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Written on my Heart
by Cole Gibsen

Copyright © 2015 by Cole Gibsen. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Chapter One

Ashlyn

A girl—she can’t be more than sixteen—stands on the other side of the counter from me, twirling her long blond hair around her finger. She stares at the ceiling and huffs loudly. “God, can this take anylonger?” she mutters to the polo-shirt-wearing boy next to her, but I know her words are directed at me.

I snap a clear, plastic lid on her cup and slide it over to her. “There you go!” I force a wide smile even though what I really want is to rip the obvious fake extensions off her bitchy, little head. Unfortunately, I need this job too badly to risk doing anything that would get me fired. “Thanks for visiting Live Wire.” Now please go away.

The girl curls her lip in a sneer. “What is this?”

I manage to keep my smile from slipping. “It’s a nonfat double shot mocha frappe. Just like you ordered.”

“Uh, no. It’s not just like I ordered”—her eyes dart to my nametag—“Ashlyn. I specifically asked for nowhip.”

I twist my fingers in my apron to keep from reaching out to strangle her. I make it a point to write a customer’s order on the cup exactly as they say it, when they say it. And there’s nothing on the damn cup about no whip.

The guy beside her shifts uncomfortably. “Becca, it’s not that big a deal.”

She glares at him, and even though he’s a foot taller than she is, he flinches. “Fine. I’ll remember next time to dumb down my order, because obviously doing things right is too hard for some people.” She flings a hand in my direction, and her fingers hit the side of the cup. It wobbles, balancing on the bottom rim before tipping over. Mocha frappe and whip cream erupt through the straw hole in the domed lid and all over the counter. She gives me a blank look. “Oops.”

I don’t know what does it, exactly. Maybe it’s the lack of remorse in her eyes, her callous words, or the mocha that continues to gurgle out of the cup, but whatever it is, when I look across the counter, I find she’s transformed. My stepdad stands in her place, glaring at me, his lips pursed, ready to spew venom more deadly than that of any viper.

Panic squeezes my ribs in a too-tight embrace. He doesn’t have to speak because I already know what he’ll say. His voice never stops whispering inside my head. First, he’ll call me stupid for screwing up the order. Then he’ll tell me how clumsy I am for not catching the drink. And finally, he’ll tell me how lazy I am because shouldn’t I already have a rag in hand to clean it up?

Right. I need a rag! My pulse thrashes inside my head, drowning out all sound from the coffee shop. I kneel and frantically push aside bundles of napkins and stacks of Styrofoam cups in my search for a rag. I have to clean up this mess. I have minutes, no, seconds before—

A hand clamps down on my shoulder, and I gasp.

“Don’t sweat it, Ash,” a girl’s voice says behind me. “I got this.”

I blink several times, and slowly the coffeehouse falls back into place around me. I glance over my shoulder and find Emily—the human equivalent of a tattooed and pierced Tinkerbelle. My coworker slides a freshly made frappe—sans whip—beside the fallen drink and leans against the counter, leveling her gaze on the girl. “Have a great day,” she says, but her tone implies anything but.

The girl’s eyes narrow and she opens her mouth to speak, but Emily cuts her off by biting onto her lip ring and softly clicking the metal against her teeth. The girl takes a step backward, and when the guy next to her follows, she elbows him in the ribs and motions to the cup on the counter.

He grabs it, but not before giving Emily a wink. The girl behind him tugs his arm and pulls him out the door.

“What a bitch,” Emily mutters and pushes off the counter. “Her parents should be publicly flogged. I mean, good God, you know a girl like that has never heard the word no spoken once in her entire life.”

“Just one more reason not to have kids,” I say before I can stop myself.

“One more reason?” She quirks an eyebrow. “You got a problem with kids?”

“Can’t stand them,” I answer. “All the whining and crying…ugh.” I make a face. I actually really like kids. But the lie is so much simpler than explaining that, given my upbringing, I haven’t the faintest idea how to raise a child without scarring them for life.

