THE STING OF THE NEEDLE felt good. Too good. I shivered as Raven pressed the ink into my skin at the base of my neck. I was particularly sensitive there. Some might believe that’s why I came here. Because I liked the pain. Because maybe I got off on it, but that wasn’t the truth. The truth was my tattoos were the perfect disguise. I hid behind the pieces of art that covered my body. Every color, every picture was a story that hid mine. And I liked it like that. When people looked at me, they didn’t see me. They saw my ink. They didn’t want to talk to me. They didn’t want to know me. I loved it. I hated it.
“Almost done here.” Raven smiled down at me from behind her pierced nose and shaggy black hair. We’d been friends since grade school and she’d been practicing her craft on me for as long as I could remember. I’d been the perfect blank canvas in high school and now at the age of nineteen my torso and arms and most of my neck were almost completely covered. Hidden. Just how I liked it.
“Take your time.” I didn’t have anywhere to be. It was one of my rare days off from work. Another place I could hide. And I didn’t feel like roaming the streets with Boone and Grady, getting into God knows fucking what with them. There wasn’t really much else do to on this side of Madison, South Carolina. I was nineteen, poor as sin like the rest of this side of the city. Barely scraping by on the minimal wages of my part-time job and trying my damnedest to put myself through school at the local technical college. The only thing I had going for me was Raven and the free tattoos she gave me.
Raven was my saving grace in a lot of ways. We’d been together since elementary school. She’d sat next to me in kindergarten and that had been all she wrote. We were two socially awkward kids who bonded over our awkwardness. We’d never dated. It was always out of the question, mostly because Raven was a lesbian and I was, well, an asshole. She knew all my secrets. All of my fears and insecurities. And while she looked like a total badass with her black hair, nose piercing, and abundance of tattoos, she was still the kindest, most understanding person in my life.
“Not working today?” she asked over the buzz of the tattoo gun, her eyes never leaving the tattoo needle.
“Nah.”
Her right eyebrow lifted. “Not hanging with your boys.” Her voice smacked of snark and I felt myself almost smile. Raven didn’t care much for Boone and Grady. Not that I blamed her. Over the years they had proven they were definitely more trouble than they were worth. Boone seemed to be taking the assholery up a notch lately.
“Nah.” I didn’t have the stomach for him tonight. Like Raven, I’d known him and Grady since we were kids. We weren’t as close as Raven and I were, but we’d lived in the same busted ass apartment building our entire lives. It seemed like the older we got, the crazier Boone was getting. Part of me understood. He felt stuck, like the rest of us. Only the older Boone got and the longer he had to endure our circumstances, the less fucks he had. He was getting downright scary. And annoying as fuck.
Amid the buzz and burn of the needle I thought of the girl in the park. The one in the white dress and dark hair from two nights before. The one Boone had put his hands on. I felt my fist clench and heard the crack of my knuckles. It had made me irrationally angry. I was quiet and reserved and usually I let Boone carry on. What did I give a fuck if he touched one of the rich bitches from the island? I knew he wouldn’t actually hurt her. Scare the shit out of her maybe, but that wasn’t my problem. Or it had never been my problem before. But the fear on her face that night had made me pause. In truth, a lot about her made me stop in my tracks. Her looks were unusual. Her legs too skinny, her face too long. The juxtaposition of her wide mouth and small upturned nose was startling, but what really made me pause were her eyes. They were dark, chocolate brown with the thickest, richest eyelashes I’d ever seen.
And despite my desire to walk away and let Boone have his fun I hadn’t been able to ignore those eyes. They’d screamed for help, those sad, dark orbs. Stupid girl. She shouldn’t have been out there. It was dangerous. Too many kids from the island didn’t understand the same rules didn’t apply to the north side of Madison that it did to their precious island. It was a dog eat dog world over here. We worked, we stole, we hustled. We didn’t have the luxury of gazing at the fucking stars for fun.
Still, my mind couldn’t help but wander back to her from time to time and it pissed me off. How had a girl lying in a field under the stars made me so irrationally angry? It was because I worried for her. And I didn’t need another fucking worry in my life. I had enough on my plate caring and taking care of my crippled father. Only, I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help but think that she wouldn’t be so lucky the next time she crossed that bridge. How many times had she already pushed her luck? Fuck, but for all I knew she could be out there now. Her white dress fanned around her. From a distance she’d looked like the moon against the backdrop of the millions of stars in the sky above her. But she’d definitely looked like she’d lain there before. She’d been too comfortable on that soft looking pale blue blanket underneath her, and I couldn’t help but hope and pray she’d learned a lesson that night and stayed the hell out of that field and on her safe island that may as well have been a completely different world.
