Shards of Ink

You’re in front of the stove. Apron tied with that same lopsidedness as your running shoes, left loop twice the size of the right. Your hair is up in a ponytail, face flushed from the pancakes’ sizzling heat.
    I want to press icy fingers on the back of that neck, so you’ll shriek and giggle. Batter flying everywhere, stick a cloth under the tap, chase each other around the island and forget the stove until the pancakes start burning. Well, burning more. You’ve never been good at making pancakes but I love that you try.
    My fingers aren’t cold because I had a late night so you woke me up with fresh coffee. The scent still clings to your skin.
    We’ve done this a hundred times and we’ll do it again until we’re old. You, over the stove with a crown of grey. A chair nearby so you can rest your legs. Me, the warmth of the mug leeching pain from my joints. Aged, but unchanged.
    The summer sun slips through the windows, reflects off the pancakes’ pooling skirt of maple syrup, brings out the red and orange in the twisting strands of your hair.
     You set the plate in front of me and leave a kiss on my nose, drawing a flush of red up from my neck. You laugh, mischievous and triumphant.
      Your hand rests over the flutter of my pulse and strokes it. The bright red of the tattoo on the artery between heart and brain. I can see a strip of the mirrored mark creeping out from your shirt, that purplish sheen as bright as that day on the bus.
      “Remember?” you ask.
      My mouth curls up into a smile. I want to say no, let me forget, please let me go let me forget let me—
      My hand reaches up to cover yours. “I’ll never forget.”
      My fingers are icicles sculpted in mimicry of a hand, but you can only feel the warmth.

***

My fingers are cold. Brilliant white light blinds me. The cold of the metal table. A palm, warm against the back of my neck. A sound.
      “Jo?” she says.
      “Lottie,” I croak. The lights swim into focus around the shadow of a face but the hand is in the wrong place. I shut my eyes again. “No, not Charlotte.”
       “You’re getting confused. We’ve gone through seven memories with minimal breaks. You should consider scheduling another appointment.”
        I open my eyes, the room settles into strict lines and reflective metal. The inside of my wrist is barren. The taste of pancakes clings on my tongue.
       “I paid for the full session.”
       Her lips thin into a line of red lipstick. Her lab coat-clad shoulders haven’t bent a centimeter in the hours since she first put me under. Everything about her is sharp. “Fine. Which one next?”
       My fingers reach for my neck, hover over the skin, a ghost of a touch. But I can’t, not yet.
       Instead, I move to my chest. A door cracked open right above my heart, light spilling out into a puddle, a purple halo.

***

We’ve just had our first fight. You’re too distant. You think I’m too clingy. I’m stuck, morose, left alone in our darkened room, replaying our argument over and over again. You’d left for a walk. We don’t do those together anymore.
        I miss when we first met. The bond we’d formed over a broken glass of wine. How easy it felt to be myself with you. When you’d bounce around with glee and drag me along with you. Now you just leave me behind. 

I wish I could meet you at the bus stop all over again, go back to when we’d tell each other everything.
       A gentle knock at the door. Your head pops through. Your hair is a wild mess, red curls covering your eyes.
       “Jo?” Your voice is barely above a whisper.
       I remain unmoving, not having the energy to look you in the eye. You sit down on the bed beside me. Wrap your arms around me from behind, slowly pulling me into you. It’s hard not to melt into your warmth, to sink into the comfort of coffee grounds and cigarette smoke. Your hand presses over my chest, right over my heart.
       “Lottie is here, and Lottie will always be here,” you whisper, pressing a soft kiss against my neck as you hold me tighter, as if afraid that I’d disappear. And then you pause.
        “What’s this?” Your thumb brushes against the spot you’d just kissed. A small laugh escapes you.
        My first memory tattoo. My first curse.
        One of you.
        One of you and I. 

***

“You lied!” I scream, clawing my way up out of the memory, out of the tattoo and the drug that dragged me down into it.

