I make a U-turn and head home, comforted by my marble and telling myself that Caylee’s probably reading my message right now. And if she’s going to chuck me out of her life, at least she’ll know deep down that she’s chucking the truth out right alongside me.
THOMAS
A WHISTLE BLOWS AGAIN. COACH gestures me off the field. Again.
“Thomas, sit this one out.” He’s staring at his clipboard, disappointment oozing from him. I’ve been playing like shit all afternoon. As I near, Coach gestures to the bench. “Cole, you’re in.”
Cole leaps up, ready to take my spot.
“What?” I demand from the goal, so he’ll have to look up from his stupid clipboard when he repeats it.
Coach levels his eyes on me. “I said you need to sit this one out. You’re up, Cole.” To everyone, he yells, “Okay, guys, let’s bring it in.”
The guys all huddle up as I storm off the field and throw myself onto the bench, stick and gloves hitting the ground, as far from Coach as I can get.
I realize too late that Zac stands to my left, ignoring the huddle and staring me down. “The hell has gotten into you, VanB?” He looks amused, head tilted as he chomps his gum.
I spit out my mouthguard and hurl my helmet. “What the hell has gotten into me? Are you kidding?”
He laughs, and my hands fight fists. “What’s your problem, man?” I shout.
Zac leans in. “My problem is you, VanBrackel, acting like a pretty pink princess, and pretty pink princesses don’t belong on my team.”
I scoff. “Your team? Don’t kid yourself, man.”
His face dares me to keep going so I do, rising to my feet. My thumbs squeeze around curled fingers. I want to punch the smirk right off his face. “You know what, Boyd? You think you own everything. That everything is yours for the taking. But guess what? We’ve won every single game without you. We don’t need you.”
Down the bench, Coach yells something, but I don’t hear. Blood thrums in my ears as Zac’s face gets inches from mine, gum popping. He drops his voice to a low growl. “Wanna know what I think, VanBrackel? I think you’re butt hurt about that Erica chick because she got a taste of my cock before yours. But it’s cool. You can have my sloppy seconds.”
When my fist makes contact with Zac’s face, it’s bone against bone—a sickening crack of knuckles hitting jaw. He staggers backward, nearly falling, then regains his balance and runs at me like a bull, taking my feet out from under me and hurling me beside the bench. I slam the ground, ribs absorbing his full weight, back of my head smacking turf.
Someone yells out as our fists fly. Elbows, knees, shins collide. He’s on top of me, forearm pressed to my windpipe. I buck him off, elbow crunching the bridge of his nose. Cartilage gives but he doesn’t slow. While I’ve got height advantage, Zac’s hours in the gym have paid off. But I’m wearing full padding and he’s not. Several blows bounce off my chest protector. We scramble to our feet, crouched and ready. He charges, tearing at my head, ears, hair. I rip free then throw all my weight into him. No padding cushions his fall, but it’s his injured elbow that does him in. He lands on his bad side, breath gushing from him. I jump him and land blow after blow on his face, a few connecting with the forearm and cast he throws up to block me. His muscles tense, a sure sign he’s gearing up for an offensive. Then someone yanks me to my feet, arms looped through my armpits. I pull and kick, but whoever holds me doesn’t budge. Stallion’s dragged Zac to his feet too.
“Thomas, enough!” Coach yells.
“You’re an animal,” I spit at Zac, only now realizing how much I hurt all over.
Blood streams down his nose and chin. He’s wheezing, though his voice is calm. “So, what does that make you?” He smiles, blood catching in his teeth.
I stare at Zac, shaking my head in disbelief. He looks completely unhinged, grinning at me like everything’s a fucking game and everyone’s only here for his entertainment. Me, Erica, Caylee. The whole goddamned world. Like he can just put his hands or his big-man cock wherever he fucking wants to. Always strutting around with that smug smirk on his face doing messed-up shit like none of it matters.
