by Laura Steven
Like the universe, my feelings for Keiko have expanded in a way I cannot decipher or pinpoint or analyze with simple science or logic. Through some kind of dark energy, those feelings have expanded beyond all recognition. And there’s no way to wrap my fingers around that dark energy to see how it feels, no way to find the words to describe it, no way to put it under a microscope and examine its parts.
The way I feel about Keiko is dark energy in action. Maybe all love is.
And yet.
And yet, and yet, and yet.
The pills. What if this is a side effect?
What if I tell Keiko how I feel, and what if we decide to explore this new and terrifying dark energy . . . and then in a few days, the pills leave my system, and Keiko realizes she was under their influence all along? Could my heart really take that? Or would it shatter into a million pieces, like an asteroid slamming into earth?
Worse still, what if I realized that I was only feeling that way because of the pills? I could never break her heart like that. Never.
I have to be sure about this.
The silence has stretched for an eternity. The carousel slows down, but I toss some more coins at the operator to keep it running. Keiko’s eyes flicker from me to the horse to the blur of ramshackle amusements around us.
I’ve never seen her look so vulnerable. It reminds me of Dad, right before he broke down in tears. There’s something so gut-wrenching about seeing someone so strong, so stoic, reveal the chinks in their armor. It’s even more gut-wrenching being that chink, but not in an entirely bad way.
‘Keiko,’ I start, voice wobbly. ‘I don’t know what to say. Because the truth is, I don’t know. I –’
‘Okay,’ she says hurriedly. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘No! Keiko. I didn’t mean –’
‘Seriously, it’s okay.’ She waves her hands, a frantic gesture for me to stop talking. ‘It was a crazy thing to say. Please can we just . . . not?’
‘But I want to talk about it.’ I hate how pleading I sound. It reminds me of the desperation I used to feel all the time. Panic rises in my gullet. Fear of fucking up this thing I never even knew I wanted.
‘I can’t, Caro.’ Keiko shakes her head and starts disembarking from her horse, even though the carousel is still rolling. ‘It’s too humiliating. I should never . . .’
Before I can say another word, she’s leaped off the spinning carousel, landed cat-like on the grass, and disappeared in the direction of the public bathrooms, hand over her mouth like she’s trying to stop something from spilling out.
‘Wait!’ I call after her, scrambling to get off my horse too, but in all the panic and heightened emotion, I stumble and slam to the base of the carousel with an enormous thud. Before I know it, my head is lolling dangerously off the edge, staring up at the sky, and my feet are tangled in the hooves.
I’m trapped, relying only on my core strength to keep me on the carousel instead of plunging neck-first to the ground, which is far from an ideal way in which to plunge.
As I scream, which to be honest sounds more like a yodel, I hear Gabriela call my name, burst out laughing when she sees me, then yank out her phone, probably to record the situation for posterity.
By the time the operator realizes the life-threatening-stroke-hilarious situation and manages to bring the ride to an emergency stop, Gabriela is apoplectic with hysteria. Even I’m laughing as I’m hauled from my predicament, my abs burning as much as my cheeks.
And my first and only thought, above the pain and shame, is this:
God, I wish Keiko had been here to witness that.
In the awkwardly quiet car ride home, the lyrics to Bones and Stardust play on a loop in my head.
You are bones and you are stardust
And you must, you must not betray
Your reflection, your dimensions
Not to mention
The love that burns inside you
Like bones and stardust
I owe so much to that song. Without it, I might never have had the final nudge I needed to ask Dad about my birth mom. And knowing what I do about her, about where I came from . . . it makes me feel more whole. The gap of knowledge there used to be in me has now been filled – with grief, yes, but at least grief is not the absence of anything. It’s the presence of almost every emotion there is.
I owe that to this song, and what this song represents.
‘Hey,’ I say slowly, daring myself to say the words. ‘I have an idea.’
Keiko looks at me through the wing mirror. Her eyeliner is a little smudged. ‘Always dangerous. Go.’
I take a deep breath. ‘I want to get a tattoo.’
