mine. I’m about to say something, ask him what he’s thinking, but Mack 2.0 comes back in with a piece of paper between his hands.

  “How do you like this?”

  I take the thin paper between my hands and I only have to glance at it once to know this is what I want to see on my wrist for the rest of my life.

  “It’s perfect.” I hand it back to him with a huge grin.

  The tattoo guy is centering it on my wrist when Jared moves away from the wall.

  “I’ll be right back,” he calls over his shoulder, leaving me with the guy that looks like he has tattoos in places one should never have ink.

  “So, you think my tattoo is kinda lame?” I tilt my head so that I can catch his eye.

  “It’s not that. It’s just a pretty little thing like you—I almost pictured you asking for a tramp stamp, and I was going to have to put and end to that.”

  I giggle. “Why is that?! Don’t you have to give the people what they want?”

  “Don’t get me wrong, I love tattoos!” He points to all of him as he turns to adjust the vials on the tray beside him. “But, sometimes you feel guilty about ruining such a perfect canvas.”

  “Isn’t that your job, though?”

  “Little lady, I don’t know what you are trying to prove by getting this tattoo, but a girl as pretty as you doesn’t need to ruin your porcelain skin to prove you’re bad ass.”

  “I’m not trying to prove anything!” I defend, leaning forward a little.

  “No? What’s with that pink hair?”

  “It’s only the tips!” I play with it slightly, trying to distract some of my attention from this conversation.

  “Whatever you say, little lady!” He starts up the tattoo gun, and the constant noise is calming to my nerves. “The skin inside the wrist is a little sensitive, so try not to move.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “I’m sure you can,” He winks at me.

  “I’m being serious! I had Jared stitch me up with nothing other than a bottle of Jack Daniels!” Leaning over, I lift my jeans slightly, showing off my red scar.

  “I believe you. Now sit back.”

  “Okay,” I mutter, leaning backward in the chair.

  I watch as the tip of the machine comes closer and closer to the skin on my wrist. At first contact I expect to be writhing in pain, but all I feel is a pinprick that glides across my skin. After sitting through stitches on an open wound, I think nothing will ever compare again. “So about this perfect skin of mine…”

  “Ha!” he chuckles, pulling the gun away as he lets the rest of the laugh out. “Don’t get so excited, little one. I was just saying that you don’t need to go tattooing yourself to prove anything.”

  “I’m not trying to prove anything. This has a meaning to me!”

  “I’d love to hear about it.” I think that might have been sarcasm, but I take the opportunity to tell him, anyway.

  Jared never comes back into the room and I pretty much tell tattoo-guy-Harry all about the break up with Hunter and even the fact that I almost sliced open this exact wrist when I realized he wasn’t going to come back. He doesn’t speak once, just lets me finish telling him about Jared and how he pretty much saved me from the first ride on the bike. Harry’s eyes look surprised when I mention I’ve been on a motorcycle, but I keep on telling him about the daisies that separate our driveways and how daisies always seem to remind me of Jared and even his mom. Then I tell him about the infinity symbol and my epiphany on how life is a series of choices and moments and that I want it to be on my wrist so that I can look at it every day as a reminder and a warning.

  By the time we are finished, I’ve poured my heart out to poor Harry and he listened intently to it all. I glance down to the shadowed infinity symbol that looks like it was crafted into steel with a perfectly blossoming daisy on my left wrist. I feel the tears begin to build up behind my eyes.

  “It’s perfect, Harry!” I pull his huge frame into a hug. “Thank you so much!”

  “Any time, little lady,” he whispers into my ear. He starts to place the wrappings over it when I’m looking for Jared to show him. Harry has my wrist completely wrapped by the time Jared comes walking out from another room, pulling his shirt down.

  “You ready?” He nods to me.

  “Yup!” I spin on my heels as I head over to my jacket to pull out my cash, but when I turn back around, Jared is already shaking hands with Harry and handing him a wad of cash.

  Jared then comes walking back up to me. “You all set?”

  “Uh, yea.” I’m a little taken back that I just wave a hurried goodbye to Harry and walk out towards Jared’s Jeep.

  IT SEEMS LIKE IT takes even less time to get back home than it took to get here, or maybe it is just because I had more on my mind. Jared walks me inside, mentioning something about ordering food, but I’m still pleasantly staring at the wrappings on my wrist.

  “You didn’t ask to see my tattoo.”

  “Let’s wait til after we eat. I can’t even think straight, I’m so hungry,” he mumbles, digging through the pile of menus on the side of his fridge. “Pizza?”

  “Yeah, sounds good.” Actually, now that he mentions, it I’m starving, too. My impromptu tattoo session distracted us from eating anything earlier.

  “Pepperoni?”

  “You know it!” I call over my shoulder before I walk around the living room, headed towards the bathroom. That’s when I hear it. A little bell rings and I spin around to see Jinx propped up on the back of the white couch, the couch still stained with my blood. I scream. Jared runs out of the kitchen to see what I’m pointing at.

  “How did… does he?...” It seems like I can’t form a single thought.

  “Oh yea, he’s been doing that.”

  “For how long?”

  “Since your little melt down. You did kind of stop feeding him.” The guilt flushes towards my cheeks and Jared continues. “He snuck in through an open window and I let him have some of my sandwich and ever since then, he finds his way in.”

  “So... the day he ran away?”

  “I found him sitting right on my kitchen table.” He points behind him.

  “You heard me screaming and …”

  “I didn’t know until later that night—I brought him right back!”

  “That little jerk,” I mutter, roughing up the hair on his head as he rolls over and practically falls off the couch. Jinx regains his composure and swats at me while he loops around and settles into the back on the couch once more.
“I can’t believe it…”

  “I’m sorry… I didn’t know how to bring it up,” Jared mutters, dialing numbers on his house phone. I hear him place an order for a half cheese, half peperoni pizza but my eyes are still on Jinx sitting way too comfortably on Jared’s couch like he belongs here.

  “You even took care of Jinx when I couldn’t,” I whisper to myself.

  “Huh?”

  “I mean…” I spin to meet his eyes. “You were looking out for me weeks before we even spoke again.”

  “I knew you needed help.” He shrugs like it is no big deal.

  “Jared!” I feel my eyebrows come together as my shoulders slump.

  “What?”

  “Why? Why did you do all this?”

  A smile plays across his lips. “I want to show you something.”

  I watch as he slowly pulls his shirt up and over his head. I’m not staring at his abs anymore because along the side of his ribs I see a clear wrap like mine. He got a tattoo too?! Jared peels it off, and beneath the clear plastic, an infinity symbol takes shape. It’s darker than mine, a little bigger and wrapped around and through it— is a blood red rose with thorns. “You see April—you’ve shaped my life as well.”