A.N.: New story. It's short - seven chapters - and one will be posted everyday this week :)
Inspiration was from Avril Lavigne's 'Smile'. I blame the fact that I started liking her music again when she released 'Here's To Never Growing Up'... then I started listening to her stuff and am obsessed with 'Smile'. Anyway... I hope you like :) Tattward & Inkella.
As always please review and check out my blog... I'll be posting pics :) k8ln713fanfic dot blogspot dot com
6/8/13: The Reason Why I Smile has been rec'd on TwiFanfictionRecs and has also been nominated for Top Ten Completed Fics for May 2013. It'd be totally awesome if you followed the link and voted for The Reason Why I Smile. There's other awesome stories, some I've checked out, others I haven't (but I'm sure are amazing!). You can vote once a day until the end of the month. Please, please, please vote! Thanks! :) twifanfictionrecs dot com/2013/06/01/vote-for-your-top-ten-completed-fic s-may-2013/
ENJOY! :D
THE REASON WHY I SMILE
You know that I'm a crazy bitch
I do what I want when I feel like it
All I wanna do is lose control, oh, oh
But you don't really give a shit
You go with it, go with it, go with it.
'Cause you're fucking crazy, rock n' roll
Yo-u said "Hey,
What's your name?"
It took one look
And now we're not the same
Yeah you said "Hey."
And since that day
You stole my heart
And you're the one to blame
Yeah
And that's why I smile
It's been a while
Since every day and everything
Has felt this right and now
You turn it all around
And suddenly you're all I need
The reason why I-I-I
I smi-i-ile
Last night I blacked out, I think
What did you, what did you put in my drink?
I remember making out and then, oh, oh
I woke up with a new tattoo
Your name was on me and my name was on you
I would do it all over again
Yo-u said "Hey,
What's your name?"
It took one look
And now we're not the same
Yeah you said "Hey."
And since that day
You stole my heart
And you're the one to blame
Yeah
And that's why I smile
It's been a while
Since every day and everything
Has felt this right and now
You turn it all around
And suddenly you're all I need
The reason why I-I-I
I smi-i-ile
The reason why I-I-I
I smi-i-ile
You know that I'm a crazy bitch
I do what I want when I feel like it
All I wanna do is lose control
You know that I'm a crazy bitch
I do what I want when I feel like it
All I wanna do is lose control
And that's why I smile
It's been a while
Since every day and everything
Has felt this right and now
You turn it all around
And suddenly you're all I need
The reason why I-I-I
I smi-i-ile
The reason why I-I-I
I smi-i-ile
The reason why I-I-I
I smi-i-ile
Smile ~ Avril Lavigne
~SMILE~
There's not a lot in this world that makes me smile.
Only a few things: My best friends in the entire world, my job, my daughter.
And him… Edward. The love of my life.
I was in a bad place when I met him. I was eighteen and he was twenty-four. He helped me back up and made me a better woman than I was seven years ago.
When I graduated high school at seventeen, my life to me was a black hole. I was lost and I couldn't escape anything. I couldn't escape the loss I felt when I lost both my parents the night of my graduation. I couldn't escape the idea that I had nowhere to go and had no money since I opted out of going to college right afterward. I just felt so lost and I had no control over anything.
To not feel anything, I turned to hanging out with a bad crowd, losing myself in sex, drugs and booze. Seventeen, going on eighteen, and I was already circling the drain.
I'd work odd jobs just to keep myself afloat, meaning I paid my rent on time, fed myself when I was hungry, and bought cocaine when I needed a hit – which was most of the time. Doing some lines helped me lose myself some more.
It was that night when Edward came into my life that he pulled me out of the darkness and into the light. He knocked some fucking sense into me. I remember it perfectly…
I was completely trashed. I was doped up from the coke and I had too much tequila. I was dancing with the guys I hung out with and fucked when I felt the need to puke. I ran out of the club they snuck me into and puked up everything I consumed that day in the dirty and smelly alleyway.
When I felt better, I just collapsed onto the ground, my back against the brick wall and cried. I pulled a cigarette and tried my best to light it, but I couldn't get the fucking shitty lighter to spark.
"Damn it! Fuck!" I screamed, launching the lighter out further into the alley. I stuck the unused cigarette in the pack and held my face in my hands. I couldn't believe I let myself waste away like this. This was not what I wanted my life to turn out to be. My parents would have been so ashamed.
