by Olive East
Once inside the almost eerily neat and overly beige home, I found all the horrors you might expect to find as an almost twenty-one-year-old at a sleepover. She arranged, as if for a picture, chick-flicks on the coffee table, nail polish and magazines on the floor, and snacks on the kitchen counter.
“Isn’t it adorbs?” She beamed.
“So adorbs,” I said mockingly back. Luckily she thought I was being serious because she nodded along.
“What d’you wanna do first?”
Eyeing my options, I wondered if nothing was a valid choice. “Let’s watch a movie.” Zoning out for a couple hours would be the perfect way to ease into the night.
“Okay! You pick, I’ll open us some Seagram’s.”
“Are they your mom’s or did Aaron buy them for you?” There were already clanking noises coming from the kitchen as she selected bottles.
“Like my mom would drink wine coolers. Aaron bought them for us, but they’re like pop anyway—kid stuff.”
Not that I’m opposed to drinking, but Sadie seemed to like Aaron’s over-twenty-one status more than she should. If asked to list his best qualities, Sadie would put being old enough to get into a bar at number one.
It wasn’t my business, or at least that’s what I told myself, so I studied the movies on the table. For someone who was supposedly trying to keep my mind on happier things, Sadie had the complete recipe for an emotional breakdown right in front of me. The Notebook, The Way We Were, Untamed Heart, and Cruel Intentions plus alcohol were going to be the death of me.
“Here, here.” She handed me an opened bottle of Black Cherry Fizz, then arranged herself on the big comfy couch next to me. “Put on a movie.”
Choosing Cruel Intentions for several obvious reasons, I chugged my drink, got a new one because, hey, it’s like pop, and snuggled next to Sadie on the couch. A few drinks and shirtless Ryan Phillippe scenes later I finally started to relax.
“How are you, Ollie?” Sadie asked, settling into her own peach-flavored haze.
“I’m okay. Kind of hungry.”
“I really wanna know.”
My head was resting in her bony lap as I sprawled out, taking up the majority of the couch. She began pulling strands of my tangled dark hair through her fingers.
I sighed. “Sometimes I’m fine.”
“And other times?” She massaged my scalp the way I liked. It was something she hadn’t done in a year, and I wondered if she was doing it now to get me to talk.
“I try not to think about it.”
“How’s that going for you?”
“Not well. Sometimes I feel like I’m not me anymore. I’m so lost from who I used to be that there’s no getting back. And the thought of that is so sad and so scary that I don’t even want to get out of bed in the morning. What’s the point? And then I’ll have a few good days, but then crash all over again, and it’s like each time it gets a little worse. Sometimes I think I just don’t want to be happy.”
Sadie grabbed my hand, too tightly to just be holding it, and pushed up my sleeve. I instinctively yanked my arm away.
“Let me see your arm,” she demanded and I did as she asked. “Okay, good. Don’t scare me like that.” Her heart was beating wildly as she held my hand to her chest.
“I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just unloading and you plied me with liquor,” I mumbled, feeling embarrassed.
“Why can’t you just talk to me when you get like that?”
I wanted to tell her that would be practically all the time, and I did just talk to her and she told me I scared her, but instead I said, “Next time. I promise.”
“Do you want to talk about your dad or…anything else?” She loosened her hold on my hand but didn’t let go.
“No.” Yes. I pressed my fake eyelash securely back into place. It wasn’t really my dad I wanted to talk about, it was the “anything else.” Anything else included a topic that was entirely off-limits in our friendship. Not talking about that topic was what kept our friendship intact at all.
“Hey,” she said, changing the subject. I sat up. “Do you feel like doing some sketching? I’ve had a lot of thoughts about my next tattoo.”
My Cheshire Cat smile made its first appearance in weeks at the mention of sketching a new tattoo. I’d abandoned my duffel by the door of the split level but hustled back down the steps to retrieve my ever-present sketchpad and Clutch pencil.
