“Nah, I’ll lie down in the back.”
This plan was getting more insane by the second. She waved a dismissive hand at my incredulous expression.
“Oh, don’t be like that. I trust you.”
Reeves had trusted me. So had Ashlinn. That hadn’t worked out particularly well, and no matter how many times I told myself neither of those endings was my fault, it just seemed too difficult to believe.
Right. I had to start letting go. This was becoming more of a study in self-love than anything.
“Fine, give me the keys,” I relented. She tossed them to me, a wicked smile on her face, and climbed into the backseat as I ducked into the front. I closed my eyes, trying to bring the driver’s ed textbook I practically memorized to the front of my mind, and pretended there was a driving instructor in the passenger seat. I’d be able to do this as long as there was no need to either parallel park or K-turn. Opening my eyes, I observed the surroundings. First, the mirrors had to be adjusted, then the seat belts secured.
“Seat belt?” I called back to Ellie.
“Can’t. I’m lying on my front across the seats.”
Looking back proved that indeed she was. Oh hell no.
“Don’t care. Find a way.”
She groaned but managed to wrap the belt from the middle seat I had occupied on our way to New York around her waist. I guess that was as good as it was going to get in the situation.
Next: keys, foot on brake, gear shift, steering wheel, gas. Seemed manageable.
I thought through every action before performing it, and soon enough the car was rumbling to life beneath my feet. I put the car into drive and released the brake, and we were crawling out of the parking lot and onto the road. With every honk of a road-rager behind us and every creep up to a red light, I felt myself finally letting go. This was danger without self-destruction.
ELLIE HAD
to help me with directions at the start, but after we got closer to town, everything was familiar and I easily found her house. It looked like every other generic suburban home to grace America: a tan, two-storied affair with a neat lawn and white decorative windowpanes. Pulling up to her driveway made me realize our next issue.
“I didn’t think this far in advance. I’m just going to walk home,” I told her as I turned off the car and unbuckled my seat belt.
“Like hell you are,” she responded, gingerly eradicating herself from the backseat. “I’m not letting you comfort me as I make a decision I’ll probably regret in twenty years, then forcing you to walk home after graciously driving to ease my burning thigh. You’re staying the night. If my skin feels less explosive in the morning, I’ll drive you.”
“It probably won’t.”
“Then we’ll walk together. Now open the car door for me.”
I did as she said and watched her gracelessly slide onto the driveway with her bottom lifted high in the air, then take far too long to stand. There was the ever-present urge to run home, blame dance and my mother, or even a debilitating illness, but things were tilting. I didn’t want those factors to stop me; I just expected them to out of habit.
“Lead on,” I told her after a second’s hesitation. I reached for my phone to call Mother and explain how I was actually interacting with another human being. As it rang, Ellie half waddled up to the door, then picked up the mat with a wild, indiscreet flourish and found the key. We were inside before Mother even picked up.
Her hello was infused with so much terror over whatever catastrophe must have occurred for me to call, it was almost funny. She would probably have been less surprised to hear news of me causing an impending apocalypse than that I was hanging out with someone. I told her I’d be staying the night at Ellie’s without giving too much information away. Her enthusiasm over the friendship she believed me to be rekindling was a bit overboard, but at least she was actually expressing some sort of emotion.
“No, there will not be alcohol. Yes, I will call you in the morning. I’m sure she can lend me a toothbrush.”
Ellie was laughing at the one side she could hear of my conversation, so I said good-bye and hung up as quickly as possible, still standing in the threshold. The inside of her house seemed unchanged from when I last saw it a year ago—or was it two? Dark stained hardwood floors and floral-print curtains framed every window.
“Is your room still in the basement?” I asked, remembering how cool I had always thought that was. She had an entire floor to herself, like a poor man’s underground penthouse.
“Yeah, no reason to move. Let’s go hide down there in case my parents show up soon and decide they want to do something disgusting like talk.”
