Page 74 of Paint the Town, Dove
Flack left rusty nails all over the house (this was before he couldn’t hold down a job) and I stepped on one, got an infection, and they couldn’t pay the medical bills.
I limped all the way to the cemetery, convinced I would die there. I was eight. I was petrified by the world.
If I were to go out by tetanus then so be it.
My life expectancy wasn’t high.
My parents were.
Thus resulting in me stepping on a rusty nail that should’ve never been there.
His name was George, the graveyard keeper. Much older than I was at the time, probably in his late sixties. He saw me, said no words, and came back out of his shed with plaster, disinfectant and water. It was raining that day, so he held my foot to the sky and I almost choked on raindrops –
But I was alive.
He didn’t say anything to me.
Not when he held my skin between his fingers, pinching bone, tracing scars, bruises, burns.
Every day I came back.
Every day he said nothing.
Until one day, I came back and he wasn’t there anymore.
All that was left was a note, a stack of twenties, and some chewing gum.
The note had one word on it:
Live.
Opening the cemetery gates now, I rolled up the back of my sleeve.
The tattoo, black as night due to my regular touch ups, shone like a beacon against thebleakness.
Live.
His writing.
His memory.
His kindness.
And I dropped towards the only tombstone that mattered, flipping over my other forearm that held a tattoo of a phoenix.
I touched it tenderly, fighting back the tears.
But they always came when I read her name.
I wasn’t strong here.
I didn’t have to be.
“I could really use your company right now,” I whispered, touching the engravement. “Emory.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Scarlett
