Ink is Thicker Than Water (Entangled Teen)

by Spalding, Amy

  “Kells, I’m gonna blow your mind and tell you how people’re still making music in the present day, and that’s from a song that came out this year.”

  “Maybe it was a time-traveling song.”

  Dexter laughs and makes a time-travel-y sound effect. Whoosh! “You wanna go see who’s hanging out at the gazebo?”

  There’s a creepy gazebo in front of the Starbucks where people, sometimes cool, sometimes terrifying, hang out at basically all times of the day and night. I myself think most towns could do without a creepy gazebo.

  “I know it’s lame, but I should probably go home,” I say. “My mom’s been weird with my curfew.”

  “You’re just scared of the gazebo.”

  “I wish this was purely gazebophobia.”

  Dexter drives to the lot where I’m parked, but before I can even touch the door handle, he sort of grabs my wrist. “If you and Sara talk, and I come up or something, you’ll let me know. Yeah?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I say, even though I can’t picture myself running to the phone to keep Dexter in the loop. I’ve always liked him just fine, but he is probably the most popular guy in his school, who is perfectly matched up with my perfectly perfect sister. It is an odd thing that rules about who gets to socialize with whom seem to be disappearing.

  I decide not to leave just yet. “What do you think about Sara? Is she leaving us? Do you think she at least wants to?”

  Dexter shrugs. “Doesn’t everyone at least want to sometimes?”

  I shake my head. “Not me.”

  “Take it easy.” He gives me a little salute. “Give my regards to Ol, sure you see him more than I do.”

  “Will do.” I open the car door and plant one Chuck Taylor on the sidewalk. “I hope things are okay for you and Sara.”

  He clinks an invisible glass in the air near where I’d hypothetically be holding an invisible drink of my own. “Kells, you, too.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  I nearly dial Sara approximately eleven times the next day, but I can never bring myself to actually click the call button. But I get off work, drive straight home, since I’m a dork without plans on a Saturday night, and almost walk right into her.

  “Oh, hey,” is all I think to say.

  “Hi.” She isn’t really making eye contact. “I’m just getting some stuff.”

  “What, are you moving in with Camille or something?”

  “No, I—I don’t know. Don’t make such a big deal out of everything.” Sara isn’t really paying attention, just walking to her room, opening up her closet doors. It’s like she was replaced with some kind of pod person, because even though Sara can get distracted with homework and other responsibilities, Sara always found time for me. Seriously, she at least found time to explain why she didn’t have time. The new Sara barely seems like my sister, which of course is the biggest, scariest part of all.

  “I need to talk to you,” I say at the same time I’m realizing it. Of course. Considering my relationship is out in the open, no matter what Sara and I didn’t discuss before, she’d know what I should do. Or shouldn’t do, I guess. “Oliver wants us to have sex—well, I guess I kind of want that, too—but—”

  “That seems like a personal thing.” She takes out some sweaters and jeans from her closet, folds them while standing like she’s employed by the Gap. “Why would you think I’d know what you should do?”

  Here are some things I wouldn’t know without Sara: how to tie my shoes, how to alphabetize my bookshelf, how to drive a stick (Mom herself doesn’t know how, and Dad and I didn’t exactly have productive driving lessons), how to read Shakespeare without using Cliff’s Notes or Wikipedia, how to put on blush without looking like Craze-o the Clown. Okay, most of those things I would have eventually learned from someone else, but I liked learning them from Sara. I like how knowledge can be a gift, and when I’m not running around being a pirate, I really do try to remember that around Finn.

  “Seriously, it isn’t okay,” I say. “What you’re doing. Mom and Dad are your parents. Just because Camille—”

  “Don’t finish that sentence.” She retrieves a handful of underwear from her dresser, tucks them into her bag beside the sweaters and jeans, and zips it up. “I can’t talk about this with you—”

  “Right, my useless brain can hardly grasp such—”

  She brushes past me to get to the bathroom to pack up some of her face and hair stuff and brushes right back in. “When will you stop it with that? You have it so much easier than you think you do.”