But it matters. It fucking matters.
Jesus. I didn’t see it—didn’t want to see it—so I blamed it all on her.
But it was him. He did this. Went way too fucking far this time.
Zac’s grin widens at whatever expression’s on my face. He’s the worst kind of person.
So, what does that make me?
I shake off whoever is holding me. Forest, I realize.
“You good, my man?” Forest asks, only a trace of his usual calm.
“What the hell is going on over here?” Coach demands, but I don’t answer.
Abandoning my gear, I turn toward the parking lot. Home. I need to go home.
“Only a little friendly fire, Coach. Music Man’s too sensitive,” Zac yells after me.
Before, his words would’ve turned me around. Would’ve dragged me back onto that field, pushed a helmet over my head, and forced my arms into movement. His words would’ve looped through my mind for the rest of practice and into the night. I would’ve wondered if he was right, if I’d overreacted. If I’d been too weak.
Now, I don’t bother responding to Zac, or Coach’s yell to get my ass back there. I keep marching off the field and as far away from Zac Boyd and his bloodstained grin as I can get.
ERICA
WHAT I’M SEEING DOESN’T MAKE any sense.
I’ve just pulled into the parking lot of our apartment, car idling. I stare at my phone, trying to puzzle it out, but the synapses in my brain are not connecting. How did everyone find out about my message, my website? I sent the link and login info to one person and one person only, so how did anyone else get it?
Caylee. She must’ve shared the link, going so horrifically far as to make my website live before blasting it to everyone. It’s the only thing that makes sense. But why? She has to know I wrote to her in confidence even if I didn’t explicitly state it. The post was addressed to her alone, full of mortifyingly personal details, and she still made it public? Showed it to everyone?
I feel blindsided but so stupid at the same time, like of course I should’ve seen this coming. We’re not friends anymore. She’d made that clear enough. But to give away the last shred of my privacy? It’s a level of cruelty I wouldn’t have believed from her, even given everything.
No matter how many times I refresh the page, it stays the same: 1 post, 43 comments. I scroll to the previous entry, the rough sketch I did of Thomas kissing me after his game, and the one before that of us at the Gorey exhibit, and all the rest, dating back to the beginning. But no matter which post I click on, it’s the same. Piles of comments on posts that weren’t meant to be seen. At least, not now. Not like this.
Yet now they’ve seen everything. And not only my message to Caylee about what they did to me at the party, but everything I’ve ever written. All my comics since the beginning. All of it. Every confession of love for Thomas. Every time I missed my dad and wished he missed me, too. Every single insecurity or worry—about living in a shitty apartment, about what Erica Strange would do. Everything. It’s all there because who was going to see it? No one.
Had I known…
I can’t even begin to go back far enough with that sentence.
I didn’t read the comments from the pictures Tina posted, but these—on my website, about my art, about me—I can’t look away from.
“Ahaha! LMFAO Mermaid Gang. What are we, five?”
“Thomas would never go for a fat whore like you.”
“You wanted everything you got. And then some.”
“Clearly she just wants attention. So here it is. Erica got laaaaaaaaaaid!”
But the one that cuts the deepest:
“Who wrote this, a kid whose puppy got run over? Get over yourself. Or do the world a favor and KILL YOURSELF ALREADY.”
They’re all the comments I’d been prepared for t
his morning, only to arrive when I had no idea they were coming. I can’t figure out which one it is: Do people really have no idea what they’re saying, or do they truly take pleasure in hearing bones snap, heartstrings pop?
What will it feel like to kill myself?
I already regret all the art I won’t get to make, all the things I won’t draw, characters I’ll never create. Maybe CalArts could’ve made me happy, given me a place where no one knew my name or had seen my naked body. But none of that matters now. I won’t be finding out.
Mostly I feel sad leaving Erica Strange behind. Which seems weird, considering she’s me. Well, the best version, anyway. The better version. The version I couldn’t ever be.
