Ink is Thicker Than Water (Entangled Teen)

by Spalding, Amy

  We squeeze past the group on the porch, smoking every variation of whatever could be smoked besides, you know, crack, and make our way inside, where Paul is playing a weird, beaten-up guitar, the kind that has crazy strings popping loose like a hairstyle gone bad, and along with Scott and a few other guys from newspaper, singing with the stereo.

  “Hey,” everyone kind of greets me in grunty dude unison. One of them hums the Batman song, but it’s done so half-assedly I can’t even locate its source.

  “Hey. This is Oliver.”

  I introduce Oliver to all of them, and he shakes their hands, which makes Oliver look like a huge nerd, so I sort of make a joke out of it before pulling Oliver with me in search of the rumored keg. It’s in the kitchen, along with a dozen liquor bottles each holding a few inches of something.

  “Here.” Oliver hands me a cup of beer and gets one for himself. “You want to go out to the backyard? Looks like that’s where everyone is.”

  I agree and follow him out. Mitchell and Chelsea are there. Oliver says hi to them with more handshaking, like he’s interviewing for a job and not just some guy dating their friend. But neither of them acts like he’s weird, so that’s a relief.

  “Kellie Brooks.” Adelaide appears out of nowhere, trailed by Byron. I’m pretty sure she’s dressed as Eleanor Roosevelt. “I’m glad to see you, this party needs more than culturally unaware pop-punk-listening drones competing at who can be the drunkest.”

  “Hey, Adelaide,” Oliver says.

  “Hello, Oliver. It’s good to see you, too. See, Byron, I told you someone else who’d already graduated would be here.”

  “Solidarity,” Byron says, tapping his fist against Oliver’s.

  “Why are you Batgirl?” Adelaide asks. “What’s the significance?”

  “My little brother had most of this stuff already,” I say. “The significance is laziness.”

  Adelaide loops one of her arms through mine and tugs me away from Oliver. “Just so you know, Kaitlyn’s here.”

  “What?” I follow her line of sight. Kaitlyn is standing there like she belongs, which feels pretty dishonest when she’s put all this effort into leaving us behind. She’s dressed as a “sexy” pirate. “Why? Isn’t this stooping way too low socially for her?”

  Adelaide shrugs. “There are a lot of people here, Kellie. News of free booze spreads fast.”

  “‘Booze’?” I laugh, even though I also want to puke. Josie is talking right into Kaitlyn’s ear, and they both laugh in a stupid, uproarious way. No one’s ever as funny as you want other people to think you are. “Maybe I should go.”

  “I’ll kill you if you do,” she says.

  I stick my tongue out at her but return to the crowd, leaning back into Oliver like we’re the kind of couple we actually aren’t. But if Kaitlyn catches one glimpse of us, I want to firmly control that glimpse. Probably that isn’t any better than uproarious laughter, but I’m only so strong.

  When our beers are finished, I volunteer to head inside to refill our cups, which makes Oliver laugh and run after me. Inside the kitchen we sneak in a few kisses in the rare moments we’re actually alone.

  “Ahem,” someone says, like someone actually says the word ahem. I pull away from Oliver to mock whoever it is, but who it is turns out to be Kaitlyn.

  “Oh,” I say. “Sorry. We were just—”

  “I’m getting a drink,” she says.

  “So were we.” It is a dumb thing to say because clearly we were doing more than that. I can’t even stand the thought of being in the same room as her, so I grab Oliver’s hand and pull him into the next room, which has also emptied out. People seem to be either out on the front porch or in the backyard, with only a few in here intent on whatever is being played on the Xbox involving vampires and several buckets’ worth of blood.

  “Everything okay?” Oliver asks me.

  “Sure, except I hate her.” I grab the collar of his jacket and pull him to me, kiss him like life depends on it.

  “Hey.” Oliver jerks back from me. “We can head out if you want to mess around or whatever, but—”

  “‘Mess around’? This is what we always do.”

  “Yeah, in my room or your room or our cars. Just—” He shrugs. “Who are you doing this for? Doesn’t seem like me.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I say, even though I know exactly what he means. Of course Oliver deserves to be made out with only when I actually want to, not when it’s to prove to Kaitlyn I’m doing just fine.

