After the Ink Dries

by Cassie Gustafson

  The one time Amber and I seemed to hit it off was over lunch when we were talking about Frida Kahlo. Amber knew a lot about her activism, but not about the bus accident that nearly killed Frida, which got her to start painting, or the fact that she also did frescos and etchings. Midway through my conversation with Amber, I’d felt like I was finally earning her approval. Then she said something about Frida being an early feminist, and I jokingly responded, “Just another man hater!” even though I knew that had nothing to do with it. I’d only said it to make Caylee laugh, which it had, but when I turned back to Amber, she seemed… disappointed somehow.

  So how could I possibly reach out to her now about last night if I have no idea what she’d do with the information? No, she’s a well-known tattletale. I know what she’d do. She’d want to tell someone—an adult—but I can’t risk word of this getting out. Calling her isn’t an option.

  I try to think of someone else I could call, but I’ve only been at Bay City for a few months and don’t have anyone else’s number. Caylee and Thomas have been my main friends, and even if I wanted to contact him, I don’t know Thomas’s number either.

  I stumble to my room, where I find my scattered colored pens and the folder on my nightstand filled with sketches I’ve done, but these aren’t of Erica Strange. Since moving here, I started illustrating comics of my real life, too—Thomas and Caylee and all things Bay City. My entire life at this school is in this folder. I’d scan and upload these sketches onto my private website, alongside my Erica Strange ones but in their own thread. Still, if I’m being honest, lately I’ve done a lot more sketches of Thomas and me than I have of Erica Strange.

  Brushing aside my pens, I flip open the folder, knowing what I’ll find even as I do—my first-ever Bay City spread. It’s a paneled page of Thomas and me from the very first time I saw him. I run my hand across the image of Thomas smiling up at me and can picture that second day at Bay City Prep so clearly in my mind. Mom and I’d just moved to the edge of town, away from my old friends and school. I still hadn’t met anyone, and I remember feeling so out of place and so very alone, not to mention lost in the giant hallways. People jostled me as I searched again for my first class, and I tried to summon my inner Erica Strange but didn’t get very far. Even the violet pants I had on that’d seemed “Erica Strange” cool in my room now felt “squishy eggplant” cool. Suddenly, everything started to crowd in, and blind panic ran through me. Without warning, I felt on the verge of a full-blown anxiety attack right there in the middle of the hallway. Fighting tears and a flood of pelting thoughts, I rounded yet another corner…

  And there he was.

  He sat on the other side of the hallway glass in the courtyard—a beautiful white-skinned, dark-haired boy with broad shoulders and eyes pressed shut in concentration. Early morning sunlight streamed over him as he leaned against a picnic table, black Converse tapping out a silent beat as he strummed along to whatever music he heard in his head. His eyes flew open, and he scrambled for a notebook and pen, sticking his tongue out as he jotted down the thoughts scurrying through his mind. Something about the way he closed out the world, air-guitaring and journaling like no one was watching, made longing well up in the pit of my stomach. I thought about my suffocating panic from moments ago, broken now only because I’d been wholly distracted, but that more often than not got the better of me. I wanted so badly to be as free as he looked.

  He glanced up at me then, startled—dazed, even—to see me staring back at him. I knew I should feel embarrassed, look away, but all I could do was notice how perfectly his sea-blue shirt matched his eyes. He recovered quickly, mouth quirking into a lopsided smile before forming a single word: Hi.

  Hi, I mouthed back, causing his grin, then my own, to widen.

  The warning bell rang, sending both our gazes skyward before snapping back to each other.

  He shrugged, resigned: So it begins.

  I scrunched my face to let him know I shared his agony. We stayed there, suspended in time, before I broke the connection with a little wave. He returned the wave, flashing another smile before scrambling to his feet and tripping over his backpack, which made me laugh.

  I bit my lip and turned to head for my locker, but not before throwing a quick glance over my shoulder and catching his eye again. Though he stood with his backpack slung over one shoulder, his eyes stayed tethered to me.

