Cross Me Off Your List (22 page)

“Maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll introduce you
guys to Alston someday,” I say, nudging him with my elbow. “Let’s
go. You’re getting tatted with me.”

We drive across town to the tattoo parlor
with zebra-striped walls. Noah demands that Big Tony wait in the
car or outside or basically anywhere other than inside with us.

A guy greets us at the cash register. I look
to see if he’s wearing a name tag, but he’s not. Figures.

“Um, I was told to ask for Diablo,” I tell
the Hispanic guy behind the counter. “A.J. Gonzalez recommended him
to me.”

The guy laughs. “A.J.’s a good dude. I’m
Diablo. What can I do for you?” he asks.

“I want to get my first tattoo,” I tell him.
“And my friend here wants to get his…well, I don’t know that
number.”

Noah laughs. “I think this will be number
fifty-three, but for the record, I count every single piece as its
own.”

He pulls his shirt up to reveal his back
piece. “Every single shooting star, every single fish – they all
count as one,” he explains. “I add to it all the time, so they have
to be individual pieces.”

Diablo studies the outer-space-meets-ocean
scene on Noah’s back and nods. “Until they become one big canvas,
you can count them,” he says. “I counted the ones on my arms until
they became sleeves.”

We step into a different room and discuss
what designs we want. Noah is caught off guard when asked. I debate
between an anchor and a French angelfish. I have examples of both
saved on my phone.

“Let’s both get the fish,” Noah suggests.
“Except, you know, yours will be pink and mine will be Loki.”

I fight the desire to laugh because that’s
exactly who occupied my time last night on the flat screen in
Emily’s family’s living room – while I was making Noah anxious by
ignoring him.

“Okay then. The angelfish it shall be,” I
say, giving Diablo the nod to grab the paperwork.

The pink and purple angelfish fits perfectly
near my ankle. I admire the photo on my phone while Diablo bandages
the inking and gives us instructions on aftercare. He speaks more
to me than Noah, and if it weren’t for all the designs on Noah’s
skin, I’d be offended. But in this situation, the direction makes
sense. So I nod and smile.

Big Tony doesn’t look very thrilled to have
had to wait so long for us. Normally, I’d feel guilty for making
him stand around in the spring sunshine playing babysitter, but
this is my last full day in Crescent Cove and with Noah Winters.
The drama has subsided, and I’m taking full advantage of crossing
off the rest of my list.

“Get wings,” Noah says, looking across the
street at nothing. “How the hell are you going to get wings?”

“I don’t know,” I say, still hating that
item. “We’ll come back to it.”

Noah searches on Google for a store nearby
where we can purchase bottles to send messages in. Big Tony says
something about environment-friendly, but Noah ignores him and says
he’ll figure it out on his own. Maybe they need to pawn Big Tony
off on another member of the band. He just doesn’t seem like the
best fit for Noah.

Noah finds a shop on the outskirts of
Crescent Cove, in the opposite direction of Horn Island, that
specializes in ocean-safe bottles that are used for sending
messages.

“They actually have events where people go
out on boats and toss their bottles,” he says, reading from their
website.

He rambles off the address to Big Tony, who
puts it in the GPS. Twenty minutes later, we pull up in front of a
white marble building that reminds me of a little American piece of
the Taj Mahal. The words “Letters at Sea” are scrawled in curvy
gold letters above the door. The ocean rests behind the building,
sloshing forward and drifting back out to take letters into the
sea. I need to get a job here. This place is incredibly
beautiful.

A crowd of people sit on the beach, eating
picnic lunches and building sandcastles. I guess this is one of the
more family-friendly places in the cove. It’s definitely not on the
tourist sites like some of the night clubs or The Strip.

“I’m coming with you. No arguments,” Big Tony
insists. “There are too many people here, and I’m not having that
on me.”

Noah groans, mumbles a ‘fine,’ and then tells
Big Tony to walk behind us. It comes in glimpses, but moments like
these make it so obvious that Noah and Nat are from the same gene
pool. I sort of wonder if Nat learned his sassiness from his big
brother.

