by A. J. Pine
I look at my phone to check the time and see that it’s eight and that I missed a text message. A knot forms in my throat when I see it’s from Zach.
Way to avoid me all week, Z. This lawsuit is happening, and the lawyer needs a statement. Call me. Please.
I lock my phone screen and look at my drawing again. I could wear one more sketch in honor of my brother. That’s the justification I give myself for what I plan to ask Dee as I sneak out to the kitchen with my notepad. It has nothing to do with my skin tingling in anticipation or the ache in my chest that can be dulled only with a physical pain sharp enough to mask it. At least, that’s not what I’ll tell Dee.
She’s booked solid today, so I’m not surprised to see her up and dressed, bent over her laptop on the counter.
“Do each of your tattoos have special meaning?” I ask her, her bare arms attracting my eyes with a gravitational pull. Our schedules have been so opposite this week that Spock and I have barely seen her.
She flashes the underside of her right forearm at me, and amidst the larger, more vibrant pieces of art, I see a small black lightning bolt. I recognize it immediately.
“Harry Potter?” I ask. “You acted like my fandom was so foreign to you, that I’d wait in line at a comic store for my favorite artist. But you’re a total fucking Potterhead!”
I laugh, and she shrugs. “Who the hell isn’t? I mean, honestly, if you’re going use a fake ID at sixteen to get your first tattoo, what else does a girl get?”
She has a point. At least she didn’t get the face of some boy band singer or even worse—an ex-boyfriend’s name. I wonder how many people out there have a permanent reminder of a non-permanent relationship.
“That was your first, huh?” I ask.
I smile to show my approval, not that she gives a shit. Dee’s a professional now. She could have covered it or had it removed, but she kept it, and I like that. It was special to her then and is still special to her now. I feel the same way about the feather on my forearm—about Superhero Girl on my back.
She nods. “My parents never said I couldn’t do it. It’s all I wanted for my sixteenth birthday, and they told me I wasn’t old enough, but if I somehow found a way to get the job done, they promised not to ground me.” She laughs. “Some kids got fake IDs to party. I got one so I could get inked. And when I showed my parents and subsequently told them I wanted to be a tattoo artist, they told me they were fucking proud of me! Do you believe that shit? I break the law, spend all of my babysitting money, then basically tell them college isn’t for me because I want to use my art skills to draw on others with needles.”
I sit down on a stool opposite her. “You just told them everything, just like that? After one tattoo?”
She slams her laptop shut. “Uh-huh. I kept trying out different shops for every special occasion—my birthday, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Arbor Day. You fucking name it. But from then on, my parents signed for me so I could get the tattoos done legally and find an artist I liked and trusted, someone who would let me apprentice after graduation.”
Shit. There’s a girl who knows what she wants and just fucking takes it.
“Your parents sound cool as shit,” I say.
Dee tightens her high ponytail, then swirls a finger through one of the manufactured curls. “They are. I mean, as long as I was honest with them, they were pretty fucking fair with me. I told them shit, and they let me do shit. It was kind of a win for everyone, you know? They always knew what I was up to, and I never did the whole rebelling thing since they pretty much let me do what everyone else would have considered rebelling.”
I love my parents. They are two of the most wonderful people I know. Yet I think of all they don’t know about their own kids—Wyatt sneaking out that night. Me and my drunken baby pool incident freshman year at my brother’s frat house. If it wasn’t for my brother Zach helping me obliterate any and all evidence of my near drowning in mere inches of water, they probably would never have let me leave home this summer.
“My parents worry,” I tell her. “A lot. Having kids wasn’t easy for them, and they were a bit on the overprotective side with me and Zach. My mom especially. But Wyatt kinda changed the game for them—the miracle child freeing us from the overprotective reign.” I let out a bitter laugh. “Guess that didn’t go over too well.”
She crosses her arms and tilts her head, like she’s trying to figure something out.
“What about your dad?”