Keiko abandons all melancholy and swings around wildly in her seat. Gabriela almost crashes the car into a tree. ‘When? Now?’
‘Well, not right this very instant,’ I say. ‘Unless you’ve got a ballpoint pen and a razor.’
Keiko reaches into her tote and pulls them out. ‘I have both of those things.’
‘Shit. You called my bluff.’
Keiko studies me, tracing her gaze across my face, searching my eyes for signs that I’m joking. ‘Forreal though, are you serious? Want me to ask Marieke where she gets hers done?’
Managing to avoid flinching at Marieke’s name, I grin and say, ‘Do it.’
Turns out Marieke knows a place that doesn’t check ID. Which is how I find myself in a tiny little tattoo parlor covered in sailor-style wallpaper, where a very large white man is having one of his very large white arms inked entirely black while crying a lot. I don’t know why you wouldn’t just buy a black morphsuit if that’s the aesthetic you’re going for.
Gabriela drops us off and goes to hang out with Lizzie, and I’m kind of glad she’s not here to get all judgy about the clientele.
A manic pixie dream girl with a necklace tattooed around her throat sits me down for a health consultation. True to Marieke’s word, she doesn’t ask how old I am. I tell her what I want, and she goes through the back to start sketching. I sip on a soda to calm my nerves, while trying not to look at Keiko and Marieke sitting super close to each other on the cracked plum leather sofa opposite me. They’re watching something on Marieke’s phone, arms pressed together like mine and Keiko’s were just a few hours ago.
My stomach roils with jealousy. I’ve never felt like this about Keiko’s love life before, and maybe that’s because she’s never properly dated anyone, or maybe my feelings are only shifting now, or maybe it’s that my jealousy was misplaced all along – I thought I was jealous of Keiko being able to get whoever she wanted, when really I was jealous of the girls she was with. I just didn’t know how to admit it to myself.
God. I feel like the world’s biggest hypocrite after I lashed out at Keiko for feeling the same about me and Haruki.
I think back to our argument on the sidewalk outside school, when I called her out on her jealousy over all the attention I was getting. She insisted that wasn’t it. ‘Nice to know how little you think of me. No benefit of the doubt here, right? ’
I was so sure she was angry because I was right. I didn’t stop to wonder whether she was telling the truth; whether there was another reason for her jealousy. She wasn’t jealous of me. She was jealous of Haruki, and the relationship he was developing with me.
And the song . . .
It fits. That’s when she was starting to realize how she felt.
And most surprisingly of all?
It makes me smile. And it makes me excited. It makes me realize how badly I want these feelings, this thing between me and Keiko, to be real.
Right here, right this second, I want to drain all the blood from my body just so the pheromones are gone, and I can know for sure. However, that is a slightly dramatic thing to do, so I must gather some self-control and wait this out.
Watching Keiko with Marieke now, panic crests in my lungs. What if it’s too late by the time I finally know for sure?
Before I can torture myself by rolli
ng around in these thoughts, the tattoo artist comes back through and shows me her design.
It’s perfect. I nod.
Yes.
This is the first time I have ever broken a rule in my life. I feel giddy, and suddenly understand the rush people chase when they do shit like shoplifting. The adrenaline is intoxicating.
‘You want us to come with you?’ Keiko asks, looking up from the sofa.
‘No. No, it’s okay,’ I say. ‘I’m doing this for me.’
The words make Keiko smile in a way that makes me melt. Like she’s proud of me. Like she respects me. Like she’s . . . in awe of me.
Knowing someone is awestruck by you? It’s everything. It’s the feeling I’ve been seeking all along, I realize. Except I sought it from the wrong person.
The tattoo artist leads me through some back doors into a bigger space that smells of disinfectant and, worryingly, rum. There’s eighties rock playing on a vintage radio, and the buzz of the gun as it colors in yet another inch of the very large white man’s arm. He winces hard as the needle traces over his elbow. I shudder. Can I really do this?