  I am a jerk.

  “I’m getting a beer,” he says and walks back into the kitchen.

  I just stand there waiting at the edge of the room, vaguely keeping an eye on the Xbox. When someone steps close to me, I assume Oliver is back to apologize or see if I want a beer or who knows what else. But it’s just Paul.

  “Hey,” he says softly, and now I wonder if Dexter was right about him. After all, I’m absolutely positive he heard Oliver and me. Sure, I knew he checked me out when he could, but I guess his interest is a little stronger than just that. “Everything cool?”

  “Everything’s fine. How’s saving the princess going? Or whatever you guys are doing over there?”

  He laughs and shakes his head, honestly looking pretty hot in the tall, dark, and handsome way (well, for a dude happy to sit and play video games at a party where there are both girls and alcohol). I have no idea what he’s dressed as, just some medieval-looking stuff, so I’m assuming it’s a Game of Thrones reference I am not catching.

  “It’s okay,” Paul says. “So that guy your boyfriend? Or just some guy you know picking a fight with you for kissing him? Not that I was spying or anything,” he adds when I probably looked slightly horrified.

  “Yeah, not at all. And, yeah.” Paul should know that I am not someone up for consideration. But I can’t lie and say I don’t like being up for consideration. I know the kinds of things about me that Kaitlyn thought she had to leave behind, even if she didn’t say them aloud. And I may always be a dork who’d rather drink cocoa and listen to The Who than wear something tight and sparkly and party it up at a club. But it doesn’t mean I’m not growing up, too.

  Ugh, I sound too lame and cheesy, even for the insides of my own brain.

  “I guess I should go talk to him,” I say to Paul, though I don’t wait for his reaction.

  Oliver is in the kitchen, talking to Kaitlyn, but at least he smiles when I walk in so hopefully that doesn’t mean she was telling him terrible things about me—or if she was, that he was believing them. “Hey.”

  “Hey. Keg assistance please?”

  “Sure,” he says, then to Kaitlyn, “Good meeting you. I’ll see you around.”

  She is staring sort of bug-eyed at me, her immature former friend who just happens to be there with a cute college guy, the cute college guy she was clearly flirting with. It’s thrilling, except I remind myself not to be a jerk.

  “Come on,” I say, and pull him to the backyard. “Sorry if I was being—”

  He hugs me tightly. Sometimes Oliver is just so nice. “You want to go somewhere and talk?”

  I shrug because I still haven’t fully accepted Oliver as some sort of option when my brain gets way too full of crap to deal with. “I’ll be fine.”

  “You sure?”

  I shrug again, watching as Kaitlyn walks across the yard to the oasis of cool in the sea of the rest of us. If aliens landed right now, they’d know right away who’s powerful here. “She used to be my best friend. It’s really hard. And Sara’s still…I don’t even know what Sara’s doing.”

  “People mess up, Kell,” he says, with one of those Looks I know is Significant. “That’s a normal part of life. Right?”

  “Right.” I hug him back. Even though he’s kind of on the skinny side, he’s like a solid wall when I throw my arms around him. “I’m not normally like this. Things are just kind of crazy, and I think it might be making me crazy, too.”

  “Listen, I’ve been there.
You can talk to me.” He holds my face in his hands, right next to his, which kind of overwhelms me at how close we are to be talking and not making out. “Don’t hurt me, but Kaitlyn seemed okay. Maybe you guys can talk?”

  I elbow Oliver in the stomach. (I was aiming for his ribs but he’s like eight inches taller than me.) “Seriously, I don’t think she’ll ever want to. It’s like she’s this new Kaitlyn, and I can’t even see the one I was friends with anymore. You know?”

  “I guess.” He shrugs, just a little. “Sometimes it’s tough when people are changing. Doesn’t mean you can’t be friends, but sometimes there’s adjusting before you can line up again.”

  I remember that Sara said something not unlike that, though she hadn’t believed the lining up again was as inevitable. I guess I don’t, either, but it’s nice that Oliver feels otherwise. “Did you learn that from Hume?”

