An Object in Motion

Chapter 8: Unstoppable Force

"Matching tattoos?" Harlow questioned, leaning back in her chair. "Why matching tattoos?"

"He's convinced he'll break my tattoo-less streak." Tom explained. "Roy couldn't understand how someone under forty in this day and age didn't have any tattoos yet."

"Even I have a few tattoos." Roy explained. "Yet he doesn't have any? You must have one, right, Harlow?"

"I do." Harlow confirmed hesitantly. "Technically two, if you count the one under the one that I have."

"See, Tom? Everyone has a tattoo nowadays."

"When did you get a tattoo?" Tom asked Harlow, ignoring Roy's continuing protests.

"The first was at sixteen." Harlow said. "I was at a producer's party where they were giving away tattoos as party favors and it seemed like a good idea. At the time."

"Sixteen." Roy gave a low whistle. "You were sixteen, what, almost twenty years ago? What was the popular tattoo back then?" Roy gave serious thought to what Harlow's first tattoo could've been. "A star? A sparrow? A dreamcatcher?"

"It was thirteen years ago. And it was almost a dreamcatcher" Harlow admitted. "The guy didn't have time for something that big, there were other people in line." At the time, Harlow had found the idea of a dreamcatcher poetic and protective of herself during a bad time, but in retrospect, she knew it was the trendy tattoo to have and was glad she hadn't gone through with it, for the sake of making the cover up easier. "I got a little script message instead. 'Just Breathe' on my ribs. It was stupid and generic, in hindsight, which is why I covered it up." Harlow thought it was stupid and generic but it wasn't the primary reason she covered it up. She had made a lot of bad decisions when she was young and even though the tattoo wasn't the worst, she finally grew tired of seeing it in the mirror every day so almost ten years after she got the original tattoo, she covered it up.

"With..." Roy led, waiting for Harlow's answer.

"Something also stupid and generic, just more recently stupid and generic. A snake." Harlow wasn't particularly attached to the coverup, but she was grateful for something so perfectly sized and shaped to replace the reminder of being young and dumb.

"Oh I have a snake tattoo as well, from my daughter's reptilian phase." Roy responded.

"Eh," Harlow shrugged, "at least yours is sentimental. I feel silly having a tattoo that's not sentimental, I never planned to be someone who had random tattoos."

"Random tattoo." Tom corrected. "Sounds like the first doesn't count."

Harlow liked to think of it that way. That she could easily write something off from her wild child years as something that didn't count. It was too simple and straightforward to be able to apply that logic to any other part of her life but she would accept it from Tom, she felt like he should get a vote as someone who knew her during the roughest period of her life.

"So then this is the chance to have a sentimental tattoo." Roy suggested. "What says wrap gift if not matching tattoos?"

"It's only a wrap for you, innit?" Tom pointed out. "We have another month, month and a half of filming after you leave."

"I suppose so." Roy weighed Tom's statement and agreed, noticing his PA standing by the doorway. "But anyway, give it some thought." He nudged Harlow's elbow. "A sentimental tattoo for you, a chance to walk on the wild side for you." He nodded to Tom. "It's never too late to start a collection. I didn't get my first until I was in my forties."

Roy left after his hair was brushed into place and Harlow ran her fingers through her own hair, stretching her arms above her head. While she appreciated Roy and Tom's attempt to lighten the mood, she began to feel the emotional toll of the day in her muscles and bones. She was tired, exhausted, even, and for a brief moment, she wondered if she would even be able to get home, the thought of getting in a car right now and driving home was almost too much to bear. Is this what felt like? To feel something other than nothing? It was awful, Harlow decided. It was far simpler to just not feel anything at all, but that wasn't the right approach to take. It wasn't the right thing to do, and she was trying to do better.