Chapter Twenty-Three
Evie
Nicky was right; this was exactly what I’d needed. I was propped up on my back, my shoulder hanging slightly off the bed. The buzz of the gun and the feel of the needle was almost putting me in a trance. “Why do I love this so much?” I’d felt calmer the instant I had felt the first sting on my skin.
He paused beside me for a moment to answer. “You like the rush it gives you, the flood of endorphins and adrenaline.” He set back to work on the custom design he hadn’t even sketched out for me to see first. It didn’t matter. I trusted him. “Maybe that was why you got so hooked on the Adderall? It gave you the little rush you needed to make it throughout the day.” He swiped his paper towel across the surface and then started again.
“At first, I was playing a part, you know? Like I knew I was being ridiculous, and not at all myself. But people were eating it up. They loved it, and they loved this version of me.” I swallowed, my mouth feeling a little dry. “And then the more popular I got, the harder it was to keep up with my school work.” I took a sip off the water bottle I’d brought with me from Nicky’s apartment. “One of the upper classman gave me some Adderall when we were doing group study for our fall finals.”
“And from then on you used it as a crutch? As a way to keep up and keep your fake attitude going?”
“It made things easier. I went and got my own prescription. The girls all told me what I needed to say to make the doctor give it to me. It was shockingly easy.” I recalled how nervous I’d been, afraid to lie to the physician.
“The downers? When did those start?” He wiped more excess ink from my skin, his voice soft and soothing.
“The end of my freshman year.” We’d had a slumber party at the sorority house to celebrate the graduating seniors. “I told someone that I’d taken so much Adderall to make it through finals the day before that I doubted I’d ever sleep again. Someone tossed me a bottle of Valium, and thirty minutes later I felt relaxed for the first time in days.” Looking back now, I felt so naïve. I was a smart girl, and yet I’d taken whatever pill was thrown my way like it was nothing. “The coke came my sophomore year. The more friends I accrued, the wilder the parties I went to were.”
“You do it often? The coke?”
“No, not really.” I wasn’t lying. I wasn’t a big fan of the coke. I assumed it was because I constantly had Adderall in my system, but the few times I’d done it I thought my heart was going to literally explode. Plus, when I did coke, I felt like a drug user. When I took prescription pills, I felt like I was mildly abusing moderately safe medications. My rules for myself didn’t make sense, I was well aware.
“You getting tired now?”
I nodded, leaning my head back against the table behind me. “I’m a freak, huh? Tattoos lull me to sleep.” I’d laugh if I had the energy, and if I wasn’t afraid of messing up his work.
“You aren’t a freak, little bird.” Nicky paused again, repositioning his arm. “You like getting tattoos, and I like giving them to you.” He chuckled quietly. “You know if you ever let anyone else ink you, I’ll lose my damn mind. This skin is mine.”
His words sent chills across my flesh, which I was sure he saw since he was inches away from it. “It’s all yours, Nick—shit. What the hell is your last name?” A question I should have asked him before I forced him to take my virginity.
“Barrens.”
I turned, meeting his eyes. “Nick Barrens. I like it.” It felt good on my tongue. “My skin is all yours, Nick Barrens.” I watched his reaction to my softly spoken words. I watched his pupils widen, and his throat work to swallow.
He leaned forward, placing a lingering kiss on the side of my neck. “Please know that I want you, that I think you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. That I want nothing more than to climb inside your body and stay there for days.”
“But?” My voice was quiet, almost a whisper to match his.
He kissed my neck one more time before pulling away. “But. It wouldn’t be right. Not yet anyway.” He took a deep breath and got back to work on my shoulder.
We were both silent for a while. My eyes were starting to droop, and I was having a hard time staying awake. “My dad was addicted to drugs when he was younger. Drugs, alcohol, all kinds of things from what I hear.” I wasn’t really sure made me share that with Nicky, but once I started talking, I couldn’t seem to stop. “He has tons of tattoos too. Maybe he falls asleep when he’d getting lightly hammered by tiny needles. Maybe it’s in my genes or whatever, maybe he and I are the same kind of messed up.” I used to think I was more like my mom, levelheaded and calm. But now, I wasn’t so sure.
“You aren’t messed up, Evie.” Nicky stopped, moving his stool to look me in the eye. “You got caught up in a life you couldn’t handle, you found coping mechanisms, albeit terrible ones. It happens—all the time, actually.” He smiled. “You’re here, with me. You’re getting help, and you’re trying to get better. And that says it all, little bird.”
“You had to kidnap me. Twice.”
His voice took on a pleading tone, like he was trying to convince me of something. “You could have run.”
“I did.” I’d run right into the fucking lion’s den.
“You aren’t running right now. And that’s progress. That’s you choosing help.”
He was making me sound better than I was. I didn’t want to let myself off the hook. It was easy to pretend that everything was going to be okay when I was locked in Nicky’s apartment or getting pampered on his tattoo table. But the real work was waiting for me. Collin, the sorority, a class load I could barely handle…it was all still out there. It was all still waiting to drag me back under.
What if I didn’t want to get better? What if I ran again? What if Nicky put all this time and energy into helping me, and I threw it back in his face on my way out the door?
I was a bitch.
I wouldn’t put it past me.