Dallas Shepherd was nothing more than a memory.
Two
Dallas
“I really think you should reconsider, Lisa.” I handed back the picture of Tweety Bird to the eighteen-year-old girl sitting in the chair across from me. “My gut feeling is that you’ll regret getting this tattoo.”
“How do you know?” Lisa pouted, which made her look even younger.
I shrugged. “Just a hunch. Let’s talk about another design, okay?”
“But I love Tweety Bird. And I want it to say ‘You’re my Tweety Pie’ above and then my boyfriend’s name below.”
“Then I’m definitely not doing it.” I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms. “I have a strict rule about tattooing names on people. I won’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve never known anyone who had that done and wasn’t sorry later on. I’m all about having no regrets in life.”
“I won’t regret it,” she insisted. “Rocky and I are in love. That’s forever.”
“A tattoo is forever. Love, not necessarily. Either way, I won’t put your boyfriend’s name on your arm.”
“How about his face?” She began scrolling through pictures on her phone. “He’s really cute.”
“No.”
“His real name is Rockton. Would you put that?”
“Not a chance.”
“Haven’t you ever been in love?” she demanded.
“Once,” I told her.
“What happened?”
“That’s complicated. And private.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Suffice it to say, I fucked up. I was young.”
She gave me the side eye. “You don’t look that old.”
“I just turned thirty. I was seventeen then.”
“Oh.” She nodded, confirming that thirty was definitely old. “So what did you do?”
I cocked my head. “Didn’t I just say it was private?”
“Look, I paid a hundred-dollar deposit to get this appointment with you.”
“For a tattoo. Not a true confession.”
“You won’t even give me the tattoo I want. My dad’s a lawyer, you know.”
“Is he aware that you’re here with a picture of Tweety Bird?”
She fidgeted in her seat. “Just tell me what you did. Then I’ll pick a different design.”
I sighed heavily and checked the clock on the wall. It wasn’t even six yet, but this day had been long enough already. I had the same dull ache in my head I’d had for the last four months, and I still had to call my older brother, Finn, at some point. I wasn’t looking forward to it. Maybe if I told her the story, she’d get bored and move on. “Senior year, I was getting in trouble too much and my parents sent me away.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Dumb shit.”
“Where’d they send you?”
“To obedience school.”
My humor was lost on her. “Was the girl upset?”
“Probably. I left without telling her.”
She gasped. “Why?”
“I didn’t want to say goodbye.”
“She must have been so pissed at you.”
“She probably was.”
Lisa’s eyes went wide. “You don’t know? Like, you never talked to her again?”
I shrugged and checked the clock again. “Told you I fucked up.”
“But…but why?” Lisa seemed genuinely distressed at my assholery. “If you loved her, why leave her like that?”
“Because she was better off without me and I knew it. Now let’s talk about another design.”
She brought out her phone and showed me a Pinterest board she’d created with tattoo ideas. Most of them were pretty terrible, but I got the feeling she liked birds and flowers, so I got out a pencil and sheet of paper and sketched something for her—a small bird standing on a little branch with flowers at both ends. It was feminine but not cutesy, a classic subject with an abstract feel. She loved it.
I pulled on some gloves and got to work. I wasn’t much for conversation while I was tattooing someone, but I was used to people wanting to talk to me. It always amazed me the way some people treated their tattoo artists like therapists. Maybe it was just that they wanted to talk through the pain. Maybe it was the fact that I was entirely focused on them and they weren’t used to having someone’s full attention. Maybe the fact that they had to trust me with their skin made them feel like they could trust me with their feelings. Whatever. It was fine with me—as long as they didn’t expect me to reply—and if they found something therapeutic about getting a tattoo, well, good. God knows I’d worked through some emotional shit with ink. Sometimes it was all you could do.
Lisa got queasy about halfway through, so I decided we should take a break. While she relaxed with a bottle of water and a few deep breaths, I peeled off my gloves and checked my messages. My doctor’s office had called to confirm my films had been sent to Boston, as requested, and my brother had called—again—but didn’t leave a message this time.
My friend Evan, whose station was next to mine, knocked on the half-wall separating us.
“Yeah.”
He pulled back the black velvet curtain above the wall. “Hey. Beer after work? Widmer?”
“Sounds good.”
“How much longer will you need?”
“Probably an hour or so.”
“Okay. I’m done, so I’m gonna run home and eat dinner with Reyna. Text when you’re ready and I’ll meet you.”
“Will do.”
An hour and a half later, Lisa was the proud bearer of her first tattoo. Her complexion had lost most of its green tinge, and she was all smiles as she studied it through the protective plastic bandage. “I love it,” she said. “You were right, this is much better than Tweety Bird.”
“Told you so.”
“Am I done?”
“Yes, but sit tight for a minute. It’s not good to get up too fast, and we need to go over aftercare instructions.”
“Okay.” She was silent as I handed her a sheet explaining when she should remove the bandage, how she should wash and dry it, and what to put on it to help her skin heal.
“No sun, no swimming, no soaking for two weeks,” I warned. “And after it’s healed, make sure you use sunblock on it.”
She nodded. “I will.”
I stood up and offered her my hand. “Thanks for coming in.”
“Thank you.” She rose and shook my hand. When she let go, I waited for her to leave so I could start cleaning up, but she continued to stand there, looking at me curiously.
“Something else I can do for you?” I asked.
“I want to know what happened to the girl. The one you loved.”
My heart stuttered a little. “I don’t know.”
“Well …” She fidgeted impatiently. “What was her name?”
“Maren.” I hadn’t spoken her name out loud in years. Feeling it on my lips again made my chest go tight.
“Do you ever think about her?”
Every day. “From time to time.”
A smile snuck onto her lips. “You still love her.”
“Goodbye, Lisa. Thanks for coming in.” I turned my back to her and texted Evan that I would be out of here shortly.
She laughed. “See? Sometimes love is forever. Even if you don’t want it to be. You should go see her.”
“It’s too late.”
“It’s never too late.”
I ignored her and she finally walked away, but as I finished cleaning up, I kept hearing her words in my head. You still love her.
The vise on my heart contracted. Of course I still loved her. I’d never tried not to love her. No matter what I had done, or how long it had been, or how many other women had tried to take her place in my heart, she was always there, as permanent as any tattoo on my body.
I’d been thinking about her a lot lately, too. My memories of being with her were so fucking vivid these days. They hit me out of nowhere, as if someone had pushed a button in my brain. The colors were so vibrant, from the sapphire blue of the lake we used to swim in to the golden flecks in her brown eyes. If I took a deep breath, I’d smell the lotion she used to wear that made me want to lick her skin. I could hear her laugh as if she was in the same room with me.