Sadie cleared the movies from the coffee table to make space for the notebook, rolled up her sleeves as if she would be doing the work, and patted the couch space next to her for me to sit.
“Okay,” I said, sliding the pencil behind my ear and flipping the pages of my most prized possession, “this is where we left off. Are you still into the roses? Because I keep going back to the feathers too.”
“Let me see.” She pulled my precious artwork closer for inspection. If my clothes and makeup were my armor, my artwork was my escape, my one and only happy place. “Can you combine the two? I’m imagining a windswept cluster of beautiful daintiness.”
“I love the sound of that. That’ll be the title.” If people themselves had titles, the artwork that was Sadie Connor would hold the same name. She was beautiful, by anyone’s standards, and so dainty I didn’t know how she made it through the day without breaking, but she had a windswept quality. Like everything around her was always either being sucked in closer or entirely pushed away.
I took the pad from her hands and began a new sketch using my trusty pencil.
It was so easy to lose myself in the quick movements and hypnotic sounds of pencil hitting paper, but nothing, and I do mean nothing, beats the feeling of putting needle to skin. Tattooing someone is an art form that engages the whole body, from the feeling of the vibration to the sound of the electric needle to the vivid color left behind. I was addicted to the process from conception to completion.
It was impossible to say how long I was swept away in the cluster of beautiful daintiness before Sadie placed her hand on my knee. I nearly fell from the couch, my heart hammering in my chest.
“Earth to Ollie,” she teased.
“Sorry,” I mumbled as I flipped the pages. I’d been so zoned out I hadn’t even realized I’d drawn on page after page in my sketch pad while Sadie sat and watched.
I waited for a “freak” comment that never came. Instead, Sadie said, “That was intense.” She flipped back a few pages. “This”—she tapped the page twice—“you have to get this exactly on my ribs.”
“Yeah?” She did pick the best sketch, if I do say so myself.
“Yeah, duh. Promise I get the first real official appointment.”
“I promise,” I told her, meaning it very much and feeling a swell in my chest. We could spend hours, days, or even weeks sketching tattoos, but she already had her go-to guy who transferred my art.
Sadie got her first, a fairy on her foot, on her eighteenth birthday. Next came a star on her wrist on her nineteenth, then the words be brave on the back of her neck for her twentieth. Things were shaping up so that she could get her fourth from me.
And just when I thought things between Sadie Connor and I could really be good, the front door flew open and in walked Aaron Kim. I shot Sadie the dirtiest look I could muster.
“I brought a chicken and pepper pizza for Sadie, as requested, and some of my dad’s cabbage kimchi for you, O.” The slurred quality of Aaron’s speech was hardly detectable anymore. It only slightly slipped out in certain words.
He stacked the food on the counter, then rushed over to kiss Sadie grossly and loudly on the lips.
I thought you were out of town, I signed in American Sign Language to Aaron once I had his attention.
Why would you think that, O? He made a point to put the O shape of his hand in my face. My brother cancelled on me days ago.
I didn’t like him calling me O, I didn’t like the way his shaggy black hair was always in his eyes, and I didn’t like his presence at my boy-free sleepover. Being ar
ound Aaron created all kinds of risk factors for me.
“Sadie?”
“What?” she asked, feigning innocence. “You know I can’t understand you two when you sign. So knock it off.”
“You lied to me,” I told her while I also signed the words for Aaron to see. Whenever he was around I always found my fingers itching to speak the words for me. He was an expert lip reader and proud cochlear implant wearer, but we bonded over communicating in ASL.
“Okay, I told a little fib. It got you here, didn’t it? And I thought we were having a good time.” She stood up and climbed onto Aaron’s back like a monkey. And even worse, he allowed it.
“Look, I didn’t just bring food.” They—well, Aaron—headed to the kitchen, so I followed. “I brought a bottle of tequila.”
While the idea of getting shitfaced was appealing, the idea of doing it with them was not.