  Oliver laughs and hugs his arms around me. “I learned that from life.”

  I love it when people say things that make you feel possible again.

  “You want to go?”

  I don’t, not really. More people have shown up, and it’s easier to forget that the ones I don’t want to see are there. So we stay, and I drink a little more, and okay, Oliver and I do sneak off to make out, but it’s due to beer and standing so close for so long, and definitely not showing off for anyone. The only bad thing about it is it’s definitely the catalyst for our conversation in the car later, a conversation I’d hoped wouldn’t actually come up. Couldn’t things just happen organically without needing to talk about them?

  “So I was…” Oliver cups his hand over one of my knees. I’m wearing thick tights but I can still feel the little paths his fingertips make. I’m dizzy from it. “Wondering. Maybe sometime we could…?”

  “Have sex?” I ask, because I hate all of those stupid euphemisms like take this to the next level or get intimate, and if one thing could make me not want to sleep with Oliver, ever, it’d be him saying something like that.

  “Well, yeah. I’m not trying to push you or anything, just…”

  “No, I know.” I think about how close we’d come back in May and how freaked out I’d been then. Of course I haven’t been scared again, not even once, but I’ve put up stopping points and kept him aware of those. And maybe that’s why it feels like I’ll never freak out again. What if our clothes all come off with sex firmly on the agenda and I’m still the same way? It’s bad enough I reacted like that then; if I start crying about having sex with my boyfriend in front of him, I will likely never recover. Lately, I can’t exactly trust myself to contain my emotions. “Maybe I should go on birth control first or something.” Ooh, great idea, self. Buying time and preventing teen pregnancy in one fell swoop.

  “Good plan,” he says, as he pulls up to my house. “Sorry I got you back late.”

  “It’s one oh one.” I laugh and lean in to kiss him. “My mom’s not that strict.”

  So we kiss for a while before I get out of the car and quietly let myself into the house. Mom is up in the living room watching TV, but she switches it off as I walk in the room. It’s weird that she’s up, but back before she had her own shop and a little kid to look after, Mom was always up late. So maybe she’s just reclaiming her old ways.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Your curfew’s one sharp, Kell-belle. That doesn’t mean a little after one.”

  Since when? “I’m sorry, we just—”

  “I don’t know when you girls decided curfew was flexible, but we need to get back to following it. Okay?”

  Oh, there we go. Mom’s complaint list for my sister is growing by the minute, but I’m the one who’s here. “Okay. Sorry again, Mom.”

  “Do you want to open the shop tomorrow?” Mom asks, her tone like an apology for yelling at me. “I have a couple errands I should run in the morning.”

  “Sure,” I say as Mom gets up and hands me her Family Ink key. “Can I keep this?”

  “Of course. I’ve got spares.” She kisses my forehead. “Get some sleep.”

  I stop by Sara’s room on the way to mine. Totally empty. She’d better shape up soon, or Mom will go so crazy with rules I’ll never manage to have sex with Oliver. If I am going to have sex with Oliver. I’m not going to make that decision tonight.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Even though I don’t get to sleep in as late as usual, I’m excited to open the shop on Saturday. Keeping to Mom’s traditions, I stop off first for coffee and donuts, making sure to get some vegan ones for Russell. When I get to The Family Ink, I think about unloading Russell’s CDs from the stereo for mine, but the truth is when people are getting tattooed, they’re probably expecting to hear The Ramones or The Misfits or The Damned or that creaky old-timey piano music while that guy with the old-man voice drones on about the dregs of society, and not the happiest pop music in the history of the world.

  Russell shows up before long, grinning when he sees the coffee and donuts. “You already accomplished the most important job of the day. Any calls?”

  “Just people checking the hours, no appointments. You’re pretty booked today, though.”

  He sits down at his station and opens up the newspaper. “Don’t know if your mom talked to you or not yet—”

  “She did. I’ll be better about my curfew.”

  “Not that. Sara’s at Camille’s for a few more nights. Just so you know.”

  “She might as well move in with Camille.” I feel mean but not wrong. “I mean, obviously she’s going to.”