  Weird for me to be speechless, but that totally does it. Even if she’s completely wrong.

  “Please don’t tell Mom I was here.” She runs downstairs, and I stay on her heels. She switches her bag from one arm to the other as she riffles through the mail on the front table on her way to the door, which suddenly makes this seem a lot less like a great escape.

  “Sara—”

  “I’ll see you, Kellie.”

  I sort of wedge myself between her and the door. “We could talk, you know. How you’re crazy about everyone liking me or how I hate how things seem when you’re not here or that Mom’s totally going—”

  “Kellie,” she says, but softly and gently. “Later. Now I have to go.”

  She doesn’t just dash off to her car like I expect, though. Her gaze shoots past me, at the big painting on the wall of the big heart (Valentine’s style not anatomical) Mom painted in her first art class. People always ask if it’s by a famous artist. Next to the heart is a handmade frame, put together by Russell out of extra materials from building The Family Ink, holding the same picture that hangs in the shop’s front room.

  Funny thing is that when I really see the picture, as a third-party observer or whatever, this little voice in my head reports that it totally gets it. Russell and Mom, looking like a match made in heaven or I don’t know, Who Wants to Marry a Tattoo Artist? Finn is the exact blend of them, and I look plenty like Mom, plus I’m wearing a T-shirt of Russell’s. Then there is Sara in her J.Crew and glow of rosy perfection.

  The front door slams shut. And Sara’s gone.

  So here are my options: A) stay here doing nothing, feeling kind of abandoned, and being a loser; B) see if Adelaide is free so we can, I don’t know, talk about the Ticknor Voice instead of how my family is falling apart; C) report in to Dexter about Sara; or D) call my crazy boyfriend and either explain my run for Thai or ignore that entirely and make plans to maybe have sex. I did have a successful visit to the gynecologist and am now armed with birth control pills and condoms.

  Obviously, a half hour later I am on my way over to Oliver’s dorm.

  I say, “Hey, I’m having a really bad night.”

  He asks, “Why, what happened, do you want to talk?”

  And I don’t. There isn’t anything more I can say about Sara—and if there is, I don’t want to hear it aloud. Instead: “The other night I really did have to pick up dinner. Mom and Russell get really demanding.”

  “Oh,” he says, and, “right.”

  “Also,” I continue, “I haven’t had sex before, which I just should have said a million years ago, but now you know.”

  “Oh,” he says again.

  “Right,” I say this time.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” he says.

  I grin at him. “I’m glad I’m here, too.”

  And we look at each other for maybe three more seconds before flying into Making Out Mode, and this time when I end up in Oliver’s bed without my clothes, I don’t want to cry and I don’t want to leave.

  It all goes sort of like I thought it would. We’ve been messing around enough by now to know at least the basics about each other, and I’ve only read a thousand articles online, thanks to Adelaide and my own Googling skills.

  “You know,” Oliver says, right afterward, “I love you.”

  Okay, bad form, but I totally snicker. “You do not.”

  “Kellie, yeah, I do. You’re amazing.”

&nb
sp; “We haven’t known each other that long,” I say in my casual voice. “There’s no way you love me yet. Like me, sure.”

  “Way to ruin a moment,” he says, but he smiles.

  “Sorry, but be serious.” I thread my fingers through his, kiss him, rest my head between his shoulder and head. “What time is it? Am I going to get in trouble?”

  “No, you’re safe.” Hopefully he is over his post-sex love-professing. “So was…was that okay?”

  “What you said?”

  “Obviously, what I said wasn’t. No. Before.”

  “Before was really good,” I say, which is absolute truth. It hadn’t hurt as much as I’d expected, and Oliver made really cute faces during, and I guess I’d just been ready. I’d been so nervous about all of this, but even afterward when my brain had more time to think, those fears seem to have vanished. I made the choice to be here with Oliver and to be honest with Oliver and to have sex with Oliver. And I know it’s cheesy to be…proud of all of that, but I am. Also, as much as anything can, it erases that stupid afternoon in May.