I think about my dad, high at Wyatt’s memorial. It’s a side of him I’ve never seen before, and I don’t know if I will again.
“A part of me thinks he’s always been just as scared as my mom—about losing what took so long to create—his family. But I also think he works his hardest to protect her. At first, not being able to have kids took its toll on her. Then the in vitro, the weeks of bed rest when she was carrying me and Zach. I don’t blame her for coveting that first glass of wine after giving up her entire self to make sure we made it into the world. Add to that some postpartum and, well, her equilibrium shifted. Someone who was never an addict her whole life suddenly was.”
It’s the most I’ve ever talked about my mom with anyone other than Jess, and I wait for Dee’s reaction, for her to finally realize, Holy shit. What kind of a mess did I rent a room to?
All she does is give her head a quick shake. “Damn, Blue. You got some baggage. But shit, we all do.”
I force a smile because I want her to be right. I want some sense of community, that we’ve all got our own weight to carry. I love my mom, but I won’t end up like her. For four years, that’s been the weight I’ve shouldered, and I never faltered.
“Can I show you something?” I ask, and I slide my sketchpad toward her.
She grins. “Peter Pan, huh? Your friend Patrick is the shit, by the way. He invited me to their little costume group’s next gig. You’re going to have to help me out with this one, because I know nothing about video games, and apparently cosmic bowling dressed as a game character is all the rage. Personally, I prefer karaoke.”
This perks me up. “Are you against pointy ears?”
She bites her lip before answering. “Like, would I wear them or do I dig a guy who has them?” She pauses for a few seconds. “You know what? Doesn’t matter. I have no strong feelings for or against pointy ears in any scenario. Sounds kinda sexy, actually.”
“Good,” I say. “You can be Zelda. She’s hot. And a princess, and you get to wear elf ears.”
“Sweet!” She claps her hands, the thought of more cosplay overriding her bowling distaste. “What about you?”
“Easy,” I say. “Aqua from Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep.”
Dee’s brow crinkles, and I know she has no idea what the game is. I don’t explain that it’s a twin thing, the gaming aspect of my life. Zach’s the only one I play with, so I’m used to no one ever getting my references.
“It’s just the name of the game,” I tell her. “Anyway, she has blue hair. I’m practically her already.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Did you dye your hair blue just so you could be this video game chick?”
I think about this for a few seconds—dyeing it blue for Wyatt’s funeral, black the day I decided to say good-bye to alcohol for good. A change in appearance with a change in outlook. It just kind of fits, makes it real, helps me stick to the decisions I make.
No more party girl: blond goes to black.
No falling apart—black becomes blue. I gave myself one night—just before the funeral—to really and truly lose it. Jess was at Adam’s, so no one knew. I had the night to grieve, to hate myself and blame myself and fall to pieces. By the time my roommate walked in the next afternoon after classes, I was blue. And in one piece. I was able to tell Jess about Wyatt’s death with only a few stray tears. Change of hair means change of identity. I can be another version of myself.
My mom decides to fill her void with a lawsuit to expose those responsible for Wyatt’s death. I
paint my skin with reminders. But Dee only asks about my hair, so that’s all I give her.
I shrug. “I dyed it blue so I could be anyone I wanted,” I tell her. Anyone except me.
“Whatever you say, roomie. So, ya gonna tell me why I’m looking at this Peter Pan silhouette?”
I blink, bringing my sketchpad back into focus.
“Right,” I say. “I know you’re probably booked for the whole day today . . .”
Dee slaps her laptop shut. “Actually, my eleven o’clock had to reschedule. I was going to take a long lunch, but I could squeeze you in.”
“Squeeze who in?”
Spock’s sleep-tinged voice sounds behind me, and though he just woke up, the added dash of concern does not go unnoticed by me or Dee.
“I’m going to take my coffee into the studio and get set up for my touch-up at nine thirty.” Dee slides past Spock, who leans on one side of the open door frame. “See you at eleven, Blue.”
