Walk Away

August 2022

Sunburn, €2 cocktails, and Tara dragging me into a tattoo parlour at 3AM because “It’s not a girls’ holiday if you don’t do something stupid.”*

The tattoo artist doesn’t even blink when we ask for matching finger ‘taches—just sighs like he’s done this a hundred times before (he probably has). It stings more than I expected, but Tara’s cackling as she presses a wad of tissue to hers, already smudged from the tequila earlier. “Now we can give everyone the world’s tiniest disapproving stare,” she declares, holding hers up to a bemused Sophie.

I send Charlie a photo.

His reply is immediate: “What the f**k is that.”

Not “Haha, wild” or “Miss you”—just disgust, sharp enough to kill the buzz. I shove my phone to the bottom of my bag, but Tara sees my face. “Oh no,” she says, grabbing my wrist. “No, we are not letting Soggy Crisp Boy ruin this.”

(“Soggy Crisp Boy” is Sarah’s fault. She’d announced it drunk the night before when Charlie FaceTimed me during dinner, and now Tara won’t let it go.)

The rest of the trip, I wear the tattoo like armour. Charlie keeps texting—“You’re really keeping that?”, “It’s gonna look so trashy when you’re older”—and for once, I don’t fold.

“It’s a shitty little moustache, not a marriage proposal,” I finally snap after the fourth comment. “Relax.”

Silence. Then: “Just saying. You’ll regret it.”

But I don’t. Not when Tara uses hers to “moustache” a scowling bouncer. Not when Sophie nearly snorts her drink out her nose at the airport security guy’s double-take. Not even when the ink starts fading two weeks later, because by then, the real souvenir is the way Charlie’s voice in my head gets quieter every time I laugh at it.

It hits me somewhere between the faded moustache and Tara’s fifth “Soggy Crisp Boy” joke of the day—how much I’ve poured into Charlie for so little back. The midnight drives to Norfolk when he was “stranded,” the £200 “loan” that never got mentioned again, the hours spent picking out his daughter’s birthday gifts because “you’re better at that stuff.” I’ve absorbed his work rants, his payday crises, his “no one gets me like you do” speeches. And what do I have to show for it? A Notes app full of deleted drafts where I almost asked for more. A voicemail from the hospital he still hasn’t listened to. A man who recoils at permanent ink but expects permanence from me.

Regret’s a funny thing—it only sticks if you let it. And this? This tiny, stupid tattoo? I wear it like a rebellion. Like proof I can choose what—and who—deserves to leave a mark. I wish I considered that more.

The high from the holiday crumples the second I step off the plane. My phone lights up with a voicemail from Theo’s dad—“He’s back in hospital. Same ward as last time.” The words sink like stones. I should be used to this by now, the way life keeps swinging between panic and exhaustion, but my stomach still lurches. Part of me wants to call Charlie, to fall back into that old rhythm where my chaos becomes ours—but then I remember the tattoo he hated, the unanswered hospital visits, the way he always made my pain about his guilt. I tuck my inked finger into my palm and head for the hospital. Some roads you walk alone.

Theo’s little face lit up at the sight of me and a giggle escaped him as I showed my moustache tattoo. Oh this boy melts my heart! “Mummy can we go home” my brave boy asked. “Very soon” I replied. The doctors and nurses got Theo stable again and said he would need to now be on oral steroids for 3 months to keep him from relapsing and hopefully do some repair to his kidneys. At least for now we were back home again.

Old habits really do die hard. As much as I tried to keep things balanced, I found myself slipping into familiar patterns—letting Charlie stay over more and more, going out of my way to do things for him, even when I was running on fumes. I was juggling everything—work, the kids, the house—and still finding time to make life easier for him. He never expected it, not outright, but he didn’t say no either. I started drinking more too, just to match his pace, to keep things feeling light and fun, even when they weren’t. The nights blurred into one another, messy and loud, like we were chasing something we couldn’t name. In the middle of it all, I decided we needed something to look forward to—a break away the next month. Me, the kids, Charlie, and his daughter. A bit of family time, a reset, something that sounded better than the chaos we were wading through. I told myself it was for the kids, but deep down, I think I was hoping it’d give me some clarity too.