Emily stares at me a moment longer before finally shrugging. “Huh. Well, to each their own.”

“Yep.” I stand, dust my hands on my apron, and try to appear as though I didn’t almost have a panic attack five seconds ago. But then I look at the counter and the mocha still spilled across the laminate. My pulse quickens. “I have to clean that up or else—” I swallow the words before they leave my tongue.

“I got it.” Emily glides past me, snatching a towel and spray bottle from a hook on the wall. “If you want, you can take five. Go outside and have a cigarette or something.”

“I don’t smoke.” I shake my head and watch, holding my breath, until she tosses the cup in the trash and wipes up the mess.

“Maybe you should start,” Emily says as she returns the rag and cleaner to the wall. She turns to me and folds her arms across her chest. “You look a little…stressed.”

Understatement of the year. But it’s not like I can afford to tell anyone just how thin the rope is that I’m walking on. I need this job too badly to do anything to jeopardize it with my brand of crazy. Instead I say, “I don’t get a lot of sleep.”

“Ah, a fellow insomniac.” Emily grabs her own iced latte from beneath the counter and raises it in a toast before taking a long draw from the straw.

“Uh, yeah,” I agree, because it’s much easier than admitting the real reason I don’t get much sleep is because of the paper-thin walls of my apartment and the endless stream of men visiting my roommate at all hours of the night. So rather than blast Emily with TMI, I direct my attention to the tattoos decorating her arms. There’s so much going on, it’s hard to pick out just one image. But among the cluster I spot the hecklers from the Muppet movies, a heart wrapped in barbed wire, and what appears to be an espresso maker. “I like your ink.”

“Yeah?” She grins and twists her arms around so I can see them from all angles. “My guy does great work.”

“Your guy?”

She relaxes her arms at her side. “My tattoo guy. Not my guy as in my boyfriend or anything because, ew, gross.”

I can sympathize. The guy who’d given me my first and only tattoo was bald, about three hundred pounds, and desperately in need of deodorant. That was a fun hour.

“So.” Emily leans back on the counter and crosses her legs. “How about you? Do you have any ink?”

“Uh… ” Shit. I remember too late why this isn’t a safe topic for discussion. I reflexively hide my arm behind my back, but her eyes widen and I know she’s already seen it.

“Oh, no. You didn’t!” She pushes off the counter and snatches my arm before I can pull away. Once she reads the evidence in the crook of my elbow she groans and throws my arm back at me. “You did. You got inked with a guy’s name!” She shakes her head. “Fuck. That’s the number one tattoo rule, and you broke it!”

My cheeks burn fire-hot, and I self-consciously clasp my hand over my arm. “I know, I know. It was a stupid thing to do. I just thought—” But the words trail off because I can’t bear to admit out loud that I thought a lasting relationship was something that could happen to me. And now I have this guy’s name etched on my forearm as a permanent reminder that the only person I can trust not to hurt me is me. I won’t be caught off-guard again.

Emily clucks her tongue. “You can’t walk around with some douchebag’s brand on your body like a damn cow.”

I shrug. “I haven’t had the time to get it fixed.” Or, more accurately, I haven’t had the money. As someone who’d spent several months living out of my ’05 Jetta, I have more important things to spend my cash on—like food.

“You have to make time. Look, I don’t mean to pry.” She puts a hand on my shoulder, and it’s all I can do not to back out of her grasp. It’s not that she’s hurting me, but I’m not used to being touched, much less by someone I hardly know. My skin itches beneath her fingers. “But you seem like you’re dealing with…something,” Emily continues. “It’s not my business to ask what that is. All I’m saying is, having some guy’s name on your skin, where you see it every day, isn’t good. Once it’s gone, I’m sure you’ll feel a whole lot better.”

