Chapter 2: The Phoenix Tattoo

I kept on working, tattooing customers in my little shop on Walnut Street.

The hum of the tattoo gun filled the air, the walls plastered with drawings—dragons, wolves, the occasional buckeye leaf for the football crowd. I lost myself in the work, glad for something to keep my mind off everything else.

I don’t know how long I’d been busy, but all of a sudden the door swung open.

The chime rang out, sharp against the steady buzz of the needle. Sunlight spilled across the floor. I wiped my hands, half expecting just another walk-in with a Pinterest printout.

Aubrey walked in.

She moved with that easy, innocent energy—hair pulled back, cheeks flushed, hands fidgeting with her shirt hem. My stomach dropped; I already knew what she’d want.

I knew she was about to take her clothes off.

We’d done this before. I nodded at my current customer—a college kid from Dayton—and motioned for him to wait by the gumball machine.

I asked my customer to step aside for a minute.

He gave me a look—half annoyed, half nosy—but did what I said, scrolling his phone by the Coke fridge. The shop was quiet now, just us and the sunlight.

Aubrey turned around and peeled off her shirt.

Her back was bare except for the fire phoenix—its wings spread, flames curling over her shoulder blades, glowing in the sunlight.

On her back was a gorgeous fire phoenix, rising proud from the flames.

The lines were crisp, colors bold—maybe my best work ever. The beak sharp, feathers layered gold and red. It looked ready to leap from her skin, hope and pain all in one.

And right there on the phoenix’s body, my name was inked.

Under the left wing, in curling script, you could barely see it: “–Tay.” My signature, hidden in the design unless you knew to look.

She said, “I was showering and suddenly saw this, but I don’t remember getting a tattoo. Did you do this for me?”

Her voice was small, a little shaky. She twisted a strand of hair, searching my face for answers. The confusion was real—almost childlike. I felt a stab of guilt.

I said, “Yeah.”

My voice came out soft. I kept my eyes on the counter, busying my hands with a rag.

She blushed and quietly asked, “Why’d I get a tattoo? And why’s your name on it?”

Her cheeks went pink, eyes wide, lip caught between her teeth. The question just hung there, heavy with everything we weren’t saying.

I sighed and led her to my room in back.

The apartment was small, walls covered in band posters and old books. I led her past my laundry pile to a battered dresser, my hands trembling as I pulled open the top drawer.

She looked panicked when I handed her the diary.

She hugged her elbows, eyes darting up like she was searching for a way out. When I passed her the worn red diary, she took it like it might burn her.

She opened the diary, and her smile froze.

Her hands shook. She flipped through page after page of her neat handwriting—entries dated every day, each one a record of pain and confusion. Her eyes glassed over, lips pressed tight.

I slipped out and closed the door behind me.

The click echoed, too loud. I stood in the hall, knuckles white on the peeling paint, waiting for the scream I knew was coming.

Not long after, a gut-wrenching cry echoed from inside.

It sounded like the wind ripping through a barn—raw, animal, impossible to ignore. I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I could make her pain go away just once.

It was her diary.

That battered little book was her lifeline, her only hope to piece together what happened. She’d poured her heart into those pages, trusting her future self would be brave enough to read the truth.

It held the humiliation and torment she’d endured since the accident.

Every page was the same cycle—kindness and abuse, hope and betrayal. Faces of the men, descriptions of the crutches she’d carved, the emptiness in her parents’ eyes.

She wrote every word like she was cutting it into her own heart, pressing so hard the pen nearly tore the paper.

Some pages were shaky, ink smeared with tears. Others were scrawled in angry, jagged lines, almost cutting through the page. Every word was a wound that wouldn’t heal.

I pushed open the door and found her on the ground, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe.

She clung to the diary, knees hugged to her chest. Her hair hid her face, but her shoulders shook with every sob. The air in the room was heavy with grief.

I said, “One time after you were hurt, you came to me begging me to call the cops. I refused. More than half the men in this town had hurt you. If I tried to help, my whole family would’ve been run out or worse. I just… I couldn’t risk it.”

My voice cracked, thick with shame. I stared at the floor, remembering her pleading eyes, my own cowardice, the fear that froze me. In small towns, everyone remembers, and I knew what would happen if I crossed that line.

She wiped her tears, voice raw: “I know. I wrote it all in the diary.”

Her voice trembled, but she sat up straighter, hugging the diary. She’d read those words before, a new heartbreak every time, but always the same resolve underneath.

When Aubrey begged me to call the police, I told her to give up. I thought she could never win—a girl who forgets, going up against the whole town.

I remembered that night—her hair matted, eyes wild. I tried to reason with her: “It’s you against everyone, Aubrey. No one’ll believe you. You’ll just get hurt again.” I was scared, but she was determined, and that scared me more than anything.

I even told her, you could kill them all and end up with the death penalty, dragging everyone down with you.

It was a cruel thing to say, but I was desperate. “You want justice?” I’d said, voice flat. “Only way is to burn the whole place down with you in it.” The words tasted like cheap whiskey.

But Aubrey insisted on the hardest road—fighting for her own rights.

She shook her head, fire in her eyes. “I want to live. I want to be whole, not broken like them,” she whispered. Even with everything stripped away, she clung to hope for a better life.

That day she said, “I don’t want to die with them. They’re the ones who did wrong. I want to live well! I’m not trading my life for theirs!”

Her voice was fierce, stubborn. She wouldn’t let their sins ruin her future. For a moment, the room felt lighter, hope creeping in.

She decided to tattoo herself, to remind herself to come see me and read the diary every day.

We sat together in the shop, planning the design. She squeezed my hand, grip surprisingly strong. “Promise you’ll help me remember,” she said, eyes shining with determination.

In this town, everyone who came to me wanted eagles or wolves inked on their skin.

Designs lined the wall—bald eagles for the vets, wolves for football stars, Harley logos for the bikers. The phoenix was different—no one had ever asked for one.

She wanted a phoenix rising from the ashes. She said no matter how much pain, she wanted to be reborn.

She brought a folded-up sketch she’d found online. “I want to believe I can start over,” she said, voice shaking but strong. “I want to rise again, even if it hurts.”

It was the most serious tattoo I ever did.

I sharpened every needle, checked every line, poured all my skill into it. My hands didn’t shake. We sat in silence except for the machine and her sharp breaths. The phoenix came to life, feather by feather, hope rising from pain.

Aubrey was so beautiful, she deserved the best phoenix I could give.

Her skin was pale, marked by old bruises and the faint tan lines from summers at the county fair. I worked slow and careful, wanting to give her something that would outlast any pain these people threw at her. By the time I finished, the streetlights were flickering on outside.

To outsiders, Aubrey broke down more than eight hundred times.

People whispered at the grocery store, “She’s snapped again.” They didn’t see the courage it took to keep waking up, to keep hoping. They only saw a broken record.

But to me, her heart had been shattered more than fifteen hundred times.

Each diary entry, each night of pain forgotten, was another hit. I counted the days, the scars, the brave faces she put on. Surviving that much heartbreak and still standing—that’s a kind of strength you don’t see every day.

So I always wondered, how many times can a person’s heart break before it just gives out?

That question haunted my sleep, echoing in my chest as I watched her move through the world with battered grace. I wanted to believe there was a limit—that someday she’d finally be safe from hurt.