Spock’s cargo pants are on again, but his Captain Hammer shirt is somewhere on the floor of my room. If I was about to play defense, I would be ready and willing to lead him across the small living room and back into bed.
Instead I groan. “Moratorium was for the week. It’s been a week. This is it,” I tell him. “The last one.”
The muscle in his jaw tics on the left side, and for a moment he says nothing.
“A week is technically tomorrow,” he says, crossing his arms over his bare chest. But his voice is gentle, more concerned than authoritative. “I get that I probably sound like a dick, but it’s not . . .”
“I know,” I interrupt. “But hear me out.”
I shouldn’t have to explain. It’s my fucking body. None of this should make a difference. I just want a different kind of pain.
These are the things I want to say to him, not that he’d understand.
“I want to draw,” I start. “It’s the one thing that fills me up, that feeds my soul, you know?” My eyes dart to the floor and then back to his: clear, blue, and way too intense for a Saturday morning. “It sounds stupid when I say it out loud, I guess.”
He shakes his head, then takes a step toward me. “It doesn’t sound stupid.” He runs a hand through my hair, rests it on my shoulder. “I need music like that, even if it’s not me traveling the country in a van performing it. I won’t survive without it.” He kisses my forehead. “I get it, Zo. God, if anyone gets it, I do.”
I step back so I can see his reaction when I speak.
“What would you do if you couldn’t play? Or if you couldn’t write a new song but only play something someone else wrote?”
His brow creases. “I don’t understand.”
I hold up my sketchpad.
“This is all I can do right now. This is all I can do since—since Wyatt. I can replicate something I’ve seen—the feather, Superhero Girl, this. But I can’t come up with anything original. And I want this,” I say, holding my inked arm out to him. “I want reminders of what I lost, of what he meant. Somehow that fills me up too.”
I rip the Peter Pan drawing and quote off the pad and hold it against my naked arm, the one with no ink yet.
“This is it. The last one for now. Each arm a reminder of who he was, who he’ll always be—and proof that I can still do what I’m meant to do. That I can still produce some sort of art even if it’s not what will get me noticed in the showcase. I need something to hang on to, and this is what I have right now.”
The conviction in my voice has me almost believing my own words too.
Spock nods and wraps his arms around me, pulling my head to his chest. I nestle my cheek against his skin, feel his warmth, hear his heart beating slow and steady. The rhythm calms me.
“I get it,” he says, his warm breath snaking down the length of my face. “I’m just—”
“Worried,” I say. “I know.” He strokes my back, and I sigh into him, squeezing my arms tight around him. “I’m okay,” I tell him. “And you have to trust me when I tell you that. Do you trust me?” I ask.
He dips his head down, stepping back enough to give our lips room to meet.
“I trust you.” He breathes the words against me. “I trust you.”
And when he kisses me, I almost believe him.
Chapter Twenty
“I’ve done some morbid stuff,” Dee says. “But considering the circumstances, you don’t think this is a little much?”
My skin throbs with pain and at the same time makes me numb—exactly as I remember the experience from last week, and I welcome the sensation, wishing it could last longer. Dee’s question comes too late, because she’s already finished the design, not that it would matter. And I appreciate her euphemism—circumstances. If other people don’t want to say it out loud, I’m not going to throw a tantrum about it.
“It’s not morbid,” I tell her, referring to the quote along with the Peter Pan silhouette. To die would be an awfully big adventure. “Peter Pan may have been scared to die, but he looked at death as the next step. As another adventure to experience. I need to believe that’s how my brother felt when he jumped off a building, intending to fly.”
Most people look away, fidget uncomfortably when the subject of death arises, but Dee holds my gaze. She doesn’t smile, but she doesn’t frown. And for some reason, just her maintaining eye contact is enough.
My phone buzzes, interrupting the moment, and I’m more than relieved to see it’s Jess.
