The World is Ugly

"So, what have you been doing for the past few days?" I asked him before taking a sip of my soda.
"Well, I visited you a lot before last night to apologize, but you weren't home. Visiting you, sleeping, getting lectured by Mikey. That's basically it. I missed you."
"Well I've been out for supposedly the last, like, 2 days, so I don't have anything to update you on."
"What happened earlier?"
"What?"
"I woke up and you were screaming and kicking. They had to sedate you."
"I had a nightmare. That's all."
"About...?"
"My mom."
"I'm really sorry about not telling you that she got out."
"I'm over it now. Well, I mean, I'm still scared about her finding me, but over the fact you didn't say anythin--"
"They think she went back to Oregon. Someone saw her in Portland." I felt a smile creep up on my face.
"Really?"
"Yeah. Anyways..." he looked around to see if there were any doctors around. "I have a present to give you. Well, okay, I don't have it yet. It's kinda impossible to bring it to you."
"One, that's very vague. Two, I'm supposed to stay in here for a few days. I don't want to, I'm not going to commit suicide, but still."
"I have power of attorney over you. I can sign you out even if they don't want you to leave."
"Don't I have to have, like, a written letter from a parent?"
"Well, they're both absent. Officer Johnson is a friend of mine and knows his way in the legal system. Anyways, how 'bout we get your stuff and go?"
"'Kay!"

~*~ TIME ELAPSE ~*~

"So, where are we going?" I asked.
"Wait, we're almost there. Just, cover your eyes."
I did as he said, shutting my eyes and using my hand to block my sight.
"I wanna know, thooough!"
"Shhh, stop your whining!"
We walked for a few minutes more until he stopped me. "Okay, uncover your eyes." I put my hands down and opened my eyes.
"A tattoo parlor?"
"Yeah! Do... do you not like it?"
I smiled. "Of course I do! I just have no fuckin' clue what I'd get a tattoo of."
"Well, that's why they have books of tattoos!" He grabbed my hand and led me in.

"So, do you wanna get matching tattoos?" I asked him after looking through the binder of examples a few times.
"As long as it's not of our names." He chuckled.
"We could get one of those cheesy ones that say something like 'I will love you' on one arm and 'for the rest of my life' on the other's." I flipped through the binder's pages again, looking for an idea. I stopped at a photo of a couple's hands, both had an infinity symbol on the inside of their ring finger. I poked Gerard and pointed to it. "This is, like, really cute."
He smiled a bit. "Are you willing to do it?"
"Hell to the yes."

"You ready?" the tattoo artist asked me. She was really pretty, like SUPER pretty. It caught me off guard when she talked to me.
"U-U-Uh... y-yeah." I stuttered. Gerard, whose artist was waiting until we were both ready, laughed. "Sorry, I'm nervous."
"You sure?" both our artists asked.
"Yeah," we said in unison. And then came the tattoo.

Dude. It was a super small tattoo, but hurt like a BITCH. It didn't help she had to go slow, as to not fuck up the symbol. When I looked over to Gerard, he was shaking. His artist kept having to ask him to stop. "Are you okay, babe?" I asked.
"H-Huh? Y-y-yeah..."
"You're shaking and stuttering."
"I'm--I'm afr-fraid of needles-s."
"You suggested this and you're afraid of needles?" I laughed but felt bad afterwards.
"... and done!" my artist said. I looked at my hand, the skin around the tattoo red. She got some wrap, like the saran wrap, and wrapped it over my finger. "If it goes numb or tingly, it's normal. Unless it's for a week. Then call a doctor."
"Thank you so much!" I looked over to Gerard and he was even worse. He was shaking so bad his artist, who had nothing but, like, a millimeter of a line, had to stop completely. I hugged Gee from behind and kissed his neck, hoping he would calm down. It worked. He immediately stopped shaking and sighed. His artist, apparently impatient, gave an elongated sigh meant to piss us off. I kept my arms around Gerard as the artist went on.
"So, how long you been dating?" my artist asked.
"A month..." I didn't realize how crazy it sounded until I said it out loud. A month, but we've been through a lot and we truly love eachother, but it still sounded stupid. So, I lied, "... and a year."
"You're a cute couple." She smiled. "I probably shouldn't bring this up, but I couldn't help but notice your... scars."
SHIT FUCK ASS I forgot to get a jacket or something to cover my scars. I felt like I was blushing, but at the same time that all the color drained from my face.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. Just... know that it's not worth it. Get help. I know what it's like." She held up her arm, which had faded scars all over her wrist. "It's not what everyone cracks it up to be."

And with that, Gee's tattoo was done. We showed our tattoos to eachother and I couldn't help but smile.

Notes