  My mind pinged with questions: What was his name? What did he write in that notebook of his? What music filled his ears that allowed him to lose himself in the middle of the school courtyard? Because whatever it was, I wanted in.

  I didn’t know it back then, but he would become my first friend at Bay City. He’d transfer to my Spanish class, sit right behind me, and ask me about the Erica Strange drawings that filled my sketchbook. I’d learn his name, that he played guitar and wrote songs. I’d call him Thomas the Rhymer and he’d call me Erica Strange. But in that hallway, all I knew then was, when the boy from the courtyard looked at me through that window, I felt less alone and like maybe Erica Strange wasn’t so out-of-reach after all.

  Now I drop the folder of drawings back onto my nightstand and all the memories with it. My gaze travels across the room to my bulletin board that’s covered in pictures and bits of art inspiration. There’s the Disney princess stickers Caylee gave me as a joke next to a photo of her, Amber, and me at Pizzaz Pizza Parlor, with Amber flipping off the camera. This half-covers a picture of Isabela and me, taken at St. Agnes a few weeks before I transferred. Then there’s the Lead Paint album cover for Thomas’s favorite band, a Los Angeles County Museum of Art ticket stub from our second date, one of Thomas’s Spanish worksheets he’d messed up on, the note he’d left on my car after his friends had been jerks, and finally, the grainy photo he’d taken of us at the beach the night of our first real date, his tan face smiling beside mine. But we’re the same! Twin artist souls! Thomas the Rhymer and Erica Strange! And then I have to stop looking. The horror of last night’s party crashes over me, again and again. Each time feels like the first time.

  In blurry images, I replay it all: Zac’s backyard, dotted with a few dozen classmates and the blue and white colors of Bay City Panther pride; groups huddled around two perspiring kegs of cheap beer and the roaring bonfire; the snap and sparkle of bottle rockets and fireworks igniting; Thomas’s dark hair falling over crystal-blue eyes, his mischievous smile aimed at me.

  I glance again at the folder of drawings.

  Where were you, Thomas?

  I want to collapse onto my bed, but it’s heaped with clothes—several rejected outfits from last night. Heat balls in my stomach as I remember yesterday’s manic excitement while I got ready for the party, music cranked as I bounced around my room, fretting over stupid details, like if I should wear my hair up or down. Makeup, playful or sultry? Like everything had to be perfect. As if any of that could possibly matter now.

  Best friend won’t call you back. Thomas’s friends wrote on you. God knows what else. You’ll never live it down. Never.

  My body flushes with heat. I fling the clothes off the bed and kick at them, pummeling the mattress with my fists. I kick and hit until I’m out of breath, despite what it does to my pounding head. As I squeeze my fists to my mouth, a silent shriek tears at my throat. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

  I stop short at the sight of gray. On the floor, the arm of Thomas’s sweatshirt drapes over my clothes, the sweatshirt he’d given me to wear after his game. I scoop it up, feeling the soft fabric between my fingers. His audition—it’s today. Had he forgotten? No, he definitely wouldn’t have. Blood pounds in my temples as I breathe in the scent of him.

  But he was there, in the kitchen.

  An instant later, I drop the sweatshirt, overwhelmed by heat. When it reaches my stomach, I know I have only seconds to make it to the bathroom. Moving as quickly as my lead body will allow, I sprint to the bathroom, flinging open the toilet lid as vomit erupts. Shaking and spent, I press my clammy forehead against t
he cool plastic of the toilet seat. Through a blur of tears, my eyes find the shower curtain covered in bulgy-eyed goldfish. I have to shower. I have to get this crap off me. But the effort to stay upright is too much.

  Pulling the bathroom rug to me, I lie down against its matted, gray fur, tears leaking from my eyes. I’m so embarrassed. Mortified beyond belief. I feel disgusting. Am disgusting. Normally the hair and dirt stuck to the rug would appall me, but I only need to glance at the smudged Sharpie covering my skin to realize that I couldn’t get any dirtier.

  THOMAS

  “THOMAS, GET YOUR ASS IN here.”

  Shit. My father.