A wooden door gave way to narrow stairs with carpet obviously added as an afterthought. The walls were painted cinder blocks, and a single twin-size bed was pushed as far into the corner as it could go. There was a lot of empty floor space, yet an old tube television sat merely inches from the edge of the bed. A folding chair reclined in the center of the floor beneath a boa dangling from the ceiling next to a string of nonworking Christmas lights. Posters depicting artwork I was doubtful she had ever even seen were stuck to the walls with long lines of black electrical tape.
“It’s changed,” I said, surprised at the fact I was surprised.
“You can’t stay fourteen forever. I had to get rid of the glitter eventually.”
She flopped down face-first onto the bed, with one foot popped up in the air.
“Have I made a horrible decision?” she asked into her pillow.
“That’s not for me to say.”
I fell back into the folding chair, which topped the list as one of the most uncomfortable things my butt had ever come in contact with, and began to take the braids out of my hair.
“You know, I don’t like this town all that much.”
“Not many people do,” I replied, not sure where this was going. If she was bringing up reasons why her tattoo might not have been the wisest decision, that would surely be one of them.
“I mean, the best thing about this place is its proximity to other places. We can get to New York, and there’s the ocean and Atlantic City, but nothing is right here. I’d like to live somewhere that no one is ever bored.”
“Well, you have choice pick of colleges with those grades of yours. Go to New York like I want to. Apply to NYU or Columbia or something.”
I plucked the wilting flowers from my hair, surprised so many had stayed in, and lined them up on her floor.
She turned her head so she was no longer getting a mouthful of pillow whenever she spoke. “They’re not far enough. I want to run away.”
These admissions were surpassing whatever remained of my comfort level, but I was intrigued. We never spoke about anything personal, not anymore. We’d be delving into my sexual identity crisis soon at this rate.
“Run away?” I asked. “You just got a tattoo in dedication to the place you’re currently bashing. If you’re trying so hard to escape, why would you get a chunk of it on your thigh forever?”
“You already know my Jersey Devil story, which really was the initial reason, but I dunno.” She stopped, thinking. “I guess I want the new people I’m going to meet to think I’m from somewhere worth remembering. Somewhere they’d have wanted to grow up. If they think I like it here, maybe I’ll be able to start convincing myself too.”
She paused again. “Besides, knowing I’m from New Jersey will make them less likely to mess with me.” I could hear the smile in her voice at the end and snorted.
“You just need to act like yourself. If you do that, I think you’re pretty safe from people messing with you no matter what they think of your hometown.”
She began moving to turn over, then yelped in pain and lurched off the bed. “Goddammit!”
I tutted at her. “It is an open wound. You were bleeding what, twenty minutes ago?” She began reaching for the bandage, and I rushed to where she stood to smack her hand away.
“Did you even read the care instructions? He said four hours at least. Keep it on for a day. I doubt it’s much to look at right now, anyways.”
She pouted, but her anger was cut off by the click and slam of an opening door.
“Mom’s home. I’ll just go warn her that you’re here.”
“Wait,” I said, stopping her as she headed toward the stairs. “Put on some pants. Loose ones.”
Her eyes widened with the realization that she now had months of covering her thigh ahead of her. She couldn’t afford to slip up like this.
“There is no way I’m getting jeans on over this. Help me find a longer skirt. One that’ll reach my knees. Damn, this is going to be hell to hide for the next year.”
We flung open her dresser, which was a mess of red and black fabric. Several skirts were folded or crumpled in the corners, making it look more like a wastepaper basket than anything. Each skirt was too short and would show the bandage from certain viewpoints. Clothes were being flung around like flags and thrown so that they billowed before reaching the floor, decorating the ground like a peddler’s caravan. Finally we uncovered a dress that only reached midthigh in the front but tapered around to be nearly floor length in the back.
I turned my back to her as she painstakingly peeled off her clothes and donned the new outfit. It was nice, if a bit dressy for a summer afternoon.
“I’m decent,” she called before jogging up the stairs. I headed up after her, watching the skirt flutter with each step like Ashlinn’s cloak had when she walked down the beach, a memory I tried desperately to push away.
Ellie threw open the door at the top of the steps.
