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Which is why I’m currently circling the shading needle around the fresh smiley face on my wrist, adding a hint of smoke swirls with twinkling stars that make the yellow pop like a full harvest moon in the darkened night sky.
Leaning back, I twist my arm in the dim glow coming off the single lamp on my hotel room’s desk and it’s not lost on me how I’ve managed to add darkness to yet another piece of light that has been given to me.
Guess it’s just my thing.
I glance at the clock glowing on the nightstand that screams back at me about my lack of sleep and the late as hell hour which only makes me scoff and turn back to the piece on my wrist.
Adding another layer of smoke, I kill the machine and clean up the work. It shines when I rub the salve over it, fresh and crisp with the lines I fixed, as I wrap the protective thin plastic around my forearm and hope that maybe I can fall face first into the bed to pass out for the next hour or so before my alarms taunt me.
Why do I do this to myself?
Doing exactly as I’d hoped, I fall straight into the fluffy mattress with my head buried in the pillow and pretend to rest my anxious mind until the chirping from my phone sends me into a panic.
I shoot up in bed, scrambling to get to the thing as it rings a sound that isn’t my alarm, and slam it to my ear before I even look at the caller ID to verify it’s not what my heart is hoping it’s not.
It’s too soon for the baby.
Right?
“Hello?” My voice is croaky and dry. “Aria? What’s wrong?”
My heart beating in my throat, I fall back on the mattress when my knees are too weak to hold me up and listen desperately to the all too quiet line.
Click.
The line goes dead.
I pull the device from my head and stare at the black screen with my breath stuck in my throat and a twist to my stomach. It lights up when I settle it against my thigh, the notification trying desperately to worm its way into my foggy brain and sleep-deprived eyes.
No way.
It’s almost five in the morning, which is what sinks in first, and my phone highlights in a fancy white box that the number I have programmed as ‘Do Not Answer’is the one I just did, in fact, answer.
Oh, no.
My stomach drops as bile rises in the back of my throat.
So he’scoming to save you, now?
With shaking hands, I toss the device across the room and shoot to my feet as if that will get the memories of the nightmare on the other side of that call as far away from me as possible.
Do you think he’d give it to you better than me?
Huh, Cedar?
I jab my twitching limbs into the nearest pair of shorts, desperately trying to beat back the tears that prick the backs of my eyes, and jet out of the room with rapidly pumping lungs.
I leave behind the phone that taunts me with memories I’d rather burn than keep, my heart threatening to beat right through my ribcage.
I don’t bother checking for my keycard or my credit cards as my feet carry me down the hall and my fingertips go numb.
Heading straight to the elevator, I slam the call button with a fist I don’t feel and bounce on the balls of my feet.
Panic, raw, and angry crawls its way up my spine when the ding echoes through the hall like a hammer to metal and the doors slide open with grinding whirrs that pierce my eardrums.
Practically diving into the metal box, I nearly scream when I crash into a hard chest.
“Oh my God.”
