Phoenix: The Beauty in Between (A Beautiful Series Companion Novel) (19 page)

“Does it mean
anything?”

“Yes. It’s the
symbol for sorrow and despair. I got it over my heart to remind me
to stay strong. To remind me of what I did to you.”

My throat
thickens and makes it hard for me to swallow. “Don’t Braden. I
don’t want to hear it,” I whisper, tears burning the backs of my
eyes as I shake my head no.

“But I loved
you Paige, and I threw you to the wolves. Handing you over was the
worst thing I have ever done. I need to remember. I need to be
reminded every day when I look in the mirror that my drug addiction
destroyed not only my life, but that of my friend’s as well.”

“It wasn’t just
my life you destroyed Braden. Every girl you ever took to him was
destroyed. Why don’t you have a tattoo for each of them?”

“I don’t know.
You’re the only one I tried to keep for myself. You’re the only one
I didn’t want to take to him.”

“You’re talking
like we were lovers or something Braden. I think you’re
romanticising what was between us.”

“I’m not Paige.
I did love you. You were my family. My best friend. You knew me.
What we had was better than some stupid relationship where you fuck
for a while and it’s over. We were real together.”

“You know what?
I have to go.” I say, thumbing over my shoulder. I can’t stand here
and listen to this anymore. “Congratulations on your job. I’ll see
you around.”

I spin on my
heel and make my way out of there as fast as I can. Trying not to
think about the emotions that are boiling up inside of me. Having
Braden back in my life is messing with me, and making me feel
things I don’t want to. I hate that he felt so strongly about me
and still handed me over. I hate that he has a tattoo on his chest
that represents me. I just have so much hate – so much
disappointment inside of me.

I want it gone.
I don’t want to feel like this anymore.

I hold on until
I get back to my flat. I hold on as I rush to the bathroom, turn on
the shower and get inside. The water is still cold, but as soon as
it hits my face, I let go.

There’s
something about crying in the shower that makes it ok. It’s like
crying with the water doesn’t make it real, and I can pretend it
never happened. I can pretend I’m still strong. But I’m not. I
never have been.

“Paige, we’ve
been having these sessions for a few months now. I’m not going to
sign off on your treatment until we actually discuss something
important,” my counsellor, Erin, says to me at my next
appointment.

“Don’t you
think the most important thing is that I stay off the drugs? Isn’t
that the whole reason I’m here?” I retort.

“Yes, that’s
part of it. But the loss you’ve experienced makes you a high risk
of relapse. Counselling can help Paige. But only if you’ll let
it.”

“I’m not going
to relapse,” I insist, looking at a print of an Australian bush
scene hanging on the wall in her office, and wishing that she had a
window so I didn’t feel so trapped whenever I came here.

“What makes you
so sure about that?”

“Because I
won’t.”

“I admire your
determination Paige. I really do. But right now, you’re living in a
guided situation. You have regular contact with people whose job is
to make sure you have all the help you need to move on with your
life. This situation won’t last forever. Eventually, you’ll be on
your own. You’ll want to have relationships, maybe even start a
family. And all of these things can be extremely difficult. If we
don’t address your past. How can you possibly have a productive
future?”

I adjust myself
in my seat and fold my arms over my chest. “Firstly, I don’t want
to have a relationship, or a family. I don’t want to address my
past either. It’s been one huge disappointment after another, and I
really don’t want to think about it.”

“You might not
want to think about it Paige. But our minds have a habit forcing us
to deal with things.”

I drop my head
against the back of the couch and look up at the ceiling. During
the day, I’m able to keep busy. I focus on my school work, or I
read. I tidy my flat, and I cook. Life is very normal during the
day. But when it’s time to sleep, my mind won’t stop.

In those
moments before I drift off, I remember everything. My dreams remind
me about everyone, and everything in my past. Then every morning
when I wake, the first thought in my mind is of Phoenix, followed
by the knowledge that I’m the reason she didn’t survive.