When we walk into the building, a few people
gasp, and young girls giggle with their friends. It’s a matter of
moments before Noah is slammed with autograph and selfie requests,
all of which he takes in stride. I wait around for about fifteen
minutes before Noah tells them that he only has another minute
because his friend is waiting on him and he wants to spend time
with her – ‘her’ being me.

One of the girls, who can’t be older than
twelve, happily skips over to me and asks if I’m Noah’s girlfriend.
When I say we’re just good friends, she giggles and runs off. She
tells her friend that I’m pretty and that she hopes I’m his
girlfriend. I don’t need a twelve-year-old’s approval, but after
the twenty-four hours I had with Saturn fans, this little girl’s
approval means more than she’ll ever know.

Big Tony intervenes and brings Noah back to
planet Earth. I’m glad he’s here or Noah would’ve been wrapped up
in fan-land for the entire day. He doesn’t know how to stop and
just say that he can’t continue. This could be why he’s a fan
favorite with so many of the Saturnites.

He purchases two bottles, actually asks if
Big Tony wants one as well (he doesn’t), and we step over to a
private table with colored stationary.

I grab a pink piece of paper. Noah picks up a
basic white sheet but exchanges it for mint green.

He doesn’t waste any time scribbling his
message across the paper. I didn’t really give this any thought. I
doubt anyone will ever find it. It’ll just sink to the bottom of
the ocean and end up inside of a whale. What do you even say to a
whale? Or a sunken ship? Or a mermaid?

So I write the first thing that comes to
mind, just in case it’s magically found. I write what I’d want
someone to secretly send to me.

Everything you need to know about life, you
can learn from Katy Perry. ROAR. And I mean really freaking roar.
Roar so loudly that no one can shut you down. No one can tune you
out. No one can tell you that you’re not worth it or that you can’t
do whatever it is you’re destined to do. And if somehow, someone’s
voice slips through the cracks and tells you to stop, ROAR LOUDER.
Don’t listen to them. I didn’t – and that’s why you have this
letter. Katy’s right, my friend – you *are* a firework.

A group of tween girls huddle around another
table across the room. They steal glances and whispers, but I try
not to stare and make them uncomfortable. They dig through small
baskets and begin a lengthy conversation about which stickers best
represent them.

I lean closer to Noah. “I think we’re outside
of the age-range for this place,” I whisper.

He nods. “I caught onto that when a girl
offered me a kitten sticker earlier,” he says. “Now I kind of wish
I had it so I could put it on this awesome message.”

A lady comes inside and takes all of the
girls except two back outside with her. The girls linger while
decorating their letters. One of them is the girl who asked if I
was Noah’s girlfriend.

“Let’s go decorate with them,” I say, nodding
toward the girls. “There are only two of them, and we won’t be
long.”

To my surprise, and against Big Tony’s
warning, Noah agrees and we venture across the room. Noah takes a
seat and begins sticking glittery sea turtles and seahorse stickers
around his green paper. I settle on an owl sticker in honor of the
bucket list, an anchor sticker in honor of my bracelet and the
choice I made to anchor in Crescent Cove, and then I fill in the
gaps with angelfish.

The girl from earlier leans over and studies
my paper. “Why do you put all the fish in pairs?” she asks.

“French angelfish mate for life,” I say.
“Sort of like finding a soul mate, in a way. They connect forever
and always stay together.”

“That is so cool,” she says. “Can I put some
of them on mine too?”

I hand her the rest of the fish, roll my
letter up, tie a purple ribbon around it, and slip it into my
bottle. After Noah takes a picture with the girls, he asks if I
want to take the bottles down on the pier behind the store.

But I have a better idea.

On the way back into Crescent Cove, Noah asks
to stop at Strings and Starlight to pick up drumsticks. He makes a
beeline for Jace, who special ordered some just for him, and I
check out the shelf of new album releases.

The album that jumps out to me is none other
than Sebastian’s Shadow’s album, which I didn’t bother to pick up
at their release party. I actually didn’t bother looking at the
album at all the other night. I grab a copy from the rack and study
the image of a girl holding dead flowers in the rain. She looks
like a sad little wolf. Her face is a bit animalistic.