"Hey, you okay?" I heard a deep voice speak. I looked up and saw a tall guy come into the light. He was taking a drag from his own cigarette and exhaling a huge cloud of smoke. When he got closer, I was able to take in his appearance.
He was handsome… smoking hot, if you want the truth. He was tall, had muscular arms that were covered in ink, had a ring in his lip and small gages in his earlobes. Fucking hot! He was wearing all black – black tee, jeans and Doc Martens.
He crouched low to be at my eye level and spoke again. "Are you alright?" he asked again.
I sniffled, running my arm across my nose to wipe away the stuff coming out of it. "Yeah. I'm fine. Just taking a breather."
"You don't look it. And you also look to be too young to be in a place like this. How old are you?"
"Twenty-two," I lied.
"Yeah, fucking right," he snorted. "Tell the truth. Or I'll take your bag and go through it to find a legitimate ID."
I narrowed my eyes at him and huffed. "Fine. I'm eighteen. Just turned it last week."
"Why the fuck are you here? Shouldn't you be at college? Or better yet, at home where you belong. It's two in the morning!"
I stood up and wiped my hands over my ass to get rid of the dirt. "Who the fuck are you to lecture me like that?! I don't have to tell you shit!" I then turned to head back into the club, but I felt a strong hand grip my wrist and pull me back.
"Don't go back in there. It's not safe. This area is not safe," he then said, looking me straight in the eye. It was then that I got a good look at his face, especially his eyes. He had a day's growth of scruff, high cheekbones, sort of bushy eyebrows that ironically looked tamed and perfect, as if he would get them waxed, and the greenest eyes I've ever seen.
I snapped out of it to speak. "Don't tell me it's not safe. I have friends in there."
"Friends who probably don't give a fuck that you're out here. They're obviously not looking for you. And you're just a kid. You shouldn't be here. You're not even old enough to get in."
"That's what my friends are for!"
"Fine. Whatever," the guy said. "Go fuck up the rest of your life by hanging out with the wrong crowd, by drinking and doing drugs and fucking whoever the fuck you want. I'm not going to stop you. I just thought you needed some help."
He pivoted and started to walk away. I frowned at his comment because I knew he was right. I was fucking up my life and I barely even started living. I'm heading nowhere at the moment.
I then started to run after him. "Wait!" I yelled. He turned to look. When I reached him, I said, "I don't want to continue fucking up my life. I want to move forward from this, but it's just been so hard." My eyes started to tear up. "I have no one, really. No real friends and my parents died a few months ago. I'm not in school 'cause I have no means of paying for it, nor do I even know what I want to do. And I'm fucking up my future by doing what I'm doing. I just don't know what to do."
I then broke down. When I thought I was going to fall on my knees, I felt the guy's arms wrap around me to hold me up. I cried into his chest for I don't even know how long. When I felt I calmed down some, I pulled out of his embrace.
And then he spoke. "Where do you live? You're not homeless, are you?"
"No. I have a shitty apartment that I'm just able to afford while I work a whole bunch of jobs. Whatever I have left over, I buy food and coke."
"Alright. Listen to me. I'll help you out. First, we're going to go to your apartment. You're going to pack up any shit you need. While you do that, I'll talk to your landlord to break your lease."
"But I can't afford to do that!"
"Listen. To. Me. I'll take care of it. I'm trying to help you. Just listen to me. I'm going to let you stay with me rent free. I'll give you a job. You're going to get your life together little by little, and I'm giving you some kind of head start, okay?"
I nodded and I led him back to my apartment.
I found out his name was Edward along that drive to my crappy place. He did help me out by breaking my lease, paying what it cost to do so. He let me sleep in his room while he slept on his couch.
He also gave me a job working as a receptionist at his tattoo parlor. I answered phone calls, scheduled appointments, ordered supplies when they were needed and dealt with fucking customer service, which I despised. Dealing with people was never my forté. In the beginning, I fucked up a lot! I would forget to pencil in appointments, I would space out when on the phone with the supplier and I wouldn't write down dates the shipments would come in, and I'd fight with the bitches that would come in for their cliché butterfly tramp stamps. And so much more.
Seriously, I was a total fuck up.
~SMILE~