“You know, when
my parents kicked me out of home, I thought I was better off on my
own. That I didn’t need the help of homeless shelters, or the
charities that run them. I thought that being put into foster care,
or a girl’s home would be the worst thing that could ever happen to
me. But now, I know that if it wasn’t for programs like this, then
I would be dead.

“Honestly, I
think that sometimes that would be better too. I’m not going to
kill myself, so don’t worry about that – but I do know that if I
could choose between my daughter’s life and my own, I’d choose
hers. Every time I’d choose hers.

“I wish I was
sitting here with a little girl in my lap talking to you about how
hard it is being a single mother without an education. But I’m not.
I know what I did. I know what I lost, and I don’t want to talk
about it. I am not going to relapse. I don’t want to take drugs to
forget. I need this pain. It’s the only thing reminding me that I’m
still alive.”

By the time my
recovery program is finished, I have my School Certificate. It
isn’t enough to get me into a university course, but it’s enough
that I can continue on and do a diploma or apply for an
apprenticeship.

At the
community health centre, they also offer career counselling. There
are a lot of pamphlets about jobs in industries that need
workers.

I pick up the
pamphlet that talks about trades you can learn and wonder if I’d be
any good at hairdressing. I figure that I have so much hair of my
own, it might be nice to learn what to do with it.

The great thing
about these community outreach programs, is that they put you in
touch with employers who are willing to work with troubled kids. My
counsellor made a few calls and within a week, I had an interview
at a local hair salon, where I met Tina.

She had left
home at an early age by choice, she told me that she was getting
roughed up and couldn’t take it anymore. The day she got her first
job, was the day she left home and moved into a share house.

Life was
difficult for her, but she was careful with her money, worked hard
and eventually, started up her own salon.

Now she’s at a
point where she can afford to hire an apprentice, and she wants to
give someone else the same opportunity she had. I guess I’m lucky
that ‘someone’ is now me.

I’m still
attending NA meetings, but I only go once a week now. Braden and I
are slowly starting to talk more. He’s persistent, I’ll give him
that. I don’t think we’ll ever be as close as we once were. It’s
too hard to forgive him that much, but I don’t feel so much like
stabbing him whenever I see him anymore.

I still haven’t
gone and seen the tattoo parlour he works at, although he has been
bringing sketch pads with him to meetings and showing me what he’s
working on.

He’s planning
sleeves for himself, and every part of the tattoo will tell a
story. The left side, he wants to represent his past, and the right
side his future. It will be a huge undertaking, but I’m sure it
will look fantastic when he’s done.

Talking about
the symbolism of his ink has got me thinking. I really like the
idea of having something that will permanently remind me why I’m
living my life the way I am.

“Braden?” I ask
one evening after a meeting. “I’ve been thinking – do you remember
how you said you’d do anything for my forgiveness?”

This got his
attention, suddenly he was one hundred percent focused on me
instead of the sketch pad on his lap. “Of course. What is it?”

“I think I want
a tattoo.”

“Sure. What do
you want to do? Something on your shoulder? Your hip? Your
ankle?”

“My back. I
want my entire back done.”

His eyes
practically pop out of his head. “You want your whole back done for
your first tattoo?”

“Yes Braden,
and before you start trying to talk me out of it, I know it’s going
to hurt and I don’t care. I’ve been thinking about the tattoo you
have, and how it’s there to remind you about the worst thing you’ve
done. I want something like that too. My worst thing is much bigger
than your worst thing. So it needs to be large. It needs to take
over my body.”

He just nods
his understanding and waits for me to continue. “I want a phoenix,
flames and all. In my mind, it rises from my hips and its head goes
up to one shoulder and the wings are diagonal around me. Can you do
something like that?”

“Of course I
can Paige. I’ll do some drawings for you to show you next week… or
I can always call you and we can meet up. Have a coffee or
something?”

“No. Next week
is fine.” I stand up and turn to leave, but I pause.
“Thanks Braden,” I say over my shoulder and then head home.

The next week,
Braden has pages of phoenixes drawn for me.

