Tattoos: A Novel by Denise Mathew

all my hair, had become my reality. In my mind there was nothing else that the cancer could take because it had already done it. But I’d been wrong because it had also managed to take my home, my family, and everything that had once defined who I was. Now I was stripped clean.  
    And just when I thought there was nothing left to fight for, Jax was there. In his eyes there was hope, a chance at something new and maybe the first real thing I’d ever known. There was no denying that Jax was different than anyone I’d ever met before. Not only had he met me at my rock bottom, he had looked past the exterior that I’d always worked to maintain, and managed to see me. Instead of being disgusted by me, he’d looked at me in a way that made me feel like I was still beautiful. If there was a silver lining to the disease that was sucking every bit of me away, it was that I’d met Jax.
    After he’d left the room I closed my eyes and remembered his arms around me. I thought about the scent of his cologne, woody with a hint of lemon. And how it had somehow managed to make the medicinal and sickly stench that seemed to seep from my pores, vanish. But as the hours lengthened and night approached and the truth sunk in, that although I’d finished my chemo cycle I wasn’t going home, it seemed more than I could take.  
    I was more than baffled that the hospital had agreed to keep me in too. Obviously Harold had greased enough palms to get what he wanted. Money had a way of opening doors that were usually closed; the hospital wasn’t any different.
    I glanced out at the sun as it dropped below the horizon, gold and pink streaked the clouds. Darkness began to fill the space.
    “Hey, how are you doing?”  
    I startled for just a second. Then my heart leapt with delicious relief. Jax was back. He’d ditched the coveralls and was dressed in faded jeans that fit him like they were tailor made. His Metallica t-shirt was snug enough that it tugged at the hard lines of his chest. He ran a large hand through his messy hair and it stuck up a little more, and somehow managed to make him look even more appealing. Without his coveralls that did just as the name suggested covered all, his sleeves of tattoos were visible. I felt my gaze immediately travel to them.
    “Fine, I guess,” I said, trying for a casual shrug. I felt anything but casual. With the amount of raw sex appeal that Jax exuded, it seemed almost impossible to keep my heart contained in my chest. Now it was beating so hard that I was sure my whole body was vibrating.  
    He strode toward me and perched on the end of the bed, too far away in my opinion. His distance made me wonder if he’d regretted what he’d said to my parents and more importantly, the promise he’d made about Christmas. It was quite possible that he’d said it all in the heat of the moment, a reflex and an attempt to make me feel better, nothing more.  
      “I’ve been thinking that since you’re going to be here for the foreseeable future that you need to come up with something to do…”
    “Like school work and stuff?” I cut in, deflated by the thought of school work. Somehow Trigonometry and Chemistry and all the other subjects I was taking in school didn’t carry the weight they once had. I’d done some work, but had found that even that little bit, managed to exhaust me. I knew if I made it through to the other side, summer school was in my future. But I couldn’t plan that far ahead.
    “No, something fun, something that you get excited about,” he said, sliding down the bed, until his knee was pressed against my hand. I tried to swallow the thrill that threatened to make me grin like a moron. The contact was almost nothing, but somehow felt like everything.
    “Like crafts or something like that?”
    He shot me a sly grin. “Somehow I don’t see you as the crafty type.”
    I stuck out my lip in mock indignation. He had hit the nail on the head, but I wasn’t about to confess that