With no words spoken, Isaac sheds his clothes, then mine. Taking his time, he climbs over me, his warm hands exploring for the very first time. Tender kisses, filled with love, follow where his fingers have trailed. Isaac gently and lovingly caresses me with soft strokes of his tongue, and feather touches across my skin. Building me up slowly, he eases me into something I’ve never wanted with anyone else. It’s like my body recognises his, as if we were created especially for one another. My heart hammers a nervous beat inside my chest, and I almost forget to breathe. With a tenderness only he could possess, he guides us together, our eyes locked and our mouths touching. Isaac takes my virginity, takes my heart, and I know in that instant, I’ll be forever his.
The next morning I wake alone. I’m sleepy, dazed, and confused. Pulling the covers back, I gasp when I look down and realise I wasn’t thinking last night. I don’t regret giving my virginity to Isaac, no matter what happens now. But I do regret the fact that in the daylight, with my clothes off, I opened up my biggest secret to him. I stare at my chest, stomach, ribs, and hips—the bruises and cuts are plain to see. Purple, yellow, green, and blue of varying degrees fade into my pale skin, small and large cuts show the age of my beatings.
“Isaac!” I scream, jumping off the bed, grabbing for my shirt and running through the house.
I was too late.
Isaac beat Charlie to within an inch of his life.
Then accepted the guilty plea.
His admission earned him the maximum sentence of five years for grievous bodily harm, and was dishonourably discharged from the Army.
He refused to see me.
Six months later, I started drinking and skipping school. Three months after that, the dance scholarship I had been awarded was revoked.
I lost it all. Everything I ever wanted when I was eighteen fell to pieces… including me.
Liv
PRESENT DAY
I push my fingers through my hair and dig the nails into my scalp, the pain it inflicts allows me to be momentarily distracted from the shit fest that has become my life.
“Fuck!” I grunt out, slamming my shoulder against the dirty brick wall and dropping my hands back down. I make a fist and punch out hitting the brickwork, immediately my skin splits and blood pools around the fresh cuts. I watch, unblinking, as the blood trickles across the word Pain which is tattooed on the lower half of the fingers on my right hand. The word sits just above my nails and mirrors the word Alone, which is in the same place on my left hand, although that also incorporates my thumb.
“Liv, what the fucking hell are you doing?” The shout comes from my friend Helena, who stands half in and half out of the back door to the tattoo studio where she works. The anger she emits makes me avert my eyes from her stare. Instead, I take in the rest of my friend. Her black hair is shaved up one side, the remaining hair slides in waves down her back. She has purple gloves on and is wearing ripped black jeans, a tight red tank with a black skull decorating it, and biker boots. Helena’s tattoos cover most of her body, but the ones I can see right now snake down both arms and up her neck—they match mine. We’re very similar, both about the same height, petite, with natural brown hair, although hers is now black and mine is platinum blonde. We have multiple tattoos, and we both dance at ShadowBox, a strip club in London.
Helena stomps over and I can’t ignore her blistering ire as she rams her palm into my shoulder. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing punching the damn wall? Here, give me your hand,” she demands, grabbing my wrist and turning it over, examining my knuckles. “What happened?” she asks quietly, her tone softening, the anger now replaced with concern. I’m not sure which is worse.
“Same old shit,” I reply, dodging the question.
“Looks like no tattoo for you today,” she hisses.
I rip my arm from her grasp. “You’re giving me a fucking tattoo today, Hel, I mean it,” I snap then huff out a sigh and rub my eyes.
“I don’t tattoo crazy people,” she answers crossing her arms.
“Yes, you do. Every damn day.”
“All right, touché, bitch.” Her frostiness ebbs and she tilts her head back to the door. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”
I follow her into the back of the studio, which thankfully is empty today. I always come in this way. The front means passing the coffee shop on the opposite side of the road. I made the mistake one night of bedding Jimmy, the barista who works there. It wasn’t planned, and I blame alcohol for my lapse in judgement. However, since that unfortunate night, Jimmy’s interest in me hasn’t waned. I wouldn’t mind, I mean, he’s easy on the eyes with his dirty blond hair which is shaved at the sides, pretty copper coloured eyes, and tattoos scattered across his six-foot frame—his body isn’t bad either. While most of the girls bat their eyelashes at him and pop in for coffee at least three times a day, I’m not most girls. He’s hot, but with all that he is, there is one thing he isn’t—Isaac.
I dismiss the fact Isaac spent over four years in prison and never once allowed contact. And, with alarming natural ease,