I wish I could say I was surprised. This was the exact reason I wore my best outfit, spent an eternity on my hair and makeup, and put up such a fight about the sleepover in the first place. I refused to be caught off guard and needed Aaron to see me at my best.
“I’m leaving,” I said, not sure if I meant it. My heart leapt at the thought of spending time with him, which was exactly why I shouldn’t have been with them.
“Because of the tequila?” Sadie asked.
“Yeah. Because of the tequila.”
“You’ve already had too much to drink to drive, and Aaron is blocking you in now anyway.”
“And I’m not moving,” Aaron added with a hint of a sigh.
“Why do you care?” I was asking them both, but neither of them answered. Did I need to spend my weekend third wheeling it with them? It would take a really messed up person to think this night was going to make me feel better.
Aaron began fixing me tequila and ginger ale, Sadie was dishing out pizza like I hadn’t said a word, and I was trying to keep my heart in my chest.
Chapter Four
A few drinks and a few hours later my good mood was still nowhere to be seen. I sat there with my kiddie wine cooler replaced by a more adult tequila, trying to watch the movie, but all I could think about was how absurd it was that they were engaged.
Sadie and I were kids sneaking liquor while her mom was out of town and they had the audacity to be engaged. And everyone made me feel like the ridiculous one when I expressed my concern. My mom told me I was being jealous when I said they were too young, Sadie told me they were too in love not to be engaged and I’d understand some day, Aaron loved to point out that he was three whole years older than us, like three years even matters, and Lydia said they’d be engaged for a long time before they even started discussing wedding plans.
It was all bullshit, but if they want to ruin their lives, I was going to let them.
When Sadie started groping Aaron under the blanket and I hated every word that came out of his mouth, I could feel myself turning into a mean drunk.
Pretending I wanted to stretch, I stood up, then bounded down the steps like a scared cat. I slipped on the flats by the door, said, “I’m going outside,” and ran out before either of them could stop me.
I sat on the stoop for a few minutes, the cold not really bothering me, waiting to see if Sadie would come out, knowing Aaron wouldn’t. When they didn’t, I started toward William Brooks’s house with my lowered inhibitions.
A strange house at night never looked so inviting. Or maybe it was because I was determined. Colonial wasn’t normally my thing, but the white brick and modest porch looked like bliss. The grass was neat, forgiving, and easily passable. If I had to I’d spend my night right here on the lawn and be okay with that.
“Stalk much?” he asked, leaning against his front door and catching me off guard. With both my feet firmly planted well into his yard, it was hard to deny that I was in fact stalking him.
“Sorry.” The porch light wasn’t on. I could hardly see him, which made me wonder if there would ever be a time when he wouldn’t sneak up on me.
“You say that a lot.”
“I guess I do,” I said, taking a tiny step closer.
“At the risk of getting yelled at—what’re you doing on my lawn?”
The question conjured up the image of a grumpy old man shaking his fist at a precocious neighborhood kid. William Brooks might’ve been older than me but he wasn’t old. I stifled a giggle.
“Running away. Where’s your dog?”
“He’s inside,” he said with a tilt of his head. “How’d you think I knew you were lurking around out here?”
“Oh, right.” Trying to straighten up, I tugged my sweater down and pulled my shoulders back. A weird tinge of excitement ran through me because we both used the word lurking to describe our encounters. “I thought you were just watching me, maybe.”
He laughed, really laughed. “Do you want to come in?”
“I do, but I don’t know if I should.” I took another step closer, a bigger one this time, trying to see his face.
“Well, would you like to sit down?” He gestured to the two wooden chairs on his right.
I didn’t answer; I just climbed the steps and plopped down in the first chair. In the light coming from the window I could finally see him. He was wearing a plain tee and flannel sleep pants at 9:41 p.m. on a Friday. A quick glance down to his feet revealed that, sadly, he wasn’t wearing any shoes, but the length of his toes was surprising.
