Today he had handed over hundreds of dollars for a freedom which could never be removed, and he should have saved it, kept it in the trust fund that his father had nearly drained dry, but this...this was his choice. Pain.

A good pain.

The tattoo artist was in a near trance, all focus on his work, a sterile cloth in his hand to wipe away the blood. The room smelled like rubbing alcohol and Theo’s sweat. And Theo’s mind spiraled into that pain, and he breathed out, letting it go. Letting it all go.

His upper lip hurt.

“Fuck.”

“You okay? Wanna stop?” Tom leaned forward, his voice a little panicked.

“No.” Theo licked his lip. “I’m fine.”

He wasn’t. Of course he wasn’t.

His mother had been so angry when he came home from this last year at Gwynns. The anger had shocked him until he remembered that she had always been protective of his face. The line on his lip, still a little pink from the long process of healing, was a blemish on the perfect aristocrat she expected him to be. He wanted to think that her anger was a sign that she loved him, but he had so little evidence of that type of emotion from his distant, cultured mother.

He licked that line on his face, the roughness on the inside of his mouth, and the clawing agony of the needle seemed to fade. This pain was nothing, nothing compared to that moment when he had Gardner pinned against the lockers, so fucking angry, so bitter, so boiling hot under his skin. And when the anger turned into something else—something he had tried to strangle, tried to deny—he almost welcomed the blow which split his lip and sent him careening into the wall.

Over and over, he worried the tear in his mouth. The artist hummed a little, tuneless, as he marked Theo’s back with an indelible black scar.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Tom’s voice was low, quiet. They hadn’t really talked about it. About the future.

A knife twisted in Theo’s heart. “I’m sorry. I’m so—I’m so sorry.”

The worst con his father had played was involving his friends’ parents in his vile criminality. Theo felt such enormous guilt, and he wondered, even as his friends stuck by him, if he was to blame. If just by being their friend—linking their families closer over every year of their childhoods—Theo had ruined them.

“Nah.” Tom shook his head. “Not your fault.”

Theo laughed, but it was gritty and sour. He didn’t think he would ever stop feeling responsible. “What do you want to do?”

Tom crossed his arms, thought for a moment. “I want to run.”

“Yeah.” Theo felt the needle digging into his spine and grimaced. “I want to fly, I guess.”