The Beauty That Remains

by Ashley Woodfolk

  “Sorry,” Rohan replies. “But what just happened back there was definitely a panic attack. I’m just wondering how much it happens, because I’ve seen it happen a few times this month alone.”

  Callie says, “They happen all the time,” even though nobody asked her and I thought she was giving me the silent treatment.

  I look back at the page of fonts in front of me. I’m about to turn the page when Rohan reaches for the book and closes it completely. He puts his phone on top, as if it’s heavy enough to stop me from opening it again, and crosses his arms.

  “Has it happened more than the ones I saw?”

  I don’t look at him when I nod.

  “How many more times?”

  I shrug.

  Deedee steps closer and touches my arm. “I had no idea. Does your mom know?”

  I look at her and roll my eyes. “If you didn’t, what makes you think she does?”

  Rohan bites his lip. “And they’ve been that bad since Sasha…?”

  I half shrug, half nod. “Have you thought about…I don’t know. Talking to someone?” he asks.

  I smile and nudge him, trying to keep the mood light. “I’m talking to you, right now.”

  Callie jumps in. “I think he means like a therapist or something.”

  I bristle, even though I don’t mean to. “I’m not crazy,” I say.

  Rohan frowns. “Going to a therapist doesn’t make you crazy.”

  “You can’t just ignore it,” Callie agrees.

  “I’m fine. It’s getting better. I aced that test. I’m not smoking anymore. I’m getting home by curfew. I’m good. I swear.” But I see Deedee and Callie look at Rohan, instead of me, and I flare my nostrils because I’m so annoyed. Their eyes are having a conversation about me like I’m not even in the room.

  The bearded guy pushes back the curtain a second later and waves us over.

  “You pick the script you want?” he asks.

  I shake my head and roll my eyes in my friends’ direction. They distracted me.

  I’m afraid that if I leave here without a tattoo, every time I look at my wrist without seeing my sister’s hospital bracelet, I’ll feel adrift and alone. Or I’ll feel what’s coming on again right now, the wave of worry that overtakes me before I…panic, if that’s what they want to call it.

  Jerome walks over to us and picks up Rohan’s phone. He’s been pretty quiet since we got here, and he doesn’t say anything now, but he tilts the back of the phone in my direction.

  At some point, Sasha must have doodled her name on Rohan’s phone case. It’s written in purple ink and sits in the center of a sloppily sketched heart, and it reminds me of her so much that I literally gasp.

  “I’d forgotten all about that,” Rohan half whispers.

  I grab the phone and aim it at the tattoo artist.

  “Can you do this?” I ask.

  * * *

  —

  After some pretty searing pain, I stand up and twist my wrist toward the mirror. It looks like Sasha was here a minute ago with a marker and a grin; like she drew the name on my arm herself. While he was working, I remembered Sasha drawing all over me when we were little: hearts and stars drawn around my scratches and scars, promises written along the lines of my veins, like they were paper.

  “I love it,” I say too loudly in the small room I’m in with just the tattoo artist. I touch Jerome’s hand when he holds my wrist to get a closer look once I rejoin my friends on the other side of the curtain. “Thanks for noticing her name on Ro’s phone,” I say to him.

  He licks his lips, and his long-lashed eyes flick up to mine. “You like it, then?”

  “Duh,” I say.

  Rohan won’t tell me what he’s getting. And he doesn’t let me stay with him while he gets it done. When he comes out, and rolls up his sleeve, he has “LUKE” in a red circle with a red line diagonally across it like a no smoking sign. “You stole my idea!” I shout, but Ro just shrugs, and I can’t stop laughing.

  When Rohan drops me off, the house is still and quiet. No Mom, no Sasha, just me. I go to Sasha’s room and grab another one of her beanies from the pile and pull it on. I’ve been wearing them until they start to smell like me instead of her. Then I lie down on her bed, and I stare up at her ceiling in the dark. I say, “I got a tattoo today.” But the Sasha in my head who normally talks back is quiet. Maybe she’s already asleep.