I think of running until my lungs are on fire, and the kind of sweet pain that feels entirely different to cramps or a migraine. I guess the fact it’s pain you’re choosing makes a difference, and that’s exactly what this is going to be. I can do it. I want to do it.
After she’s finished shaving the inside of my forearm, the tattoo artist disinfects the area with clear gel, then applies the design from the transfer paper on to my skin. It looks amazing. I can’t wait for it to be real.
Nerves clamp around my stomach like a fist, and I chew a fizzy worm from the bag Keiko gave me. Apparently you have to keep your blood sugar up while getting a tattoo so you don’t pass out. It probably defeats the point to eat the entire bag before the session even starts, but hey, I’ve always been the type of chick who finishes her popcorn before the trailers are finished rolling, and today is no exception.
‘Ready?’ the tattoo artist asks.
‘Ready,’ I say, wishing I could keep the shake out of my voice.
The gun starts to buzz, and she presses it into my skin. Although the sensation gives me a shock – maybe because I’m too hyped up with anticipation – it’s actually not that bad. Just like a sharp scratch.
After she finishes the outline, I’ve settled into the feeling and managed to steady my breathing, so I relax as best I can. I ask the artist about how she got into tattooing, what her favorite styles are, and which tattoos she’d ban forever. She shoots an eye roll at the very large white man at this last question, and I know she hates blackout.
It takes both more and less time than I expect. More because it hurts, and it’s hard to be in consistent pain over a prolonged period of time, but also less, because how can a piece of art that’s going to be on your body forever only take an hour?
When it’s done, though, it’s all worth it. I can’t stop staring. It’s everything I wanted it to be.
Inked in black, the top half is an elm tree, and the bottom half is a cluster of DNA helices woven together like tree roots. Then in white, there’s a smattering of tiny stars around the tree’s canopy – so light against my pale skin that you have to really, really look in order to see it.
It’s not the most subtle design in the world – the DNA obviously represents my mom, my origins, my genes, while the elm represents the life I’ve grown in South Carolina with my dads, both with stardust all around – but I’m done being subtle. I’m done hiding who I am.
I fucking love it.
When I stand up from the chair, I feel a little woozy, but the lightheadedness fades into sharp focus when I return to the lobby and Keiko leaps to her feet to greet me.
‘Oh my god.’ Keiko gasps as she gets close enough to study the intricate lines, the glittery white stardust. ‘Dude! It’s amazing.’
Marieke nods approvingly. ‘Yeah, man, it’s awesome. That’s your first ink?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Respect!’
‘Thanks,’ I say, as the tattoo artist begins wrapping the area in cling film to keep it clean. ‘Keiko’s song gave me the inspiration.’ I try to meet Keiko’s eye, but she’s just staring at the ink on my arm. I can’t read her expression at all.
‘God, right?’ Marieke gushes. ‘Girl is super talented, like you have no idea. She’s goin’ places.’
This irks me. I may not be in the music biz, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand how great Keiko is. How dare Marieke assume she knows more about my best friend’s music than I do?
Clearly this journey of self-discovery has not made me any less petty.
22
My dads’ responses to the tattoo are greedy, in that they each have roughly three different reactions in the space of twenty seconds.
Dad oscillates wildly from ‘You are underage, this was highly irresponsible’ to ‘Has it been adequately disinfected? Nobody likes a mouldy appendage’ to ‘It is . . . very beautiful. Ahem. Excuse me.’ The last one is him realizing what all the different elements of the design mean, and struggling to disguise how touched he is.
Vati shrieks like a banshee during childbirth, inexplicably retrieves the fire extinguisher from the kitchen, then yells, ‘You are a wild child! Caro Kerber-Murphy does not leave the church in the village! Michael, can you believe this? Our daughter has a bird! And she most certainly does not have all her cups in the cupboard.’
Dad shoots me a look like Tim staring at the camera on The Office, and I return the deadpan glare. ‘I swear he’s just doing this to mess with us now,’ I mutter, but with affection. Vati makes a strange giddy-up sound.
‘Did you go to the tattoo parlor alone?’ Dad asks. ‘I hope you did not witness any drug transactions.’