I wonder what my mom will do with my drawings. Keep them up for a while or clear everything away? What will Valerie say, or Father Christoph? Will he even remember me? It’s been ages since I’ve gone to Mass. At least he and Valerie can comfort Mom.
I drag myself up the stairs to our apartment, knowing Mom’s home and I’m going to have to face her. But for once since Saturday, I don’t feel panicked. Only a settling calm.
As soon as I open the door, Mom flies at me. “Erica? Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for hours!” She’s dressed in clean scrubs, hands thrown up—the same agitated wasp from yesterday morning. Except now someone’s gone and whacked her nest a couple dozen times, that someone being me, apparently.
I shrug. “Driving.”
“Why didn’t you answer your phone? I’ve been worried sick! And why the hell is your principal calling me, saying you assaulted a classmate? And what does she mean some boys drew on you at a party this weekend or ‘possibly worse’? Did something happen to you, Erica, that you haven’t told me? I thought you were at Caylee’s!”
I shrug. “Sorry, guess I lied.”
“You guess you lied? Erica, you don’t answer any of my calls even though I’ve been trying you for hours, and that’s all you have to say? I had to call in sick to work because I didn’t know where you were or if you were dead on the side of the freeway. I’ve been worried to death about you, so you’re going to have to do a whole lot better than you ‘guess you lied.’ Start talking, young lady. Now.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Mom. Maybe your perfect daughter isn’t the precious little angel you thought she was.” There’s only a trace of fire in my voice as I push past her. I’m tired. So very tired.
“Erica, come back here. Please.” Mom follows close behind, desperation replacing any anger. “Talk to me about this party. About this girl you punched. About these boys. Tell me what happened.”
I turn, arms up in defeat. “Why? So I can relive it all yet again? No thanks.”
Mom’s entire irises are visible. “Please, honey, just tell me what’s wrong.”
“Everything.” I move into the bathroom, shove the door shut though it doesn’t close all the way, pull open the medicine cabinet, and dump several random pill bottles into my backpack. If nothing else, at least I have options.
Mom rushes in, hands raised to halt me. “Erica, please stop. Explain it to me. I’ll listen.”
“There’s nothing left to say. You can’t fix this. No one can.” I push past her. At the entrance to my bedroom, she grabs my arm, but I wrench free, slamming the door in her face and locking it.
The knob rattles. “Erica? Erica Rose! Unlock this door right now!”
I drop my backpack on the bed and hurl my marble across the room. It hits my bookshelf, toppling the POP! Rapunzel figurine Caylee had held just yesterday, before clattering to the floor and rolling under the bed. Ripping open my backpack, I scoop out the pill bottles, empty each one onto the bed, then scour the floor for the weird-ass anatomy book I’d tossed there last night.
“Erica, please! Open this door! Won’t you just talk to me? Please?”
It takes me twenty seconds to find the page I want, the one I’d spotted earlier nestled between those morbid illustrations but hadn’t let myself read. I read it now, scrolling over the title—“Dialogue Between Frederik Ruysch and His Mummies”—to the poem below, captioned “Chorus of the dead in Ruysch’s laboratory”:
O death, thou one eternal thing,
That takest all within thine arms,
In thee, our coarser nature rests
In peace, set free from life’s alarms:
Joyless and painless is our state.
Our spirits now no more are torn
By racking thought, or earthly fears;
Hope and desire are now unknown.
I skim the passage, lines I crave to hear springing up from the page, about vanishing earthly troubles and souls no longer vexed. At the end of the poem, the final stanza shines like an omen:
Our portion now is peaceful rest,
Joyless, painless. We are not blest
With happiness; that is forbid
Both to the living and the dead.
As Mom continues to pound on my door, I realize that this time, nothing about the book scares me, and maybe that’s the scariest part. Because “peaceful rest” sounds like utter bliss.