The woman grabs my shoulders and pushes me back down onto the table. The shock drives the breath from me and I gasp, blinking away the tears.

“She always left me.”
        The woman lets go, shaking her head. I don’t try to get up again. “You’re done. You’re reacting too strongly to this.”

Her heels click as she moves over to the hulking, blinking, wheezing machine beside me. She presses some buttons and the fans start to slow. The realization only sets in when she starts unplugging the cords.

“No! No, no, no.” I scramble off the table. “You can’t. I need, I need...”

She watches me, one tube dangling from her hand. More steel than anything else in this room. “It was part of the waiver.”
        I need a smoke. Pent up anxiety knots itself into my shoulders, a ball of stress, a pit deepening at the realization that I’m getting kicked out. My fingers twitch towards where my breast pocket would be. I can see the woman staring at them, at my tremors, at my inability to sit as primly as when I’d signed the intake forms.

I take a breath, or I try to. I can still feel the blankets curled around my knees. The weight of Charlotte’s body wrapping itself around me. I rub viciously at my arms, trying to will the sensation away but it refuses to go. My skin has always been traitor, refusing to let you go.
        I’d have to go back. Back to sitting in an empty room, back to not being able to eat, to being late for work, to barely living. “I need her off of my skin. Please...please.”

Her face softens, somehow. Something about the eyes, or her hold on the cord. Maybe she can see how far gone I am.

“I can’t live like this.” I can feel myself falter. One of my hands clasping the other in a bid to stop the fidgeting. I’d had to leave all my things in another room. Possessions have their own memories, the secretary had explained, and they mess with the magic of the machine.

She sets down the cord and picks up her clipboard. Finds a page. Scribbles something. Tears the sheet off.

“One more,” she agrees. The frantic strength leaves me at once. I sag back against the table, sinking into the bite of it. “But, if you go through with this, I’m blacklisting you from memory clinics for a year.”

My hand finds my throat, my artery, our tattoo. It has to be this one. I could wait, get another appointment at a different clinic in three months, be rid of all of them. I could wait, but I can’t.

“Blacklist me, doc.”

“Get back on the table,” she says, and reaches for another white patch.

***

You seem anxious. Constant nail-biting, eyes wide, regularly looking out the bus window for a distraction. I can see myself in you. The day’s events a constant, heavy reminder pushing down on my shoulders. My fingers keep fumbling for the pack of cigarettes in my breast pocket. Bad habit, I know, but it’s the only crutch that’s been working so far. You keep rubbing the back of your neck, tugging at your auburn hair. I’d do the same, but my own head is shorn to help with the summer’s smothering embrace. I wonder what’s bothering you. I’m getting evicted. Problems with my bank. A string of things that keep crumbling whenever I try to get a handle on them.

We get off at the same stop. It’s hard not to notice the myriad of tattoos on you. The faint purplish sheen at their edges betrays their nature. I’ve never missed a moment enough for it to imprint on me. Too busy looking forward.
       My fingers finally curl around my pack of cigarettes as I lean against the bus stop. You don’t move. Your hands keep curling and uncurling into a fist, unsure of what to do. Your hair covers your face.
       “Got a light?” I break the silence, cigarette dangling at my lip.
        You seem shocked at first, dazed as you look around and finally see me. You do have a light. I offer my pack, and you gratefully accept.
       “Tough day?” I exhale, smoke curling through the air.
        There’s a knowing smile on your face when you make eye contact. Maybe I also fidget too much.
        “Work,” is all you offer, taking the first draw. Your frame slumps a little, your camel hair jacket crumpling on itself. Then you pause. The slight frown that creases your eyebrows as you consider. “Shit coworkers that’re…” You draw a breath. “Not pulling their weight.”
        I chuckle. You stink of coffee. “That’s always a tough one.” 

I’ve never been one for small talk.
        I stub out my cigarette on my shoe, prepared to call it a day and part ways.
        “What about you?” you call out.

