Warmth filled my chest as I thought back to the first day I walked into the prison classroom. Some guy was there to teach us art. The warden, fuck, and the state, hoping it would help us cons deal with our anger.
Ally shifted in my arms to rest her chin on her fist as it lay on my chest. Her eyes were filled with anticipation and excitement. I was about to open up to her about my art. And I would finally talk about it. It was a while since I’d seen that look in her eyes. When I was just Elpidio to her it was there all the time. Now she knew I was Axel, most of the time she looked worried or, worse, sad.
“You really wanna know all this boring stuff?” I asked.
Ally nodded against her fist. “Nothing is boring when it comes to your sculptures. Finding out how an artist began his journey is always the most interesting thing to me. How he found the spark that unleashed his passion.”
“Okay,” I said jokingly, like she was weird.
Ally nudged me, laughing. “I know I’m a geek, but I wanna know all the same.”
Her free hand reached for my hand which was casually lying on my stomach. She threaded her fingers through mine. As I looked down, Ally beamed a huge smile.
“How I got started…” I said, and taking a deep breath, I began. “I’d just been shanked and was in the infirmary recovering.” I shook my head at the memory. “Shit, I was in there for what felt like forever; a ton of guards and psychologists coming in day and night trying to get me to talk, to rat on my old crew, but I wouldn’t. First rule of surviving in that place was to keep your damn mouth shut. So I did. I didn’t talk to no one, was constantly alone with my thoughts. It was laid up unable to move where really started questioning shit. You know, what I’d done in my life, all the wrongs, not many rights… and my family, what I’d done to the only three people who’d ever really gave a shit about me—unconditionally. But the more I thought about my past, the more the guilt flooded in and started tearing me apart.”
Ally squeezed my hand, as though in encouragement. I kept going. “I couldn’t cope with seeing the fucking light, I suppose. It was the first time in my life I’d been forced to lay there and think. It’s real easy not to feel a damn bit guilty about choices you’ve made when you’re always on the move; hustling, dealing snow, you know, the usual.”
Ally cast me a wry grin at that. She looked so damn perfect staring at me right now, her perfect face placed on her fist, her face open and accepting of everything I was saying. She was a fucking dream come true.
“Keep going,” she urged, and I lifted our joined hands to kiss at her soft skin.
Staring down at her fingers, I continued. “The more I thought about everything I’d done, the more angry I became. Real angry, Ally. I couldn’t deal with all the memories. They started giving me damn nightmares, still do. The guilt, it was unbearable.
“When I was physically getting better, one of the nurses who was real good to me, asked me about my tattoos. She asked me who designed them, and I told her it was me.” Ally’s eyes ran over my tattoos and her gaze darted to meet mine.
“You designed all these yourself?”
I nodded and Ally’s mouth dropped open. “They’re so beautiful, so intricate.”
I could actually feel my cheeks burning at her praise. “I designed most of Austin’s too.”
Ally shook her head and smiled. “So you can draw?”
I shrugged again and Ally leaned up to kiss my lips, whispering against my mouth, “You amaze me, every single day there is something new.”
Pulling back, she re-took her place with her hand on her fist, her dark hair now brushed over to one side, falling over her shoulder. And that was the shot. That, right there, was the image. This was her at her most beautiful.
“Axel, you were saying the nurse talked to you about your tattoos?”
Snapping back to the here-and-now, I said, “Yeah… erm… right, so, yeah, the nurse knew I could draw. She told the docs, the shrink, and the next thing I know they’ve enrolled me in an art program. At first I was pissed. I’d taken a business class and was doing okay. Aust was proud of that, so I wanted to keep going. But from that first day in that class, something within me just clicked.” I stared off to my tools hanging on my wall. “My whole life I’d been so busy dealing, working for the gang, that I hadn’t tried to find out what I could be good at. Ten seconds in that room and I knew I’d found my ‘thing’.”
“Amazing…” Ally sighed. “A blessing in disguise.”