  JAN. 24, 3:16 P.M.

  I watched High Fidelity today.

  Then I watched School of Rock.

  Then I watched Pitch Perfect.

  A marathon of our favorites. I thought it would make me feel a little bit better.

  It made me feel worse.

  I think I should tell someone that I still haven’t cried.

  But the only person I want to talk to is you.

  Tavia may not be on Hangouts right now. She’ll see your messages later.

  From: HeCalledItAutumn@gmail.com

  To: TaviaViolet@gmail.com

  Sent: Jan. 25, 6:11 p.m.

  Subject:

  On Monday, Dante came over to drive me to school like he said he would. And when I ducked into his car, he threw a thumb over his shoulder, pointing at the backseat. I turned around to see what was there, and it was his beat-up backpack. The holey, pin-covered one you hated with iron-on letters spelling out “Unraveling Lovely.” I think I’ll buy him a new bag. It’s the least I can do.

  “Good ol’ UL,” I say, tracing each letter on his backpack with the tip of my finger, flashes of all the shows you and I went to last summer replaying like a greatest-hits reel in my mind. The upset at Battle of the Bands lingers in the background. It might have been hard for you to convince me that random house parties and shopping sprees were worth my time, and it was nearly impossible to get you to go to the library or to an art exhibit with me. But whenever Dante’s band had a gig, the only thing we had to decide was who would drive.

  I think about Dante and his drums. How he told me once that playing made him feel like he was flying. And I’m about to ask him if he misses it—if he’s ever thought about joining another band like I heard Rohan has—but then he grins at some commercial on the radio. I don’t want to ruin that smile because it’s one of the rare, real ones. So I tell him a stupid joke instead. When he laughs, I blush.

  “Are you okay? With coming back to school, I mean?”

  Dante puts his arm behind my seat and looks over his shoulder to see where he’s going as he backs down my driveway, and I can tell he doesn’t want to talk about it. So I don’t say anything else. But when we get to the stop sign at the end of my street, I reach out and touch his fingers where they’re resting on the emergency brake. It’s only for a second, but it sends a chill up my spine, and I hope he gets what I’m trying to say with the gesture: Thank you. I hope he hears my heart whispering, It’ll be okay.

  The next time I look over at him, it’s because he’s pinching the edge of the scarf I’m wearing. “Where’s that been?” he asks.

  It’s the maroon-and-gold one I wore almost every day in winter during middle school. The Gryffindor one you grew to hate. And I haven’t worn it in years because you said we were too old for Harry Potter once we started high school. I look down at it, and I almost smile.

  “I never stopped liking it,” I say. “Even after she sort of banned me from wearing it to school.”

  I say “she” the way I always do when I talk to Dante about you. I don’t ever have to say your name if I don’t want to. He always just knows.

  He smiles a real smile again, and my cheeks warm at the sight of his brightened eyes.

  “She was so damn bossy. But I’m glad it’s back.”

  He must get bored with the music on the radio because the next time he has to stop, he asks me for my phone. He plugs it in and opens
my music, and the song that comes on first was one of your favorites. I stiffen, and I think Dante notices, but when he moves to skip the song I touch his hand again.

  “It’s okay,” I say.

  He keeps the volume down low while he drives the rest of the way to school. When the lyric “You’re the only friend I need” fills the car, I turn toward the window and squeeze my eyes shut, willing tears to come. But they still don’t.

  If you were in the car with us, you would have started braiding my hair or leaned forward to turn up the music. You would have rolled down the window and stuck your head out like a puppy, even though it was cold. I would have laughed and pulled you back inside, and Dante would have threatened to leave us on the side of the road. But you aren’t with us. So my hair hangs loose, and the music stays low, and the car is almost unbearably warm and quiet.

  We pull into the lot and find a space. I take a deep breath, open the door, and try again to get your brother to tell me how he’s feeling.

  “Are you okay? Being back here?”