“Dinner with Jess and Adam tonight,” I say. “Do you have plans?” I ask, and Dee looks up at me and rolls her eyes.
“Look, Blue. We live together, and I like you. But you got your life, and I got mine.”
“Got it,” I say, handing her my credit card this time since I don’t have nearly enough cash for another tattoo.
“You still got your end of the rent, right? I can’t imagine you’re actually making bank at that art school,” she says, and as if perfectly cued, I hear Spock strum his guitar out in the living room.
I pop my head out of the studio door, but I don’t call to him. I just listen. The bars of music are short and staccato, like he’s still figuring them out. But as I pick up bits of the melody, I can tell whatever the song is will be beautiful.
“It comes so easy for him,” I say quietly, not sure if I mean the sentence for Dee or just for myself. She hesitates before responding, which means she isn’t sure either.
She puts a hand on my shoulder and shakes her head. “That’s work,” she says softly. “What he’s doing out there is blood, sweat, and work. Nothing is easy when it comes to art, honey. It’s best you figure that out sooner rather than later.”
“I know you’re there,” Spock says, a teasing lilt to his tone.
I bang my head against the studio door frame.
“How am I going to spy on you and learn all your secrets if your spider sense tingles whenever I’m near?”
I had over to the couch, and Spock sets his guitar to the side and pulls me down on his lap.
“Zoe—that’s not my spider sense,” he says, then quirks up the corner of his mouth in a crooked, albeit sexy, grin. “Lemme see the arm.”
I straighten my arm for him to see, watching as he scrutinizes the art, distorted through the plastic covering my skin.
“It looks good,” he says, but the words sound forced, like that’s not at all what he wanted to say.
“You’re lying,” I say, and he raises his head so his gaze meets mine.
“No. I’m not. It looks good,” he tells me again. “Amazing, actually. And I get you wanting to remember your brother . . .”
“But—” I start, waiting for him to fill in the rest.
He takes both my wrists in his hands, turning my arms so they’re palm up.
“But these are reminders of death,” he says.
Dee saunters out of the studio and hands me back my debit card and receipt.
“Wish I didn’t have to charge you, Blue. But it’s how I pay the rent,” she says.
I try to shutter my expression when I see the dollar amount on the small piece of paper in my hand. But nothing gets past Peter Parker.
“I can pitch in extra for June’s rent if you need,” he says, and I crumple the receipt in my hand.
“I’m good,” I say. “Me and my death reminders are good,” I add.
Spock shakes his head and opens his mouth to say something, but I cut him off.
“No, really,” I tell him. “It’s okay. You have your interpretation, and I have mine. I’ve also got enough to cover my share of the rent, so we are good on all fronts. Good.”
Spock raises his brows. “You gonna say good again?” he asks, coaxing me with that damn smile.
My lips twitch.
“I know what you’re doing,” I say. “You’re backpedaling, thinking you can turn things around.”
He skims the tips of his fingers over my brows, down the side of my face, and across my shoulder. Goose bumps take over where the pinprick of the needle left off.
“Is it working?” he asks, pulling me in for a kiss.
He runs his tongue across my bottom lip, and I wonder if I will make it through the rest of the day and night without dragging him back to my room a couple dozen more times.
“Maybe,” I say.
He grins against me. “I don’t want to mess this up.”
“You couldn’t if you tried,” I admit. “I’m yours.”
His voice is soft and a little husky, and he whispers against my lips. “Mine.”
* * *
Spock and I take the four steps down to Jess and Adam’s garden apartment.
“This is kinda like a date. Isn’t it?” I ask.
He stops my hand before I have a chance to knock, turning me to face him.
“Shit,” he says. “I haven’t taken you on a real date yet. That makes me an asshole, doesn’t it?”
I smile at the sound of the word date, something so normal. We’re doing the normal thing, aren’t we? I think.
My teeth skim over my bottom lip. “We’ve got all summer,” I say. “You can think of something special and surprise me.”
He grins. “First-date challenge accepted.”