I knew something was definitely wrong when I woke up the next morning, with a throbbing headache. As soon as I opened my eyes and they saw the light coming into my room through the semi-closed blinds, my head started pounding and I felt the urge to close them again.

It felt exactly like what hangovers sound like in movies and shows. But that wasn't an option because I didn't have a drop of alcohol last night.

I pulled the bed comforter over my head and tried to get some more sleep and didn't think much of it then, until I started feeling a sting-like, unbearable pain in my wrist. However, it was only when it started to really bother me and when I actually looked at the painful wrist, that I connected the dots.

The skin was much more red than it was right after I got the tattoo, and it was feeling too hot to touch, too.

And when I managed to get out of the bed and took my temperature, it explained my headache.

What does fever, red and hot skin have in common? Yep, you guessed it. They're all signs of infection.

Surprise, surprise... My tattoo got infected.

"Oh no." I said to myself before grabbing a scrunchie and tying my blonde hair into a lazy bun.

With a loud grunt, I changed out of my pajamas and into a t-shirt and shorts, and made my way downstairs to the living room, where my dads were, catching up on the HGTV shows they loved to watch.

This situation meant that I had to see a doctor, which meant that I had to tell them I had gotten a tattoo, far sooner than what I had intended.

"Hi, honey."

"Hey." I smiled, sitting down across from them on the puffy chair, before taking in a deep breath to prepare myself for the bombshell I was about to drop. "So, I've got something to tell you."

They looked intrigued, and waited patiently to confess. I could hear the Property Brothers discussing numbers with some family about the house they would buy, while I thought of the best possible way to tell them their seventeen year old daughter had gotten ink permanently tattooed on her skin, behind their backs.

But there's no best way to do this. There's just one way.

"I got a tattoo."

There was a lot of silence, and the longer it went on, the thicker the tension grew between us.

I thought about saying something sarcastic to lighten the mood, but then I thought it was better not to, and I just gave them their time.

And then it was time for what I like to call The Questions Waterfall. A natural phenomenon in which a teenager's parents, looking shocked and surprised, seem unable to form coherent sentences and choose to only question everything and anything.

"I'm sorry?"

"Excuse us?"

"You got a tattoo?"

"As in, a real permanent tattoo?"

"When did you do that?"

"What did you even get?"

"I'm sorry, sweetie... A tattoo?" My dad's eyes looked like they were going to pop out of its sockets. "Wh-Why would you even want to do that?"

"Honestly, I think that's beside the point, here." I shrugged, choosing to push that one aside. "I just wanted to let you know. And I wanted to tell you that it's getting infected so I should go to the hospital, just to get it checked out."

Then, it happened.

The row of endless questions were totally thrown out the window to give space for a whole other sick teenager's parents' natural phenomenon - Concern.

They took a look at my wrist and took their hands to their mouths, gasping in shock.

"Oh, baby, yeah we'll go right now!" My dad said, jumping up from his seat in a jolt and rushing around the house to grab shoes and coats.

My other dad followed.

* * *

After two long hours of waiting, I was eventually checked by a doctor who confirmed that I did, in fact, have an infection on my tattoo.

To be totally honest, I didn't care that I was battling yet another infection. I got to the point where that didn't keep me up at night anymore. I was mainly concerned about how my tattoo would look after this nasty infection goes away.

I got this tattoo because I wanted to and I liked it. I loved it. Everytime I looked at it, it reminded me of what Noah had told me about the meaning of the sunset, the sunrise and this particular phase of the moon. And it made my heart grow in size just thinking about it.

The ER doctor prescribed some antibiotics and painkillers, and sent me to the treatment room where a nurse in her fifties, with a lifetime of experience in wounds (I would learn later on), was going to clean the infected area and apply a bandage.

"Hi dear! I'm nurse Athena and I'm going to be taking care of you today." She showed me a wide smile before pointing to the empty chair in the corner of the room. "Take a seat right over there. Can you confirm your name, please?"

"Zoey Moore." She looked at the computer as she confirmed my identity.

"So, what have we got here?"

I sat down in the chair and showed her my red wrist, causing an expression of shock and impression to appear on her face.

"You gotta tell me where you got this tattoo so I can remind myself not to take my kids to this quack when they ask me for one." She said while she grabbed all the material she would need, and placed them on top of a tray that laid on a table next to where I was sitting.

I tucked in a laugh and let out a soft chuckle before eyeing her. "It's not the tattoo artist's fault. It's mine."

"What'd you do?"

"I have a low immune system and had the brilliant idea of getting the tattoo." I shrugged. "I should have just seen it coming."

"Oh." She said in realization before taking a quick glance at the computer screen, which had all my medical background history written on it. "You were admitted here with a MRSA infection last year! Yeah, you should have known better, missy."

I laughed at her words and she did the same, while putting on sterile gloves and grabbing a swab impregnated in disinfectant.

"Eh...you're only young once."

I thought about the nurse's words, and smiled.

She cleaned the skin, disinfecting the area where the crescent moon was permanently scarred on me.

"Everything okay, darling?" She asked after noticing me squinting my eyes.

"Yeah, it just stings a little, that's all."

"He must be really special."

I eyed her, confused about her words. I didn't need to question her statement, she simply shot me a smirk.

"I was seventeen once." She applied a local antibiotic on my wrist.

"He's very special." I admitted. "But he didn't force me to get the tattoo."

"Well, would you get it if you hadn't met him?"

The answer was a simple no. Before Noah had come around I wouldn't even dream of doing something as reckless as surfing or jumping off the rocks into the sea, or even skate at the skatepark. The truth was, I had been limiting myself all my life because of my condition and I had been refraining myself from living. Which was in the very least a paradox.

"I thought so too." Nurse Athena said, with a knowing smirk that graced her face while she focused on applying the bandage around my wrist tightly - but not too much - and firmly.

"Did you have a special someone at seventeen, too?"

"I did." She nodded with a bright smile on her face. "Forty-two years later, he's my husband."

I opened my eyes widely in surprise. "Really?"

"Yeah." She nodded, the smile never leaving her face. "He conquered me from day one. But, I obviously didn't let him know that right away and I played hard to get at first."

I smiled, remembering the day Noah and I met, at this very hospital, only a few months ago. And we'd been through so much already.

And now, he's a special someone to me. 

* * *

author's note: poor zozo :(  

i don't know about you, but i absolutely loved the conversation between zoey and nurse athena!! ❤

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xoxo, mars