I hadn’t meant to tell you about it all. The months of looking, of fighting for a place, only for it to slip from my fingers because it had eaten into my savings. You’re a good listener. Intent. Sympathetic. I’ve never told a stranger so much about my life before. I realize I don’t even know your name.
        “What’s your—” I get cut off by the edge of a patio table slamming into my gut. I should’ve looked where I was going, but I was too busy admiring the ways the glow of the dying sun played with your hair, lighting up strands a fiery red or a calm orange. “—name?”
        The crash of shattering glass. Sparkling rosé soaks my shoes. The remnants of a wine glass at my feet. A string of profuse apologies at the couple that were enjoying a nice dinner. My wallet can’t pay them back.
        You step in with the crinkle of cash. You leave it on their table and pull me by the hand. There’s vigor in your pace. A large smile has wiped away your previous worries.
       “It’s Charlotte,” you finally answer. “Sorry.” You’re struggling to contain your laughter, covering your mouth to stifle soft snorts. “The whole thing’s kind of funny.”

You untuck your tired white shirt from your plaid skirt. A memory tattoo on your side, a jagged, broken wine glass contained within the purple sheen.
        “The first time I stood up for myself,” you say. “The first time I could lash out and not care about the aftermath, I suppose.”

You’re a good storyteller. I find myself captivated by your face. The way your jaw hardens when you talk about the group of regulars at your old job. The embarrassed smile when you mention waitressing. The frustrated sigh at the gaggle of housewives that'd always come for Sunday brunch. The busiest time for a restaurant. The hawks of laughter that’d choke them, the screeches of displeasure if you’d leave their side for even one minute. The insults. The berating. You keep biting your lip, reliving the stress of running around at their beck and call. The final straw. 

Some dispute over who’d ordered what label of red wine. One of them kept shoving their glass in your face, kept splashing it on you. That had been it. Too much, too often, they had treated you like you weren’t even a person. Just another thing to yell at to feel better about their unfulfilling lives. You grabbed that wine glass and threw it on their table. It shattered everywhere.
        You weren’t allowed to come back to work after that, but the soft smile of relief you have, the twinkle in your eye as you reminisce, tells me it’d been worth it. 

We had been worth it. Once.

***

I wake up and you’re not there. The woman gives me a paper cup of water and waits until I can walk without tripping before pushing me out the door. 

The papers she makes me sign are a blurry mess. I spend the first five minutes outside blinking into a haze of brightness and noise. The patches from the machine, now color-filled blobs, get dumped in the first trash can I see.

I wake up to my hand curled around the side of my throat. The bus wheezes and sways, and I yank my hand away as soon as I’m aware enough to notice.
        My phone in my pocket, the reflection of the window right against my head, but I keep my eyes turned away. I won’t look. My neck itches. I know there’s nothing there. Not anymore. The habitual glances, the way it would draw my eyes like a magnet has to stop. I won’t let her have power over me still. I can’t.

I wake up in bed. Not in ours. Not the one I shared once with her. The new one, in my new apartment, a cavern of emptiness and uneaten takeout. I don’t know if she kept our apartment, only that I couldn’t bear to do so. 

The path to the bathroom still unfamiliar, I knock into the side of the doorframe. Close my eyes to flick the light on. I keep them closed because I’m a coward.

And then: the mirror.
       I angle myself carefully. Hide the remaining purple on my leg, the sheen on the side of my ribs. It’s easier now.
       Here I am, with naked skin. Head shorn again, the skin at my neck as rough and leathery as a stranger’s. Instinctively, my fingers crawl to the spot she used to affectionately caress. You—Charlotte used to think it was funny we matched. And now that part of her is gone. It’s gone. It’s gone, she’s finally gone. Part of me wants to scratch at the new skin, to peel it back to reveal that the tattoo is still there. Still stuck within me, that Lottie is here and Lottie will always be here. That you are permanently there, etched into my bones, never to leave me. And I ache, I ache with the hollow pang in my chest when I see the skin that’s a stranger to me now, the skin that’s devoid of any traces of you.