  “Yeah, I thought so, too.”

  We’re both smiling, and it’s maybe the best moment we’ve ever had, right then, and I really do think about asking, Hey, did you murder someone? Hey, are you crazy? Hey, why is Dexter’s life devoted to making up for yours? But I think about something Adelaide had said to Mitchell during a newspaper lunch when he’d inquired as to what went into the taco filling from that place down the street. Mitch, don’t ask questions you wouldn’t like the answer to.

  So instead we order in a pizza, go through his roommate’s CDs (just to mock his bad taste, not to steal or anything malicious), and of course eventually have sex again, because it’s now an option. And Oliver is nuts to think he loves me, or maybe just in some kind of post-sex haze, but okay, I like him a lot. I even tell him that while he’s walking me to my car.

  “I like you, too, but you know that.” He kisses me for maybe the thousandth time tonight. “Talk to you soon.”

  “I can text you or whatever when I get home. It’s not like Mom cares what I do as long as I’m in the front door by one.” I sort of hear myself and realize how strange that sentence is to be coming out of my mouth. The fact that I now have a curfew-crazy mother is definitely among the low points of this fall. “Later.”

  Mom is, of course, up when I get home, deep into a book, but all her attention is on me once I walk in. “Hey, baby.”

  “Hey, Mom.” I hover near the doorway instead of going in because I feel like if she gets close to me, she’ll have an idea of what I’ve been out doing. Not that it isn’t okay. I just don’t really want to involve my mom in my sex life any more than I already have.

  “Kellie, I won’t be mad, but were you looking around in your sister’s room for anything?” she asks. “I did some laundry earlier and noticed a few of her things were moved.”

  “Yeah,” I say quickly, remembering Sara’s request. Wait, why exactly am I protecting her? “No, actually, Sara was here, getting some stuff.”

  “Oh,” she says. “Oh.”

  That last oh breaks my heart a little. “She’s being a jerk.”

  “Try to be understanding. Your sister has a lot to deal with right now.” Mom gets up, walks over, and kisses my forehead. “Good night, baby.”

  “’Night, Mom. You know…” I give her my very practiced casual look. “You don’t need to stay up so late waiting for me. I won’t break my curfew again.”

  “It’s just part of being a mom,” she says, even though this is clearly a very new part for her. “You’ll understand someday.”

  Considering this is all Sara’s fault, I hope I won’t.

  Chelsea texts me the next morning to see if I want to meet up for lunch. I assume it’ll be her and Mitchell (so I agree), but when I get to Weber’s, it’s actually Chelsea, Jessie, and a few other girls from the paper. I start to ask why Adelaide isn’t there, but even though I’m maybe closer to Adelaide than any other friend right now, I know exactly why. Adelaide can be crazy annoying.

  I know that I’m sitting in a crowd of girls, and technically, they’re my friends or at least fellow Ticknor Voice-ers, and last night I had sex for the first time and maybe kinda want to talk about it with someone. But I’m not there yet with any of these girls, not even Chelsea who I’ve been sitting with five days a week for a year now. It’s not just that it’s private—because of course it is—but also because they all already know I have a college boyfriend, and I’ve assumed my general attitude has seemed like I’ve already been there, done that. Literally.

  So I don’t tell anyone why I keep forgetting to pay attention or why I accidentally grin goofily multiple times or even who I’m texting. Half of my life might have completely been demolished, but at least I’m sitting in a group of girls who don’t hate me—or make fun of me for ordering cocoa when everyone else orders coffee—and texting the amazing guy I’ve had sex with who—too early to say or not—might even love me.

  After losing my best friend and being in the midst of losing my sister, I’m trying to dwell on what’s still around.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  On Tuesday I assume after newspaper I’m going straight to pick up Finn and then home, but once Mom texts that I don’t have to, plans shift. I have coffee with a bunch of the staff and end up walking down to Dr. Jazz with Jessie and Paul to get ice cream. Paul makes another reference to me having a secret tattoo on my butt, and so even if I didn’t already think he was into me or whatever, there’s now seriously been enough butt talk to confirm that. Afterward, I immediately make a call to Oliver because I feel sort of weird spending so much time in the presence of one dude who thinks I’m that awesome when I am having sex with another one.