  I’d heard my parents talking in the kitchen but had tried to slip past them and escape up the stairs. My truck must’ve given me away. Or the front door. Or my guilt. Everything about this morning is going so wrong. But if I don’t leave soon, I’ll never make my audition in time. I need to get this over with, and fast.

  I swallow hard and try to throw myself together in the steps it takes to get to the kitchen—smooth my hair, my damp shirt. Anything to make me look a fraction less shitty than I feel. But I can’t erase the evidence of sweaty pits or alcohol breath.

  Mom’s clearing away breakfast dishes while my father stands at the bar top, holding a steaming mug of coffee. He’s got on a pressed gray suit that won’t let anyone forget he’s a senior partner at McMurray and Associates, even on weekends when he’s not in court. Taking one look at me, he jabs a finger in my direction, face filling with disgust. “Where the hell were you? You had your mother worried.”

  With my father there’s never a right answer, so I stay quiet.

  His hands death-grip the mug, anger multiplying. “Not going to answer me, huh? So, what then, after finally showing some promise on that lacrosse field last night, you’re just going to screw it all up? And you look like hell. Partying all night, I suppose? Wasting your goddamned life?”

  “Tyler,” Mom whispers from the sink.

  “What?” my father spits, and Mom goes quiet, returning to the silverware she’s rinsing. “The boy has to realize there’s more to life than parties and beer, Sharon. You work hard or you’re nothing.”

  My anger flares. I only made time for Zac’s party because Erica was going to be there.

  “Hop on, little croc”, my brain replays.

  I yank myself out of that memory so fast, feeling sick to my stomach. I can’t think about last night. I need to get my ass out the door ASAP.

  But my father rages on, no end in sight, comparing me to my older brother, Michael—ambitious, driven, three years into his premed degree—everything my father wishes he could intimidate me into becoming. I grit my teeth, heart pounding, refusing to say anything for fear he’ll keep me longer. Plus, I know what this is. He’s still punishing me for spending the winter break with my uncle Kurt. My father had probably hoped letting me go visit Kurt would deglamorize my uncle’s lifestyle in my eyes, show me how hard life as a tour manager for a rock band is, and that next summer I’d agree to take some worthless internship at his law office. Of course, my father had been wrong. I knew I’d love it. And I had. Every single hectic, sleep-deprived second of it. And halfway through break, when I’d gotten notice of my callback audition to USC’s Thornton School of Music, it’d felt like fate.

  But what kind of shitty fate would it be if I missed my audition because my father held me hostage? He has to remember today’s the big day.

  I breathe a sigh of relief when I hear his favorite threat, the one he works into the end of every conversation: “You place one toe out of line again, Thomas, and you can forget all about that fancy music school of yours. Do you understand me?”

  Music school—the rug he’d rip out from under my feet if given the smallest chance. Or, more specifically, Thornton, because it’s all come down to them.

  Beginning of my junior year, my father had made a crazy deal with me: make first string in lacrosse and keep a 4.0 for the remainder of high school in exchange for him paying my way through a degree in music… if I managed to get accepted. He’d probably only agreed to the deal because he wanted to watch me disappoint him yet again, either by failing or upholding the deal. Or maybe he just wanted to have something to hold over my head, only to find some lawyerly loophole and wriggle free in the final hour. Or most likely, he never thought I’d actually get this close. Whatever his reasoning, I’d had no choice but to accept his terms.

  I nod at him now. Understood.

  “Good. Now get out of my sight.” He slams his mug on the counter before making for his office, probably to pick up the phone and repeat this conversation of disapproval on someone else.

  I let out my breath. From the sink, Mom gives me a small smile, gripping a soapy breakfast plate. Of course she’s all smiles now that he’s gone. But she looks as small and breakable as the plate in her hands, so I shove down my irritation and give her a quick hug before darting for my room. I call out behind me, “Love you, Mom. Sorry I made you worry.”

  I barely catch her “Love you too, sweetie. Good luck at your audition,” as I pound up the stairs. She did remember, then.