“Mom, Victoria’s over.”
“Really? I haven’t seen her in ages.” When I finally got out of the basement, her mother was there dropping a briefcase. She came over and gave me a hug.
“I hope everything’s okay with you. It’s nice to have you here.” It sounded more like someone breaking the news to a toddler that their fish just went home to Jesus than anything. Pity would suffocate me in the end.
“Great to see you too,” I lied. No one thinks to miss a friend’s parents. She gave me a meek smile and walked toward the kitchen.
“Dinner’s in an hour. I’m making spaghetti.”
We filled the time between that moment and dinner with two episodes of
SVU
commentated obnoxiously by Ellie, who could find a flaw in any character. During the meal her mom spoke very little, and we all just stared down into our plates of pasta. I was well acquainted with this form of “family dinner.” The scraping of forks against china punctuated an invisible conversation Ellie seemed to be engaged in with her mother. It was less effort to just ignore the whole thing than to try and interpret their eyebrow raises and fleeting hand gestures. I never asked where her father was.
After dinner Ellie rescued a tub of ice cream from the freezer for herself and tossed me a bag of Twizzlers I had little intention of actually eating.
“Truth or Dare. Truth or Dare,” she chanted as we headed back downstairs.
“What?”
“It’s a slumber party. We have to play truth or dare.”
After closing the door carefully behind us and returning to the bed, she attempted to lie on her front again but realized that position wasn’t suitable for eating ice cream and modified the situation. After pulling over the folding chair, Ellie inserted herself face-first through the back so that her arms dangled toward the ground, and propped her feet up on the mattress. Uncomfortable but effective.
“You first,” she said, pointing at me with her spoon where I sat crisscrossed before her on the floor. “Truth or dare?”
“Dare.”
“No, I think you want truth.”
“Okay, then, truth.”
“What the hell was that whole Ashlinn affair? Explain in detail, citations not necessary. Go.”
As if I couldn’t see that one coming. “I change my mind. Give me my dare back.”
Ellie smirked at me. “No can do. Might as well get it over with, ’cause you know I’m going to torture you about this whenever we see each other until you give up. I am damn persistent and endlessly stubborn.”
Lord knows that’s the truth. My options were diminishing, and Ellie already suspected that something was off about the relationship. Time to see what she’d be willing to believe; hopefully there wouldn’t be a great need to invent a European family Ashlinn had to visit or any other lies. Like I had told Ashlinn, I leave the storytelling and creativity to others.
It seemed safe to start with the basics, gain a jumping-off point to figure out how much could be revealed. “What do you believe in, Ellie?”
“Hey, it’s my turn to ask questions. Don’t try and change the subject.”
“I know. We’re getting to my answer; just help me.”
“Well, whaddaya mean? Like, Santa and shit? Or are we talking some sort of existential, what-values-do-you-hold-dear kinda business?”
“Anything. Supernatural creatures, God. You have the Jersey Devil on your thigh…. That must mean something.”
She placed her carton of ice cream on the floor and allowed her head to dangle down, eyes closed in thought. “This is deep, man. I guess I believe in it all. I mean, I don’t want to, but I can’t help it. God, you said? Hell, I don’t want to believe in the dude, but it’s hard not to sometimes.”
“Why don’t you want to believe in God?” As someone who could never work up any faith of my own, it seemed like a nice thing to have. A sort of insurance policy for the afterlife just in case there was an actual possibility of being damned.
“Too much pressure. They tell us this guy has power over everything that ever is or was. Well, that means he planned for us to happen, right? This omnipresent being caused the Ice Age and sent the asteroid that destroyed the dinosaurs. What if he killed off the mammoths to make way for us? He needed room for the humans and got rid of ’em. That’s a lot to live up to, my friend. I’m not sure if my existence justifies losing the mammoths.”
Irritatingly erudite seemed like her default setting. “And where do you think dreams come from?” I asked, feeling like I was inching over a frozen lake that had just begun to crackle.
“I don’t know. They come from that big squashy thing called your brain.”