Would I? I look at the elegant, loopy script of Chris’s name, and my stomach twists into a knot. Chris insisted it would be the ultimate declaration of my love. And like the fool eighteen-year-old I was then, I believed him. I was scared, and alone, and desperately needed to believe someone cared about me. But now he was gone and I was forced to wear my mistake like a scarlet letter. I rub my palm against the tattoo as if I could smudge it away like Crayola marker. “It would be nice to have it covered. But I haven’t had the money—”

“Psh.” Emily waves, cutting me off. “Don’t worry about the money. I’ll take care of it.”

My hands fall to my side. “Oh, no, I couldn’t.”

She gives me a pointed look. “Yes, you could. C’mon, Ash. Walking around with an ex’s name on your arm is bad luck.”

I don’t believe in bad luck. As far as I know, I’d never walked under a ladder, broken a mirror, spilled salt, or done anything else to bring about the day my mother came home with the man who would become my stepdad. Sometimes shitty things happened whether you deserved them or not, and no crystal, no clover, and no horseshoe would change the fact. I knew this because back then, when I was ten, I’d tried all of those things, only to have them let me down like the frauds they were.

“How about tonight?” Emily asks, breaking through my thoughts. “After work?”

I blink at her, trying to sense her motivations. People don’t do something for you without wanting something in return. “But the money… I don’t know when I’ll be able to pay you back.”

She shrugs. “It’s not about the money. Besides, if it makes you feel better, I won’t actually be paying.My guy owes me a favor. So how about it? I’ll make the call, and after work, you and I will go to the tattoo parlor where you’ll get that covered”—she motions to my tattoo—“and that Chris guy will be nothing but a faded memory. You’ll have a fresh start.” She smiles at me—a wide, warm smile that displays all of her slightly coffee-stained teeth.

There’s something about her. Maybe it’s her infectious smile or the hope brimming in her eyes, but I can’t turn her down. Besides, it would be nice to pretend my problems extend no further than where to get a tattoo on a Friday night and what party to hit afterward. To be a normal twenty-year-old. For once.

“All right.” I laugh. “Let’s do it.”

“Yay!” She claps her hands together. “You won’t regret it. Again, my guy is the best. I’ll call him right now.”

She reaches for the phone, and my eyes flick to the digital clock above the bags of ground coffee we have for sale on the far wall. At ten until ten, it’s nearly closing time, but we’ll still be here another forty minutes or so, counting the registers and cleaning equipment. Despite the bright lights in the seating area, darkness creeps around the front windows, seeking to come in. Ten miles away, there’s a house shrouded in darkness, where every light is extinguished promptly at ten, and noise is forbidden to the extent that television and phone cords are pulled from the walls, bundled up, and hidden inside locked drawers.

I fight the memory away, and to hide the tremor in my hands, I grab a sleeve of cups from under the counter and stack them on the shelf. “It’s probably too late to go tonight,” I say. “Don’t most tattoo places close at ten?”

Emily nods and punches the numbers on the telephone keypad. “Yeah. But my guy will stay open late for us. Like I said, he owes me.”

Must be some favor. Still, I shrug and resume my stacking. Whatever Emily has going on with the tattoo guy to warrant special favors, it’s none of my business.

“Hey!” she practically shouts into the receiver. “Don’t close up yet. I’m coming by after work because I have a friend who needs a cover up.” She’s silent as the person on the other end speaks. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but Emily’s mouth twitches into a frown. “Don’t be an ass, Lane. You know you owe me.” This time, she smiles. “I know. But it’s not like you have plans or anything.” She waits a second before laughing. “Awesome, you’re the best!” She hangs up the phone and turns to me. “We’re on!”

I force a smile even though some of my own excitement has faded after listening to her exchange. “Are you sure? I mean, it didn’t sound like he was too thrilled about it.”

“Lane?” Emily rolls her eyes as she walks to the front door. “He’s not excited about anything. God forbid we keep him from watching whatever car show happens to be on cable.” She flips over the open sign, locks the deadbolt, and leans against the glass. “Don’t worry. He’ll get over it. But just to be on the safe side, ignore everything that comes out of his mouth. He can be kind of moody.”