  In my room, my eyes fly to my electric-acoustic, Eleanor, resting in her stand. The silver Sharpie scrawled across her glossy mahogany body glints in the light—four autographs signed to me, ink not even three months dry. The names belong to all the members from Lead Paint: Benji Solaris, only the greatest lead guitarist in the world of alternative rock, alongside Chad, Kobe, and Arjun. Eleanor had been a gift to me from Uncle Kurt for helping him over break.

  But now I can’t see Eleanor without thinking about Erica. My guts clench.

  I still need to tune Eleanor, shower, get my ass on the road, but instead I whip out my phone and click into messages, then Erica’s name. The final message she sent last night stares up:

  Here :)

  and my reply:

  :D

  I’d been stoked to get her text, practically mowed everyone down as I hurried to Zac’s front door to meet her. But looking at her text now, everything I want to say evaporates. I pause, then type out: Hey, listen…

  Too weird. I erase it and start over.

  Erica Strange! But I erase that fast. Far too enthused.

  I think about her boots in my backseat. Should I tell her I have them so maybe we could meet up today and I could return them?

  Erica, can we talk? I erase that for Wanna talk? But what if she doesn’t? What if she turned her phone off earlier so I couldn’t talk to her?

  Could I blame her?

  I hold down the delete button till that disappears too, cursor flashing. Then my phone pings, startling the shit out of me—another text from Uncle Kurt: You on your way, kid?

  Damn it!

  Splashing water on my face, I run wet hands through my hair, then scramble into the clothes I laid out yesterday. I’d planned out today so differently in my head: sleep well, eat breakfast, arrive early, find my uncle, check in, find the practice room, tune Eleanor, calm my nerves…

  And Erica. Last night… I’d planned that so differently too. I swallow hard, fighting the urge to puke again.

  But there’s no time. I snap Eleanor into her case and sprint from the room.

  ERICA

  THE TWISTING OF THE BATHROOM doorknob shatters my sleep. Two quick knocks follow.

  “Erica? You in there?” It’s Mom, her tone frantic.

  “She has to be,” says the voice of Valerie. “Her car’s here.”

  I bolt upright, then remember where I am. Bathroom floor. Disgusting rug.

  The knob twists again but the door doesn’t open. Locked, thank god.

  What time is it? Fundraiser over already? I rub my face, feeling the scaly imprint the rug made on my cheek.

  “Erica, you open this door,” Mom commands.

  “Yeah, okay,” I manage, voice gravel. “Just a minute.” I take in the beer-and-vomit-covered remains of last night’s outfit. Worse, my graffitied limbs are on full display. My head snap
s around the room. Towel? No, that’ll never cover it all. But what? Then I spot my fuzzy purple bathrobe hanging on the door and tear it from its hook.

  “Erica, I’m not kidding. Open the door this instant!” Mom’s voice morphs into straight-up pissed.

  “Just a minute!” I call again.

  The robe has longish sleeves but only comes to mid-calf. It definitely won’t cover my shins, let alone my foot where Forest’s name is scrawled next to the exploding penis. But I’m out of options.

  Mom and Valerie whisper-argue as I throw on the robe, unlock the door, then plop back on the rug and whip my feet under me.

  As the door flies open, I burrow into the fabric, praying neither of them can see through it to my humiliation. Mom flits in like an angry white hornet, hair tossed up in its perpetually messy knot. A two-sizes-too-big St. Joseph’s Hospital T-shirt hangs over old jeans. She’s everything I’m not: thin to my curvy, tall to my compact, and has smooth chestnut hair that mocks my crazy mop of curls. She’s bony, too, like Caylee, though she lacks Caylee’s delicate features.

  And if Mom’s a bee, Valerie’s a beetle. Nothing gets past her hard-shell exterior. Valerie stands in the doorway, arms crossed, her dark eyes surveying the scene. I can’t remember a time when Valerie hasn’t been around. She and Mom did nursing school together back when I was a baby, and ever since she helped Mom land the job at St. Joseph’s, they’ve become even more inseparable. I melt under Valerie’s gaze, afraid she’ll know—that they both will—just by looking at me. Not that Mom has any experience with catching me drink alcohol. The few times I have, I was a lot more careful.