Unintended

But there was no one judging me, analysing my every move now, and it felt fucking great to just do something. I’d always heard that girls get their hair cut after a break-up.

Well, guys get tattoos.

“Thanks, Evie,” I said suddenly. The words fell out of my mouth without me realising what I was saying.

We both stopped walking and she turned to me, curiosity on her face. “What for?”

Shit. I need an answer.

But the answer was too big. She’d been saving my life from the day I met her. A simple thank you was not enough.

I shuffled my feet, trying to work out exactly what I wanted to say. It was a weird time and place; in the middle of the street outside a tattoo shop, my back stinging and trying to fend off the late December cold. But I needed to tell her.

“I just… this wasn’t how I expected today to go. I didn’t expect to find myself laughing or even smiling for a while yet, but because of you, I have. And sure, my back is stinging like a bitch right now, but it was worth it. I’m glad I came with you today and I’m even more glad you ran out of that club in the rain. Life would be a lot different if you hadn’t.”

“…life would be a lot different if you hadn’t.”

I looked up at him, both of us shivering from the cold, and thought about what he’d just said.

“Life would be a lot different for me too,” I told him.

And it would. I would have been to fewer places, and I’d have stressed over Jay more, and I’d have not smiled as much.

I wouldn’t have been reminded that I could still feel. Even if those feelings were pain for someone else, and had caused a lot of my own memories to resurface. I’d spent so long with them locked away, I’d started to believe I didn’t have any emotions left inside me. That maybe I would never feel anything again.

And as much as those memories hurt, they reminded me I was, in fact, still alive. Still breathing. And that there would be times when I could smile and have fun.

I could do something on impulse.

I could do the things I wanted to do, and they wouldn’t always be as harrowing as that first time I went to a gig on my own. Sometimes, they’d be liberating, like the tattoo was.

Smiling up at Ash, I said, “Thank you. In a very unexpected way, you have actually changed my life. If nothing else, you’ve helped me achieve one thing on my to-do list of things to achieve before I’m thirty.”

Urgh. Thirty.

“When are you thirty?” Ash asked, as we started to walk again.

“March 4th. And I like that, for one more day, I can still say, ‘not until next year’.”

Ash laughed. “It’s not that big of a deal, you know? Just another day, really.”

“Well, you can say that because you’re not even twenty-five yet. And you won’t be for another two years.” I nudged his arm with mine and he laughed again.

“Well, I’ll be twenty-four in August. That’s… closer to twenty-five.”

I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t help chuckling. “One d

ay you’ll be close to thirty and you’ll understand. Maybe it’s different for men, though,” I mused.

“How?”

“Because men get more handsome as they get older, but with women, everything gets wrinkly and saggy.”

“Men don’t get wrinkly?”

“They do, but… it somehow looks different on them.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that for a long time yet,” Ash said, and I looked up at him as we reached my car.