A lump wedges in the back of my throat. Great. Another Friday night spent with an asshole. And thisone would have a needle jabbing into my arm. “I don’t know, Emily. This is sounding less and less like a good idea. Maybe I can just make an appointment for a time when his shop is open?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Emily skips behind the counter and hits a button on the register. A second later the cash drawer shoots open and the end-of-shift report spits out. She thumbs through the dollar bills in the drawer. “It’s no problem, really. It’s not like he has anything better to do. And if he says anything to you, just tell him to shut the fuck up.”

“Right.”

She shrugs. “That’s what I do.”

I don’t doubt it.

As I gather the dirty ceramic coffee mugs and saucers from the tables and deposit them inside a bus bin, I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to be Emily—what her childhood must have been like to have made her so confident and unabashed. I bet she never had rules about what areas she was allowed to occupy when her parents were home. Or that she never had assigned seating in every room. And she certainly didn’t have a novel-length list of things she wasn’t to touch inside the house.

“You should try it sometime,” Emily tells me as I walk past her on my way to the dishwasher.

I pause. “Try what?”

“Telling someone to fuck off. You need to stand up for yourself, Ash.”

I rest the bin of dirty dishes against my hip and turn to face her. “I stood up for myself, once,” I say, though I don’t know why—I’ve never said anything to anyone before about my time in the house. Maybe it’s because I’m out now, and the worst is finally over. Or maybe it’s because I feel like I owe Emily an explanation for my earlier breakdown.

“Just once?” Emily quirks an amused eyebrow. “What happened? Did you tell the priest and he made you do a dozen Hail Mary’s?”

“Not quite,” I answer, surprising even myself with the truth. “A busted rib, kicked out of the house, and all of my stuff burned in a bonfire in the backyard—that’s what standing up for myself got me.”

The pennies Emily is counting slip through her fingers and clatter to the floor like copper raindrops. A few of them roll beneath the edge of the counter, where we’ll never reach them, and I cringe. I know our manager will have a fit because the register will be short.

But Emily appears not to notice—or maybe she doesn’t care about things as trivial as registers a few cents short. Her lips part, but for the longest time she doesn’t move, doesn’t say a word, until finally she whispers, “Jesus, Ash, I—”

I shake my head, stopping her. I don’t want her sympathy; that’s not why I told her. And it isn’t until this very second, when the ropes of tension ease just a fraction from around my chest, that I realizewhy I told her. I wanted, just for a moment, to spit out the secret that’s been sitting on my tongue like a mass of needles.

“That was over a year ago.” I readjust my grip on the bus tub. “I’m fine now,” I tell her in a way I hope sounds convincing—both to her and myself. I mean, maybe the exact definition of fine isn’t struggling to pay rent for a shabby two-bedroom apartment that I share with a stripper, but it sure is a hell of a step up from living out of my car like I had been a year ago. And even if I’m not fine, I will be someday, when I have a place of my own and am making my living as a poet. After all, when you’re a writer, suffering is just more ink for the page.

The thought pulls the corners of my lips into a smile. I still have hope. It was the one thing that bastard wasn’t able to burn to dust in the backyard.

Emily snaps her mouth shut and leans against the counter. “You know, Ash, if you need to work on your self-confidence, you can start by telling me to shut the fuck up. It’s not like I don’t deserve it.”

I grin at her. “Shut the fuck up, Emily.”

She smiles back. “You know what just happened here? I think we became friends. Now if you’d be so kind to take care of those dishes while I finish counting the drawer, we can head to the tattoo parlor and get you all fixed up.”

My smile slips. “Sounds good,” I say, even though I know better. It’s not that I don’t have hope, I just know nothing as simple as a tattoo cover-up is going to fix me. But I don’t say so, not aloud. Because tonight I want to pretend I’m the kind of girl who could be friends with someone like Emily, a girl who goes out on Friday nights.

A girl whose demons don’t run deeper than the ink staining her skin.