‘Not all tattooists are drug dealers,’ I say patiently. ‘And I went with Keiko, and her . . . friend. Marieke.’
‘Where was Gabriela? Did you not drive with her this morning?’
‘I . . . I don’t think she wants to be best friends with us any more.’ The words feel heavy on my tongue. ‘Like, we’re still cool. Nothing huge happened or anything. It’s . . . we’re just growing apart, I guess.’
‘Well, that is hard.’ Dad nods sagely. ‘But it is also life.’
‘Indeed,’ Vati agrees. ‘Who knows why the geese go barefoot?’
Dad outright ignores this. ‘Caro, I am proud of you for keeping a level head. If one can indeed consider permanently scarring oneself “level-headed”. Which I am not sure one can.’
Vati gesticulates wildly. ‘Michael, I tell you this all of the time. Our daughter, she is wise. She knows that everything has an end. Only the sausage has two.’
And then my soul leaves my body as Dad says, ‘Felix, must I retrieve the ball gag from the bedside cabinet?’
‘OH BABY!’ yells Vati, and he’s so excited that he grips the fire extinguisher too hard. It erupts directly into Dad’s face, snapping his glasses clean in half and giving him a delightful handlebar moustache.
Why are parents.
Gabriela messages me a few hours later.
hey. so, the pills. is that why Ryan couldn’t keep his eyes off you? at the diner
My insides squirm. I wonder if she put two and two together immediately, or whether she’s just figured it out now. In any case, as uncomfortable as it may be, I’m glad of the chance to come clean. To let her know it wasn’t her fault, or Ryan’s fault. It was mine and mine alone. Facing the music is going to hurt, but honestly, I think I deserve a little hurt at this point.
God, I’m sorry Gabs. Yes. I fucked up.
I want to add so many things to the end of that text, about how awful I felt and how I’d take it all back if I could. But I don’t want to paint myself as any kind of victim, to focus on my discomfort instead of hers. I’ve been a shitty friend enough lately.
oh okay that makes sense lol. it’s just like . . . why did you keep taking them after that? after you knew what could happen?
was your thing with Haruki worth risking me and Ryan’s happiness?
Dropping my head into my hands, I shudder. God, I knew it was bad at the time. I knew I was being selfish and gross and I knew Gabriela deserved better. But having it laid out so plainly by a girl who’d rather die than hurt her friends . . . it’s agonizing.
Past me was selfish and gross and you deserved better. I’m so, so sorry, Gabs. I should’ve stopped the second I realized what was at stake. I promise, I’m going to do better. I’m going to stop using self-loathing and self-pity to justify my shitty actions. Even if our relationship is going to be a little different going forward, I really need and value you in my life. Still, I understand if you can’t see past this. It’s so much to forgive.
I hover over the keyboard for an eternity before hitting send. It doesn’t seem complete, my text, but I truly don’t know what else to say.
it’s okay lol you’re so hard on yourself. nobody’s perfect, hey? I think I just need a bit of time to figure some things out, is that alright?
That’s more than alright. Take all the time you need.
A few minutes later, her reply dings.
thanks. but Caro, please . . . you need to tell Haruki the truth. if you don’t, I will. okay?
The thought sends a spike of anxiety lancing through my gut, but I know she’s right. I owe him that much.
Since I can’t do anything about Keiko or Haruki or any of my myriad other problems until I see them in person tomorrow – without the influence of the pills – I decide to have a self-care night, since I am apparently that kind of person now. I understand that for most people this would involve bath bombs and fancy candles, but for me it’s hot cocoa and science documentaries while on Skype with my brother.
Leo cares about very little else but science, which is pretty annoying when you’re trying to engage with him in a normal human manner, but is ideal for right now, when all I want to do is escape from my normal(ish) human issues. I could tell him about my journey to the place where my mom’s ashes are scattered – he’s adopted too, though not from Annie – but honestly I’m just exhausted. Plus he’s never shown any interest in finding his biological parents, and I doubt he’d understand my desire to do just that.