  Russell sighs, not looking up from the paper. “Let’s hope not. It’s her decision, though, Kell, she is eighteen.”

  “It’s so dumb. Like you turn eighteen and you magically make good decisions.”

  “I didn’t say that. I’m saying she’s allowed to make those calls for herself.” He’s still looking at the paper and not me. “And you might want to keep in mind this isn’t exactly easy on your mom and give her a break.”

  Of my parental units, Russell is definitely the least annoying. So clearly there’s a first time for everything.

  I check my email instead of trying to talk any more with him, and luckily within a couple of minutes, both his first appointment and the freelance artist walk in, so I don’t have to anyway.

  I spend my lunch eating pho and reading about Hume, and when I get back (completely on-time), Mom is at the front desk working on an elaborate floral design. She smiles at me like all is fine and I hadn’t gotten a ridiculous curfew lecture and Sara isn’t slowly leaving us. “Hey, baby. Good lunch?”

  “I guess. So is it okay if I go to a movie with Oliver tonight?” He’d texted me during lunch, and despite our sex conversation and my lack of love for most new movies, it sounds like a good way to spend my night.

  Mom frowns. “Normally of course I’d say yes, but Russell and I both need to stay until closing, and Russell’s mom had Finn since this morning.”

  “Mom, I babysat like almost every night this week,” I say, not bringing up the fact that I’d basically taken over Sara’s one measly night, too. “What about his sitter?”

  “She’s busy, and this isn’t up for debate.”

  Russell looks up from the drama masks he’s inking and shoots us both a look. I can practically read his mind: No domestic drama in the shop. So I step out front, and Mom follows.

  “It’s not fair if—”

  “No, it isn’t fair, but that’s what being part of a family is, it’s pitching in and helping when you’re needed. And you’re needed.”

  “You’re ruining my social life,” I say and cringe, like who am I to say something straight out of a teen movie?

  “I highly doubt that.” She ruffles my hair. “I’ll make this up to you, okay?”

  “With time travel to give me the night off later? It’s fine, I’ll do it. I mean, I don’t have any choice. It’s not like it’s Finn’s fault.”

  “You’re the best, Kell-belle,” she says, but I don’t want to hear it, just
want to get inside and break the news to Oliver. I feel like a bad girlfriend and a bad sister for being disappointed at spending the evening with Finn.

  It hits me that Mom probably feels guilty enough about my canceled plans to let me have company. I text Oliver to see if he wants to come over instead (and he does) before ambushing Mom in the back room between appointments.

  “So would it be okay if Oliver came over tonight?” I ask. Probably this is a little riskier, one night after The Conversation, but it’s not like I would have had time to go on birth control in the past twenty-four hours or anything. “I won’t neglect Finn or anything, I just thought maybe because I can’t go out…” Guilt trips aren’t really respectable, but the thing is, when used in moderation, they work.

  “Sure, baby.” She cups my chin with one of her hands. “Are you two having sex yet?”

  Yet? Add my mother to the list of those who think it’s a foregone conclusion. “Mom—”

  “I was sixteen once, you know. If you need to go talk to a doctor about birth control, I’d be more than happy to take you.”

  Obviously, I do need to go talk to someone about birth control, but I have this unsettled feeling somewhere between my heart and my brain about Mom, like that she would be so, so proud of this beautiful, shining moment where I go to see her gynecologist and she gets to be the cool, open-minded mom.

  And right now I just don’t want to give her that.

  “We’re not, Mom, and I’m fine.”

  What a lame way to make a point. Now I have to figure out how to do this without Mom’s help or else totally backpedal later.

  “Well, either way, of course Oliver’s welcome to come over tonight,” she says and kisses my cheek while I stand there, completely unprotected. And it’s all my own fault.

  Oliver apparently has a ton of homework, so once he arrives and says hi to Finn and me, he plunks down at the kitchen table with his laptop and a bunch of books about Nietzsche. Rocking Saturday night. Finn and I play catch in the backyard, with a ball I’d painted in zebra stripes for him, while I try not to think about how much fun I’d be having out with Oliver, where he’d get to ignore his homework in favor of me for awhile.