The humming of a tattoo gun echoed against the cool cement walls of Karter’s Tattoos, the steady buzz offering a strange sense of comfort to Karter Boga. It had been that way ever since the accident—when the world turned inside out, when Regina’s laughter became a memory, and grief painted everything gray.
Karter, now 30, sat in his usual station, wiping down his tools with precision. His mind drifted, as it often did, to Regina. She had been his muse, his rock, and his partner in everything. They’d only had three years of marriage. Three years filled with matching tattoos, spontaneous road trips, playlists made with love, and quiet mornings over coffee and sketchpads.
The car accident had taken her away in an instant. One moment, she was texting him that she’d be home in ten minutes. The next, he was identifying her body in the hospital morgue. That was nearly a year ago.
In the months since, he had buried himself in ink and skin—his work, his therapy. Clients came in and out, unaware of the storm inside him. He put in long hours, often sleeping in the back room just to avoid going home to the silence of their once shared apartment.
But grief wasn’t linear. It came in waves—sometimes crashing, sometimes still. And slowly, gently, something inside Karter had started to shift. Maybe it was the dream he had of Regina smiling in the sun, or maybe it was the worn voice of his mother, Shirley Boga, gently nudging him during their weekly calls.
“Baby, you don’t have to do this alone anymore. Come home.”
Home. Falls Church, Virginia. Where his parents—both retired military, still full of discipline and deep love—waited. Where his older brother Vince, who always had a corny joke on hand, promised to help him rebuild if he needed it.
At first, the idea seemed like defeat. Leaving the shop he’d built with Regina by his side felt like giving up. But now… it felt like maybe, just maybe, a new chapter.
—
*Moving Day
The day he packed up Karter’s Tattoos, it rained.
“Kinda poetic,” Karter mumbled, locking the shop door one final time. He stood for a moment, hand pressed to the glass. Behind him, the city buzzed with life, unaware of his quiet goodbye.
Virginia greeted him with open arms. Albert and Shirley were waiting at the door with hugs that lasted a little too long, and a spread of homemade food he hadn’t tasted since holidays as a kid.
“You look tired, baby,” Shirley said, brushing his cheek.
“I am,” he admitted. “But I think I’m where I need to be.”
Albert nodded, clapping a firm hand on his son’s shoulder. “You got space here to heal, Karter. We got you.”
With Vince’s help, Karter found a small commercial space to rent on the edge of town. It wasn’t flashy, but it had good bones, high ceilings, and that gritty charm he loved.
He called it Boga Ink.
—
*Grief Has No Expiration Date
Even in a new city, Regina wasn’t far. Her memory clung to the corners of his heart—like the time he found her favorite hoodie tucked in a moving box, or when he passed a woman with the same laugh and had to pause to breathe.
He started seeing a therapist at his mom’s insistence. Shirley wasn’t one to push feelings aside, even with her military background. “There’s strength in facing it,” she told him.
In therapy, Karter learned to speak the truth: that some nights he still woke up reaching for her, that he feared forgetting the way she looked when she smiled, that he didn’t know who he was without her.
But he also began to remember the good things without falling apart—the way she danced barefoot in the kitchen, how she’d trace his tattoos with her fingers like reading Braille.
—
*Enter Taveka Spencer
It was at a local art and health expo that he first met Taveka Spencer. She was an RN with box braids, gold hoops, and a smile that reached her eyes. She ran a booth on mental health awareness in communities across the state.
Their first real conversation wasn’t romantic. It was human.
“I like your ink,” she said, gesturing to the sleeve of roses and waves on his arm. “Did you design that?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “My wife loved roses.”
Taveka didn’t flinch or fill the silence with empty sympathy. She simply nodded. “Beautiful work.”
Later, they talked again. And again. Coffee turned into walks. Walks turned into shared playlists. Shared playlists turned into confessions—his grief, her journey as a caretaker, their mutual understanding of healing.
Taveka never tried to replace what Karter lost. Instead, she met him where he was.
“You don’t have to be over anything to move forward,” she told him one night. “You just have to be willing.”
—
*The Beginning of Something New
Karter still visited Regina’s grave. He still sketched with her in mind. But something else was blooming now—quiet, respectful, real.
His shop, Boga Ink, started picking up clients. Word spread about his clean lines, his ability to turn pain into art.
One day, Taveka sat for her first tattoo—a small, minimalist heartbeat with a semicolon.
“For my patients. For me,” she said.
“For new beginnings,” he replied softly.
—
Spring was beginning to settle into Falls Church, with warm breezes and the scent of dogwoods in bloom. Karter stood outside his shop, the door swinging open, the sound of laughter and music drifting out.
He breathed deeply.
Grief had changed him, but it hadn’t destroyed him.
There was ink still left to lay, love still left to find, and a story still unfolding.
And Karter Boga was ready for every line of it.
Thee Juju Aura 