THOMAS
WHEN I’D COME HOME EARLY from practice, Mom had made a big fuss about all the blood on my jersey (mostly Zac’s) and the blood dried to my knuckles (mostly mine). I’d been sent upstairs to clean up with an ice pack for my hand and the unspoken understanding that Mom would call my father as soon as my feet hit the stairs.
Now I sit on the edge of my bed holding Eleanor, flexing my bruised hand. So much has gone wrong these past few days, but I’m unable to shake the feeling that something else is about to happen. Something worse than my father finding out about Boyd’s face.
Running my fingers down Eleanor’s struts, I ignore the ache of my raw knuckles, but no words, no chords come to me. Before, even thinking about my fingers on Eleanor’s strings, her soft weight in my hands, always made me push down on my truck’s accelerator a little harder to get home. But today, holding her in my hands, I can’t find the enthusiasm.
Heart sinking, I think back to yesterday’s audition, how I’d completely lost myself in the music, and the text Uncle Kurt had sent later on: So proud of you, kid!
I got in. I’m going to Thornton, I remind myself for the millionth time. I should be ecstatic, but every time I think about it, the ray of light that is music school dims a little more. Still, I’ve waited so long for this. I need Thornton, maybe now more than ever.
There’s a knock at my door, and Mom comes in, looking apologetic as she holds out her phone to me. This can only mean one thing: It’s my father. Mom leaves as I lift the phone to my ear, dread growing. “Yeah?”
“Do you want to explain why I just got a call from Coach MacDonald and your mother, telling me you got in a fight at practice?” my father barks.
“Zac’s a dick.”
“I don’t give a damn if Zac’s a dick. I want to know why the hell you are fighting on school grounds and walking away from your coach. Are you trying to make me look bad?”
“Make you look bad? Not everything is about you, Dad.”
The line goes deadly quiet. When he starts up again, his voice is scary calm. “Let me make something very clear to you because I’m only going to say this once. If you have any hope on earth of going to that fluffy music school of yours—and that is a serious maybe at this point—then you will call Coach MacDonald back and you will apologize to him, to Zac, to the team for whatever you’ve done because you’re lucky as hell I was able to convince Coach MacDonald not to report the fight. So, you will fix this, and you will fix this now. And if you put so much as one more toe out of line, you will regret it for the rest of your miserable life. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re damn right, yes, sir. Now fix this.”
The phone goes dead. I chuck it to the floor, teeth clenched.
But I can’t fix this. I can’t. Everything’s so
fucked-up. And I’ve lost her….
Inspiration striking, I lift Eleanor, plugging her into the amp and dialing the volume low.
My fingers fly. It’d taken me weeks to write that one song for Erica, but now new words pull themselves from the air like magic. Now that everything’s already gone.
It’s a song about an electric green-eyed girl in a cape and mask, with lyrics about boots flung under a couch, spilled orange juice and broken glass, unsent texts and a snapped olive branch.
All at once, the final lines pull from my throat:
“I’m sorry” hangs heavy from closed lips
A broken ellipsis after a kiss
Choking, choking, on words unspoken
Just a man drowning in lies
I lay Eleanor, still vibrating, across my lap. She means everything to me.
Like Erica did.
Did. It’s like she’s dead.
And I’d just walked out of Zac’s room and left her there. And finding her Sunday morning, lying on her side… the memory will haunt me forever:
* * *
Right before dawn, I wake, drenched in sweat. Flailing in the dark, I sit up, staring at a broken coffee table. Forest snores on the floor next to me, Stallion beside him. Ricky’s on the couch above us, half his body falling off. Blinking several times, I realize I’m in Zac’s living room, feeling like I drank rat poison. I had no idea someone could feel this shitty.
Lying back down, I force my brain to think. Last night, we were outside by the bonfire. Then Erica and I…
I bolt upright. The world spins, but I force myself to stand. Was that…? Did it actually…? But I already know the answer.
After the Ink Dries Page 17