  We’re parked, but he isn’t moving. His jaw is working, like he isn’t okay, but then he nods and grabs his bag. Before Dante even closes his door, Perry’s appeared beside me and he’s saying your name.

  “Tavia loves when the weather is like this,” Perry says, looking up at the sky, talking about you in the present tense. It’s one of those mornings when the sky is colorless, a blue so pale it’s almost a shade of gray. If you were here, you would have whispered to me that the sky looks just like Perry’s eyes. And he’s right, that you’d love the weather. I don’t know why you tried so hard to pretend that you weren’t as into him as you were. He’s never tried to hide how he feels about you, but I still don’t want to talk to him. My hands start to shake.

  “Yeah,” I say to Perry after a pause that’s a little too long. I turn away from him, like he isn’t there, and tuck my hair behind my ears the way I always do.

  Dante frowns at us over the roof of the car, and he has our question in the blacks of his eyes. You okay? they say without him saying anything at all, and I nod once and start moving toward the main entrance.

  “Yo, D!” Perry says, like he and Dante are friends, when really, Dante’s never liked him. Older brothers aren’t supposed to like their younger sister’s boyfriends. Plus, angsty musicians and lacrosse bros don’t really mix.

  Perry keeps pace with us, even when I try to walk a little faster. He looks over my head at Dante and says, “Tavi would love this weather, wouldn’t she?”

  He says it like you aren’t gone for good. He says it like you’re out today because you’re stuck inside with the flu or away on a trip. He’s talked about you like this every day that I’ve seen him since the accident, and in some ways it hurts more than just admitting you’re gone. But it’s Dante’s first day back, so he isn’t used to it like I am.

  I stop walking. I stare at Perry’s back. He stops when he realizes I’m no longer beside him. Then I look ahead at Dante, who doesn’t stop at all. I see that his fists are shoved hard into his pockets and his stiff shoulders are hunched forward, like he’s walking straight into thirty-mile-per-hour winds. But he keeps walking, so after a few seconds I allow myself to start breathing again.

  Perry glances back at me and then straight ahead at Dante, and he seems torn, like he knows he’s said the wrong thing but he doesn’t know who to apologize to first. His sincerity is infuriating, and I wish he were more of a jerk so I could hate him the way I want to.

  You cried like you were the one who’d gotten dumped the day you broke up with him. You broke your own heart. When I asked why you’d done it, all you said was that you thought you loved him too much. It was the week after we’d applied to all the same schools, so I knew it was probably about college. I’ll never forget how you explained it to Alexa: I want to go wherever I want without having to consider where he’ll be. Sometimes loving someone is scarier than leaving them. Even so, we all knew you’d change your mind about him. We all but betted on it.

  I take a step forward, massively grateful that Dante’s closer to the door of the school than he is to us. I’m just about to tell Perry not to say anything to your brother for the rest of his life when he mutters something about Dante needing to find a creative outlet for his anger.

  “When was the last time he played the drums?” he asks. And before I realize that I can’t remember, I hear the thump of Dante dropping his backpack. I look up and he’s charging at Perry like they’re members of opposing teams on a football field.

  Despite his drummer’s upper body, Dante is still slighter than Perry, who you called a beefcake for more reasons than just to be funny. But Dante’s rage is completely unbridled. They hit the asphalt like a Jenga tower falling hard against a table, and immediately, there is blood.

  I stand there, horrified and helpless, as a crowd swarms around them. Everyone watching is shouting and taking videos on their phones, and in the midst of the chaos, I catch a glimpse of Dante’s wild eyes. He’s flipped his switch, and our Dante—the one who holds my hand, and who cries with his head on my lap, and who used to put you on his shoulders even once you’d gotten way too big—is gone.

  I take a few deep breaths, remembering how you always told me that I’m more than the quiet Asian girl everyone expects me to be. I push past the people watching so I can get close enough for Dante to hear my voice. I grab the back of his jacket, and he thinks I’m someone else. When he whips around, his face is contorted and his teeth are bared.