“I’m Ollie,” I told him without any attempt at a handshake.
“Is that short for anything?” he asked without any attempt to introduce himself as he sat next to me.
“Nope.” I shook my head. “It’s just Ollie.”
“Got a last name?”
“I don’t know. Got a first name?”
“Listen, Ollie, I’m sure you already know my name, age, occupation, social security number, mother’s maiden name, and obviously where I live. Just trying to even the playing field.”
“Fair enough,” I agreed, splaying my hands. “It’s Oxmend.”
“Does your middle name start with an O too?” He raised one eyebrow and gave me a sort of smile like he couldn’t wait for the answer.
“Don’t have one. What’s your dog’s name?”
“It’s Boden.”
I smiled at such a coincidence. “I’ve been to Boden before.”
“The typical response when I tell people his name is ‘where’d you get that from?’ So, I have to ask, why have you been to Boden?”
Damn my big mouth. Things were going so well; I should’ve just smiled and nodded, but now I had to talk about it.
“Well, I normally never tell people I’ve been to Boden, I just say Sweden in general. I went with my dad on a work trip. He used to be a photographer and we ended up there. More like passed through, but it made an impression, ya know? Have you been?” Ending with a question would hopefully force him to answer instead of asking me a follow-up.
Looking at him made me realize he was really listening to me. He kept his gaze on mine and slightly angled himself in his chair to face me. I suddenly felt very uninteresting. Maybe I could mention all the other countries I’d traveled to, but that would bring me right back to my dad. We went everywhere together.
“No, I’ve never been,” he answered, “but I’ve always wanted to go. That’s where my family’s from. Going will be a pilgrimage of sorts for me.”
“So, you have plans to go then?”
“More like a goal.”
“Well”—I pulled my legs up on the chair to fully settle in—“what’s stopping you?”
His mouth hung open and he rubbed his thumb across his slightly stubbly chin like he was really thinking about my question.
“I’m busy and just waiting for my schedule to clear up.”
Casting my gaze back to the house across the street, I preformed the most exaggerated eye roll at his pathetic answer.
“That’s so lame,” I said without thinking about how this guy I didn’t even kn
ow would take it.
“You’re calling me on my BS?”
“I am,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t ask me to leave, “because that’s what it is.”
“Yeah. It is.” My eyes were eager to be on his face again, and when they landed there he was smiling. “Going back over there?” He pointed to Sadie’s.
“No.” My palms itched and my heart hurt and I couldn’t be in that house. I pulled my black cardigan more tightly around my body.
“Would you like to come in now?” he asked, eyeing me.
I thought about it and decided I’d rather risk a stranger’s company than be with my closest friends. “Yes.”
Once inside I was eagerly greeted by Boden. I sank to my knees and basked in the ever-present and unconditional love all dogs have to offer while Dr. Brooks disappeared down the dark hallway. I began to feel uneasy and out of place in his very nice, very grown up home.
A few seconds later, a light flickered on in the hall in front of me and he reappeared holding two steaming mugs. I followed him into the living room to my right.
It was nice. Everything was nice. From the wooden floor to the high ceiling—probably necessary because of his height—to the wainscoting. I probably watch too much HGTV.
I sat carefully on one of the leather chairs, trying not to mess it up by being on it. As I gingerly sipped my hot beverage, I had to remind myself to breathe.
“It’s tea,” he informed me. “I hope that’s all right with you. I don’t drink coffee.”
I nodded my head and took another sip. It was more than all right. It was delightful. And I didn’t drink coffee either, but I didn’t tell him that. He sat on the couch across from me with the kind of ease and grace that can only come from years of self-confidence.
“It’s fine, but I thought new doctors were mostly fueled by coffee.”
He laughed. Again. I couldn’t tell if it was at me or with me. “What did Sadie tell you I do?”
He said her name with ease, and his comment earlier about how I probably already knew all those things about him had me wondering if he and Sadie actually did talk.