“Wow, you’ve
really been working hard on this,” I comment as I go through the
images. They’re all beautiful, and are very similar to what I told
him. Although, some are more detailed than others. A few pages in,
and I find it. “This one,” I say tapping the page. “This is exactly
what I imagined.”

“Done,” he says
quietly, taking the sketch pad off me and looking more closely at
his drawing. “I think a phoenix is really fitting Paige. Because
you made it out. You’ve turned your life around.”

I shake my head
minutely, as a coldness seeps into my heart, sending me rigid and
making my pain stab at my insides. “The phoenix has nothing to do
with me Braden. It’s for my daughter.”

“I didn’t
realise you had a daughter.”

“I don’t. She’s
dead.”

“I’m so –“he
starts, but I cut him off. I don’t want to hear it.

“Just do the
tattoo ok? That’s all I need from you.”

“Alright. When
do you want to start?”

“As soon as
possible.”

It takes over a
month of work and healing to get the tattoo complete. We work on it
after hours, so it doesn’t get in the way of Braden’s paying
customers.

While he works,
we talk. Sometimes it’s just general chit chat. Sometimes it’s more
serious. But it’s different to therapy. It’s different to meetings.
It’s two people with a shared experience, finding a way to get over
it.

“How did you
end up living out west?” I ask him.

“I got so
hooked on heroin that I qualified for the methadone program in St
Marys. I stayed in a group home for a while and fought really hard
to get off the stuff completely. Sally, my sponsor, has been really
great. He’s helped me a lot. But, I met a lot of people who weren’t
so lucky. They just moved from heroin to methadone and never got
off it.”

“Your sponsor’s
name is Sally?”

“Yeah,” he
laughs. “You’ve seen him before. He’s the guy with the big black
beard and the shaved head.”

“Really? I
never would have picked him for a ‘Sally’,” I comment, laughing to
myself.

As the days
wear on, Braden starts to tell me about his life, and how he got
involved with Reggie.

“I was buying
more than I could afford, and to work off my debt, he took me on as
a dealer and his sometime… um… companion. I’m sure you know by now
that Reggie likes it every way there is. He didn’t have a big group
of girls back then. He had one or two that stayed with him and
everyone else got a call whenever he wanted to party.

“Anyway, after
a while, I started recruiting new dealers, and I bragged that I
could get anything I wanted – a really stupid thing to say around a
guy like Reggie, but I was high, and I wasn’t really thinking.

“He told me to
find him a girl. One that no one would miss. I started paying
attention to the girls that slept around a lot. The girls who
always seemed to be on something, or seemed really lonely… lost…
I’d take them home and play the gentleman, then tell them I knew a
guy who would treat them well and give them anything they wanted.
Then I’d hand them over.”

I have my back
to him as he works on my tattoo, so I can’t see his face as he
speaks. But, the air around us is completely sombre, and so filled
with regret that I close my eyes to gather some strength before
speaking. “So you’re the reason for Reggie’s girls?”

“Yeah,” he
murmurs, “and I’m going to rot in hell for it.”

He pauses in
his work, so I take the opportunity to turn and face him. “I’m
pretty sure this is hell Braden. Living with what we’ve done.
This
is hell.”

“What did you
do that’s so terrible Paige?”

“Everything. I
did absolutely everything I was told to do. And then some.”

The tattoo is
finally complete and properly healed. I’ve seen it in the mirror,
but Braden is at my flat, taking photos of it so I can see it all
properly. It really is something – a real work of art.

“It’s wonderful
Braden. It’s like she’s holding me,” I whisper, looking at the
images of the phoenix on my back.

I trace the
image with my fingertips, as I study the intricacies of the design.
The flames erupt out of my lower back as the phoenix rises, with
its beak open as it calls out over my right shoulder, its wings
outstretched. One wing reaches up over my left shoulder and the
other, down around to my ribs on the right. It’s as if it’s hugging
itself around me protectively. The phoenix's tail feathers fan out
near the flames, curving around my body until they reach my hip
bone in swirls of yellow, orange and red.