Without You

61. Be That Person

A/N - Hi, everyone! I hope you're all staying safe out there, wherever you are in the world. Thank you for reading! ❤ Enjoy! -H. x

"Hello?"

"Hey, Al, I hope I'm not calling you too early. I've just got to run something past you quick, and then I'll let you go."

"Sure, of course. Everything okay?" Ali couldn't help feeling a little bit nervous at this unexpected call.

"Yeah, yeah, everything's fine. Erm, it's a bit of an odd question, but I figured you would know 'cause..."

Ali was growing a bit impatient now. She was never one to beat about the bush. Efficiency was the name of the game in her world. "Come on, just tell it to me straight. What's going on?"

"Well...It's about Ant," Ali's heart skipped a beat. What now!? If he'd done something stupid again, she was going to...

"He wants to get a couple of tattoos and I just wanted to make sure there's nothing in their contract about that, if you know what I mean..." Anne-Marie sounded a bit sheepish and definitely nervous, goodness knows why.

"Tattoos?" Ali questioned incredulously. "Are you sure about that??"

"Yeah, he's asked me to help him choose the designs. He's dead set on it, Ali."

"But...why?" Ali pushed further, needing to understand Ant's reasoning, since he had always been pretty firmly against getting tattoos in the past. "I know it's sort of traditional to get like a recovery tattoo or something after rehab, but...really??"

Anne-Marie cleared her throat. "He, um, he said he needs something to motivate him now Dec's thrown away the scissors...And I guess he thinks getting a couple of tattoos is sort of like a permanent, and, well, more positive reminder?"

Ali hadn't actually heard the rest of Anne's reply. Her mind had stopped functioning at, "Dec's thrown away the scissors." 

She drew in a deep breath, reminding herself not to shoot the messenger. "I'm sorry, what did you say? 'Dec's thrown away the scissors.' What scissors?!"

"S***. He...He hasn't told you about that?" Anne-Marie stuttered, sounding like she wanted to crawl under a rock and disappear, "I...I thought...Oh, f***."

"Tell me what scissors." Ali growled, losing her patience completely as her concern skyrocketed.

"Erm..." Anne-Marie hesitated for a long moment, contemplating hanging up to try to completely avoid this conversation. Then she remembered Ali's sharp tongue and reputation for relentless chasing up of people until she got an honest answer out of them, and thought better of it.

"Dec found the scissors he, um...he-attempted-suicide-with," Anne rushed through the sentence, wincing at the sharp intake of breath crackling through the line at her words.

"Wait, what? Where'd he find them?" Ali responded finally after a few seconds' silence, a strong hint of horror shining through her hushed tones.

"Ant, um...kept them?" Anne's voice was tiny now, dreading the explosion to come.

"What the f***!!!" Ali shrilled, "What the f*** did he keep them for?!"

"I-I told you....He was using them as, like, a motivational tool, sort of..." Anne replied quietly, knowing she was in potentially very dangerous territory now.