  He almost hits me, and if I’m being honest, I kind of want him to. I’ve been so out of it since the accident; so lost and lonely and numb. Maybe if he hits me, I think, I’ll finally start to feel something. But he sees that it’s me, and instantly, his movements slow and his eyes change. Just like when I asked him about school in my backyard, he immediately cools down.

  It’s like I’m the key to turning the real Dante back on.

  So I say, “Please.”

  I say, “Don’t.”

  And as soon as Dante’s fists stop flying, Perry scrambles away, spitting blood and cursing. His shoelaces have come undone, and one of his eyes is starting to swell. When his dark blond hair falls over the other eye, he trips and everyone laughs.

  “Fuck you, Dante,” he says while picking up his bag from where it’s been pushed under the bumper of a nearby car. Dante doesn’t say anything.

  I stare at Perry as he stumbles away. I wish you’d made it to his house to tell him you still loved him.

  I wish you’d never met him at all.

  I grab your brother’s hand and pull him back toward his car. He needs to be elsewhere fast, before the teachers start asking questions. I take his keys from his coat pocket and open the back door.

  “Get in,” I say, without meeting his eyes, because I’m suddenly so mad that I can barely stand the sight of him. I’m angry with Perry for always talking about you, angry that Dante started a fight, angry at the world because you’re gone. I get into the car after him, and we just sit there for a minute or two, both of us fuming. I kick the back of the driver’s seat over and over. We don’t touch each other. We don’t say a word.

  When Faye taps on the window a few seconds later, we both jump. I didn’t notice her during the fight, but I guess she saw the whole thing.

  “Oh my god,” she says when I open the door. “Dante, are you okay?”

  He nods, looks at me, and then looks away. I get out of the car.

  “What about you?” Faye asks in her Sympathy Voice.

  The fight must have stirred up something mean in me because I say, “Like you care.”

  Faye looks surprised, probably because I don’t normally say stuff like that. But she doesn’t say “What’s your problem,” or anything, for a second. She glances across the parking lot. I follow her eyes to where Alexa and Margo are standing, staring at us.

>   “Of course I care,” she says. She looks genuinely hurt and confused. I remember Willow telling me to show my friends what I need, so I try.

  “Sorry,” I say. “It just feels like Margo is only talking to Alexa now. And Alexa isn’t talking to anyone. And you’re talking to everyone except me. I feel like you guys don’t even care that I’m here. Or like you don’t even miss—”

  I stop. I don’t want to say your name.

  “It’s not that,” Faye says. She sighs deep and loud and squeezes her fingers together. “Look. Alexa feels…like it’s her fault. Tavia was leaving her party. So she feels guilty, okay? She’s hurting. But, I mean, we all are.” Faye lowers her voice and steps a little closer to me. “She said seeing you makes her feel worse about everything. She never knows what to say.”

  It’s hard for me to swallow, but I manage it, just barely. I mutter, “I’m sorry I’m such an inconvenience.”

  Faye touches my shoulder. Her nails are painted a bright shade of white, which makes her dark skin seem even darker. I lace my fingers together and try not to think about the deep purple nail polish that is chipped and falling away from my own nails more and more every day. You’ll never paint them again, so against all logic I pray that these small patches of indigo last forever.

  “You’re not,” she says.

  I glance back across the lot, at Alexa. Margo is stroking Alexa’s long red hair, and they both look a little shaken up. When Margo starts typing something on her phone, Alexa puts up her hand in a not-quite wave. She mouths the word “sorry.” A minute later I get a text from Margo asking if Dante is okay.

  “How long are things going to be like this?” I ask Faye, hating how desperate I sound.

  Faye reaches out and pulls me toward her. She hugs me for a long time, the sleeves of her jacket cold against my neck. The closeness makes me think of Willow. And you.

  “I’m sorry. I know I’ve been weird too,” she says into my hair. But she’s using her normal voice now. She sounds like Faye. She pulls away and holds one of my hands. “How are you?”