Tattoos and Tiny Hearts

Chapter One

I'm running late. Again.

Don't ask me how it always happened like this. I've been asking myself the same question since I was old enough to look at my father's watch and tell time.

He was always late too. He'd tell us it was a family thing. He'd joke that he was going to be late to his own funeral one day.

I shook the thought from my head, wishing that I'd brought a sweater with me, having underestimated the cold of late September up north. Gone were the days of shorts and tshirts and flip flops – though I'd forgotten that fact this morning.

Maybe it was because my alarm didn't go off – or because Swift insisted that he lost his favourite light-up sneakers and searched for an hour before finding them in his backpack, where I told him they would be in the first place.

He apologised, so I can't really be mad at him. He and Aurora both knew they couldn't keep me angry with them.

So, here I am. Rushing down the main street with my bag almost falling off my shoulder, hair flying into my mouth despite the braid I'd put it into this morning before even leaving the house, and I swear my phone has been ringing for the last ten minutes – reminding me constantly that I'm late.

I pushed a little bit further, forcing my legs to go a little faster, the building in question just down the street. All I have to do is cross the street and walk just a little more.

Not too hard.

Maybe I could even take a minute to breathe... Just a moment – like, two seconds.

But then my phone actually rings, and I nearly drop all the folders and notebooks tucked away in my arms – which would have sucked because the cars on this street very rarely stop for the crosswalk, let alone someone trying to pick up all their loose notes. I'd be lucky if they even slowed down.

Shuffling the things in my arms, feelings way too heavy after all this time carrying them, I dug my phone free from my pocket, barely glancing at the name on the screen before I pressed it to my ear.

"Hello?"

"You know you're late right?"

I sighed, pulling all the hair from my eyes as I walked, my peripheral vision nothing but a field of ginger strands. "Yes, I know, Paul."

"Did you get in a crash or something?"

"No," I managed a small, breathless laugh. "Just normal, daily things. You know it's a mess in my house."

"The twins giving you the run-around?"

"Always." But I loved them, so I never really minded.

"Well," Paul mused from the other side of the phone. "So long as you're here at some point today, we'll be fine."

"I'll be there in two minutes, I'm just down the street."

"Your tea is getting cold, better get here quick."

Ahead of me, drawing me from my conversation over the phone, was a group of very tall, very broad people. Wearing all black, a little scruffy around the edges, laughing as one of them pulled another into a very painful looking headlock. They didn't seem to care how close they got to the street, or when one of them tried to push them into it.

Something about them seemed – oddly familiar. But Paul's voice on the other side of the phone forced my concentration away from them.

"Emma?" He sighed. "Are you listening?"