  I still can’t believe I am having sex.

  When I finally get to the house, Mom is dashing around upstairs wearing her splurge-of-a-purple-dress. “Why do you look so fancy?”

  Mom laughs, but it isn’t in her eyes. That’s weird; Mom isn’t a lady who fake laughs. “Just a dinner I’m going to. Sorry, Kell-belle, I’d love to ask about school and how everything’s going, but I’m really in a hurry. Oh, and Finn’s with Linda, you don’t have to worry about him. Russell will get him on his way home.”

  “You texted me that part already,” I say. “What dinner?”

  “It’s nothing.” She kisses my forehead. “Just meeting with Sara and your dad and Camille.”

  Right, like that’s nothing. “Are you guys going to talk to Sara about—”

  “You know this isn’t any of your business, baby.”

  It’s not?

  Mom walks to her and Russell’s room and looks under the bed. “Where would I have put my brown shoes?”

  “The ones with the little buckles? I have them.” I run and dig them out of my closet. “Sorry, I should have asked.”

  “It’s fine.” She steps into them and surveys herself in the mirror. When I was little, I hadn’t realized we looked alike at all. Something about getting older, though, the more I see myself in her, or her in me, or however that works. I guess it’s nice then to see how pretty she looks in the purple dress.

  “Maybe I should wear boots instead.” She steps back out of the shoes. “What about yours, Kell-belle, can I borrow those?”

  “Totally,” I say and fetch them for her. With the boots in place, I realize you can’t really see any of her ink, like she’s just any old mom going to any old dinner. “Maybe pull up your hair?”

  She shrugs, brushes out her dark blond hair, and secures it into a ponytail. Now, just barely, the four-leafed clover on the back of her neck is visible. She’d gotten it inked not long after Finn was born; every leaf is supposed to be one of us: Russell, Sara, Finn, and me. Otherwise, Mom actually doesn’t have a tattoo symbolizing Finn yet; she says she wants to know more of who he’ll grow up to be before making such a permanent mark. (She’s turned down all my suggestions, from a zebra to a ninja to the singing fish.) I understand, but ho
pefully by the time Finn is old enough to get a complex from such a thing, she’ll have figured out the right image for him.

  “Better?”

  “Definitely.” I’m still sort of angry, but I hug her anyway. “Have fun.”

  “Oh, sure.” She gives me a tight hug. “Have a good night. Do you have something to eat for dinner? Give me a minute, I’ll leave you some money so you can—”

  “I’m okay, Mom,” I say for whatever reason. “Just go.”

  She still shoves a few bills into my hand, then kisses my cheek before taking off. Obviously, since I have the house to myself for awhile, I call Oliver, who drives right over. I figure we’ll just have sex, but he brings a pizza, since I’d mentioned I hadn’t eaten yet. (I make him take half of the money Mom gave me.)

  “Everything okay with you?” Oliver asks. Considering I’ve barely spoken to him, outside of making him take seven dollars, it would have been weird if he didn’t ask.

  “Just stupid family stuff,” I say. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  “If you don’t want to talk, why’d you want me to come over?”

  I try to give him A Look. It must have worked because he laughs.

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh, yeah.” I get up from the table and take his hand to lead him to my room, like suddenly I’m the boss of our sex life. From the way he follows, though, it’s safe to assume I am.

  “This is a small room,” Oliver says when I lock my bedroom door behind us.

  “It used to be half of a really big room, but Sara and I didn’t want to share.” At Sara’s name I feel like crying, so I pull Oliver back on the bed with me as a distraction to my brain.

  Total success, of course.

  Afterward, Oliver gets nervous that Russell or Mom is going to arrive home any moment, so he gets dressed and runs downstairs in a blur. I put on pajamas because they’re more comfortable than the jeans and shirt I’d been wearing and chase him down in the driveway.

  He hugs me really, really tightly. “You okay?”