Eli
Iballupanothersketch and toss it in the bin with more force than necessary. The lines are wrong. It doesn’t capture her emotions the way I want it to.
Emily looks up from her laptop, her brow furrowed adorably. “What are you working on?”
I groan, staring at the graveyard of unfinished drawings scattered across the table. “Designs.”
“For tattoos?”
I hum low in my throat, my gaze snagging on the beginnings of a hyper-realistic eye. Emily watches me, her own eyes flicking to the image.
“Who is that for?” she asks, picking up the paper to study it.
I snatch it back a little too quickly. “No one, really. I’m just practicing.”
“Shouldn’t you practice on people, not paper?”
A smirk tugs at the corners of my mouth. “It’s not that kind of practice. But yes—you learn using either synthetic or real skin.”
“How different is it?” she asks. “Doing it on a person?”
I think for a moment, searching for the right words. “Skin stretches. It bends; it breathes. It’s not flat. Bodies have curves—bones, muscles. If you don’t hold it correctly, keep it taut, the image distorts.”
Emily’s attention is solely on me now, her laptop forgotten. It’s a heady feeling.
“It’s also different using the needle,” I continue. “You have to know how deep to go, what the image will look like once it heals.” My voice drops. “And it’s permanent. There’s no do-over. Mistakes can’t happen. You have to be certain of what you’re drawing. You need to react to your client—anticipate flinching, twisting, breathing.”
“Isn’t it scary?” she asks softly. “Permanently marking someone?”
I shrug. “You’ve permanently marked my soul. Is that scary?”
“Yes,” she says immediately, the word barely more than a breath.
“I like the permanence,” I admit. “I like knowing it can’t disappear. It can’t be undone.”
She nods—in understanding, in acceptance, I’m not sure.
I stand, head down the hall, then return with my tattoo gun—my travel one. Emily eyes it with open curiosity.
“Draw on me,” I say.
Her breath hitches. “What?”
“I want you to feel it. To understand the weight.” I meet her gaze, unwavering. A challenge. “Draw on me.”
She shakes her head, but she can’t hide the spark of excitement in her eyes. Curiosity wins.
I set everything up, my hands moving with practiced ease. I prep the gun, wipe my forearm with alcohol, then apply the stencil of the eye—the one I’ve been obsessing over. There isn’t much untouched skin left on my arms, but there’s a gap near my wrist, right over the blue map of my veins.
“Eli.” Her voice wavers as I hold the gun out to her. “I can’t. What if I ruin it?”
“Then it’ll be perfectly imperfect.”
She laughs quietly, nervous and beautiful. “You’re insane.”
“Probably.”
But she doesn’t protest again.