“How’s my papi chulo?” Raven’s voice disrupted my thoughts.
I rolled my eyes. “For fuck’s sake. Stop calling my dad that shit. It’s gross.”
She shrugged. “What? Even as a lesbian, I can appreciate a sexy Hispanic man.” Her dark eyebrows waggled.
My Puerto Rican father had that effect on people. I guess most women did think he was handsome. Even with his bum leg, he could still pull the ladies and he did so often. He was brutally robbed five years ago walking home from his job as a mechanic downtown. He’d recovered mostly. Well, except for his right leg, which would forever be fucked. He couldn’t get up and down off the floor like he used to. Working on cars really wasn’t an option and disability only paid so much and that was why I’d had a job since I was fifteen years old. It was also why I felt like I could never leave this shitty town and my even shittier circumstances.
I studied Raven’s face. My father adored her. And she adored him. They had a healthy, disturbingly hilarious father daughter relationship since Raven’s own father had long since dipped out on her and her mother. I wondered if maybe that was why Raven didn’t like most men. Me and papa were it for her.
“He’s good. He asked me this morning when you were coming by. Says you haven’t been to see him lately.”
She arched an eyebrow at me. “I haven’t been invited.”
Shaking my head, I threw back, “You know you don’t have to be invited, asshole.”
She pursed her lips and smiled. “I’m feeling the love, Nova.” She gave me a wink.
Raven was a shameless flirt. Even with the sex she had no interest in. Her latest girl was young.
“Speaking of babies. What’s going on with you and Aspen?” Raven’s newest girl was only seventeen and I was giving her plenty of shit for it. Because that’s what we did.
Her eyes rolled back in her head dramatically. “Come on, Nova. She was so last week.” She pointed a gloved finger at me. “Besides, she wasn’t that young. Only two years younger than us.”
She turned the tattoo gun off and dabbed my skin with a paper towel.
“What happened?”
She shrugged. “You know. The usual.” She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I’m basically just a fun ride, until they go back to their boyfriends.”
Her lips curled in distaste.
A lot of girls liked to experiment with Raven, but weren’t really in it for the long haul. It sucked for her, but we were still young, and I knew she would find her person one day.
I sat up, grabbing her arm, and she looked at me and I threw her a smirk. “Don’t worry. You’ll find someone who’s willing to put up with your shit one day.”
Now me, that was a completely different story. I doubted I had a person and if I did there was probably a less than 1 percent chance that I would ever meet her. Staying at home, going to school, and working were pretty much my life. It was rare that I had a day to just chill and I wasn’t the best at socializing anyway. As Raven liked to tell me, I was a social pariah, even if she did tell me that in a loving kind of way.
I was aloof. I was intimidating. I liked it like that.
And clearly, I wasn’t the best at giving pep talks either. Raven pulled her arm away from me and started cleaning up, completely ignoring me poking fun at her.
“You will. You’ll meet a nice chick one day, Rav. And ditch my sorry ass.” I nudged her with my arm so she would look at me.
And when she did, I tried not to divert my eyes. I didn’t like making eye contact. I found the whole ordeal extremely hard.
“How will I meet anybody if I keep hanging out with your scary non-smiling ass?” She turned away, hiding her grin from me.
“You’re right. I’m a terrible wingman. But it could be worse. You could be stuck with Boone.”
Her lips curled. “Ugh. You know better, Adam. That douche makes my skin crawl.”
She was right. Boone was a douche. Hanging out with him was more of a habit than an actual want. I wondered if Boone made the girl in the field’s skin crawl. My jaw clenched at the thought. I didn’t like that I hated the thought of him making her feel that way.
It was late. Maybe I’d stop by on the way home and check the field. Make sure she wasn’t lying out there like a sitting duck again. Maybe I’d make sure she was safe from Boone and anyone else who might happen upon her.
No.
Fuck no.
No. I wouldn’t do that. She wasn’t mine to take care of.
“What are you thinking about so hard over there?” Raven was rubbing ointment on my tattoo, her eyes darting to mine occasionally.
“What makes you think I’m thinking about anything?”
Pushing out her lips, she answered, “Mostly because you’re always thinking about something.” She pointed to the middle of my forehead. “And you always get a line there when you’re stressing.”
I lifted my hand and rubbed the middle of my head, right where she pointed and felt the damn wrinkle, but still I argued, “Not true. And I don’t stress.”
“True and whatever. I’ve had to look at your ugly mug my entire life. I know your face better than you do.”
I ran my hand down the side of my face. “Some ladies think this mug is pretty hot, Rav.”
