Oxymoron

CHAPTER ONE: New ink.

The room was filled by the buzzing sound of the tattoo machine . The sound became oddly comforting. The first time I heard it , I was left speechless . Although judging by my physical appearance nobody in the room would have ever guessed how intimidating the sound was to me. I had been lying down for the last five hours as the needles injected the ink under my skin. It was not as painful as it seemed from a distance . It was much worse. It felt like my skin was being torn apart. The tears in my eyes were desprate to be released. Not because of the pain. The closure.

When we were kids , maybe 6 or 7 , Hailey and I used to visit her grandmother every Sunday. At the time we could't really appriciate the time we spent with her . We would always run of into the garden and run. The garden was large . The majority of it was clean cut grass . In random places weeds and flowers grew. We didn't know they were weeds atthe time. We thought they were flowes just like all the others. Hailey's favourite flowers were he roses at the very end of her Grandma's garden. She always had a strange look on her face when we went to see them. She seemed distant. As if the she could see something that I couldn't .

Last year she died of stage four lung cancer. Never smoked or drank. I on the other hand was constantly injecting myself with anything i could get my hands on. I was almost always high on something. I had a smoking problem too. I would have easily gone through ten packets in a day. She would always warn me about the harm I was doing to my body. I would never listen though. I didn't really care about my own life at that point. It really amazed me how Hailey was able to cope with all the things I got us into.

In our first year of high school I got invited to this party. I practically dragged Hailey with me. That night I drank too much. I was crying hysterically threatening to kill anyone who came within arms reach. The host of the party himself dragged me to the kicthen and slammed my head on the kitchen counter . I was drunk , but I was nowhere near drunk enough to not have felt the sting . My vision blurred . I brought my hand to my head and felt my hair. It was slick and wet with blood.

The next day I woke up in the hospital. Hailey and her mum were there. As for my parents , they were probably to drunk to care . Hailey explained what had happened. I was dazed but I noticed the bruise on her cheek.

"What the hell happened to your face?"

"When Jason knocked you out , I called 991 and he punched me. Threw me out the door. You as well. He got arrested."

Hailey was not the most intimidating person but she was strong.

3 hours later the tattoo was done. A red rose and weeds intertwined. It was beautiful. Despite the pain i smiled. I thanked the artist and left.