“Pfttt, they’d feel differently if they knew you like I did.” She laughed.
But it almost wasn’t funny. She was right. Most women didn’t gravitate toward me. Yeah, some girls liked the bad boy persona and the tattoos, but that wore off quickly once they realized I wasn’t boyfriend material. That I didn’t have time for their games and drama.
Raven finished wrapping me up and I tried to pay her, but as usual she refused. “You’re my guinea pig and don’t you forget it. I’ll probably jack you up one day and that will be payment enough.”
I nodded and stretched my fist out, which she quickly bumped. “Come by and see me and Dad this weekend. I’m off Sunday.”
“Sure thing.”
And I was in the wind. Only tonight there wasn’t much wind, even for being this close to the beach. I paused on the sidewalk long enough to light my cigarette. It was September and still hot as hell. Much like it was every year in the Carolinas. We might get some reprieve toward the middle of October.
Somehow, I managed to not walk past the field on the way home. I jumped a couple of fences and cut across yards to avoid it, determined not to check up on the girl who looked like the moon, all bathed in white.
I walked the road with run-down apartment building after run-down apartment building to finally come to mine. Maybe it was good that the girls didn’t hang around long. It wasn’t like I could bring them back here. Trash, cigarette butts, and a few beer bottles littered the porch. I kicked past them as I entered, almost running smack into Mona.
She gave me a coy smile and I felt that wrinkle in my forehead pop out, this time in frustration. Fuck. Raven was right.
Mona’s stoned eyes appraised me while I tried to push past her and climb the seven floors to my apartment. The elevator was slow as hell and I needed to escape.
“Where you off to so fast, baby? You could come inside for a bit.” Her voice floated up to me from where I was almost two stories up now. You did not go into Mona’s apartment. If you did, you got laid. And then unbeknownst to you, she got paid. And if she didn’t she’d show her ass until her drug dealer pimp hunted you down and kicked your ass and then she still got paid. Boone had learned that the hard way. I smiled thinking about it.
I opened the apartment door and found the whole place dead silent. Usually Pops had the TV on and was relaxing in his old beat-up recliner in the front room. I checked the bad eighties style kitchen and found a note on the counter that he went to his friend’s Julius’s downstairs to play checkers.
I grabbed a soda out of the fridge and paced the apartment feeling restless as I looked out the windows at how dark it was. I treaded across the worn carpet again and again. Our place was clean compared to most others. Just because my dad couldn’t work as a mechanic anymore didn’t mean he didn’t clean and take care of the place. We’d never lived like most of the other people in our building. We took care of our meager belongings. After all, they were all we had.
I sat on the couch and checked my cell phone twice, not really expecting to have any missed calls. There were really only two people who called me and one of them was downstairs and the other I’d just left at work.
Walking to the kitchen to throw away my soda can, I looked outside again, deciding I needed another cigarette. I grabbed my cell phone, my keys, and smokes and headed downstairs. I smoked two cigarettes in front of my apartment building before I couldn’t stand it any longer and suddenly I was moving and not in the direction I wanted to. It was like my feet had a mind of their own. I was like a moth to a flame when it came to that girl. I walked the three blocks to the field, feeling like I wasn’t me. Like maybe I was someone else. Like maybe I was a crazy person.
It wasn’t long before I saw her in the distance, only this time she had a dog lying next to her. I stopped far enough away that she didn’t see me but I could still see her.
It was hard to miss her lying on that big blue blanket with the big canine beside her. Why the hell had she come out here again? What was she thinking? It had only been a couple of days since Boone had harassed her. Did she have no sense of self-preservation at all?
A good part of me wanted to march over there and yank her up by her long brown hair and demand she go back to the island. But there was a small part of me that just wanted to watch her.
I realized how weird that was. Still, I felt myself crouch down where the grass was longer and harder to walk through and I watched her talk to herself. I watched her count the stars. I watched her close her eyes for minutes on end, seemingly asleep, but I knew she wasn’t because she was obviously one of those restless people who rocked their ankles back and forth when they were trying to be still.
I tilted my head and squinted, trying to catch more than just a blurry off in the distance version of her. Fuck, but I wanted to see more.
I watched her far longer than I should have. I watched her until she finally stood up and grabbed her blanket and snapped it in the air, shaking the grass off. And I watched her fold it and tuck it under her right arm and turn and start walking to the bridge. And then I watched her cross that bridge until I couldn’t see her at all anymore.
I should have been concerned about my behavior. I really should have. But all I could think as she faded off into the distance was that next time, I’d bring my binoculars so I could really see her face, so I could see the expression in her eyes.