I flip it over to see the track list, since
Benji made such a huge deal about track number eight –
The Coast
of New Hampshire
– being the work of a lyrical genius. The song
titles are printed in white letters, on top of a gray background
with…black butterfly wings.

I hug the CD to my chest and smile the
goofiest, happiest smile I think I could ever manage. I wish I
could play it cool, but this is absolutely fate.

While Noah pays for his drumsticks, I slide
the CD across the counter to Jace. Noah says to add that to his
purchase. Then he looks at me.

“You could’ve gotten that CD free the other
night,” he says. “And autographed, at that.”

“I know,” I say. “I didn’t care then.”

“And you care now? After everything that went
down, you want a Sebastian’s Shadow album?” he asks, almost
humored.

I grab the CD case and hold it up so he can
see the artwork on the back. “For your information, I’m getting
wings,” I say.

I really don’t care what kind of wings my
former friends managed to find in LA. These were meant for me.

A pink cloud stretches across the morning
sky, swimming in between the blue clouds. The colors mingle
together in purple streaks, like strings that have come loose from
frayed edges of a dress. The sand is a hazy orange-yellow shade,
and the ocean reflects the sky’s canvas.

“We always had a thing for sunrises,” Aralie
says, leaning her head onto Jules’s shoulder.

It wasn’t part of the plan for Aralie and
Jules to join us this morning, but Noah couldn’t get out of the
hotel without Aralie wanting to tag along. She’s not one for
sitting still, so I can’t blame her. I’m glad my other favorite
couple – also known as Emily and Miles – were up for joining me
down here this morning.

Noah sits on the beach towel with me, the six
of us facing the ocean and the collapsed pier that lives in it.

“Of all places, you want to throw your
message in a bottle into the waters of Horn Island,” Emily says,
shaking her head. “I mean, I get it. This place isn’t the same. It
gets in your blood. But of all the tropical beaches Noah could take
you to, you choose this dump.”

Aralie makes a reference to a Sebastian’s
Shadow song that Chloe loves, something about bleeding butterflies
and how they create the sunrise each morning. I haven’t heard the
song, but I may have to look it up.

Once the sun has risen and an orange glow
hugs the morning sky, we walk down to the collapsed pier where Noah
and I hurl our bottles out into the ocean. I secretly hope it
floats around on a grand journey and then washes up right back here
in Horn Island. Maybe a Hooligan or half-breed Hispanic kid like
A.J. and me will find it.

I watch until the bottle leaves my sight.
Then I say reluctant goodbyes to Aralie, Jules, Emily, and Miles.
Aralie eases the sadness when she announces that she has to swing
by the thrift shop before leaving town to return the little black
dress from Dr. Richardson’s yacht party.

Noah and I head back to Emily’s house to pack
my things back into a vehicle. Emily waves goodbye from the porch
when we leave, and I pray that it’s not the last time I see her. I
think I kind of like this sleepy little beach town.

Paparazzi are still staked outside of
Crescent Inn when we get back. Noah grabs my hand, pulls his Oakley
sunglasses over his face, and walks quickly through the crowd,
refusing to speak to anyone. We beeline for the elevator, and he
pushes his sunglasses up once we’re safely inside it.

“You know, we actually met in here,” he says.
“I met the coolest chick I know in the Crescent Inn elevator.”

“In the middle of the night, while holding
strawberry milk,” I add.

“And then we went on a wild bucket list
adventure,” he says. “Did we cross off all twenty? Wasn’t there
something left?”

“Visit a far, far away place,” I reply. The
elevator dings and the door opens on the fourth floor. We step out
and I turn to Noah. “I think Saturn is about the furthest place I
could possibly visit. It counts.”

We walk down to room 413, passing Saturn
staff along the way as they carry the band’s belongings outside to
private cars.

“Holy fucking mermaid!” Nat shouts when we
step into the room. “I love your hair, and I’ve missed you, and you
were such a bitch for ignoring me, but I blame my brother, so we’re
good.”

He says it all in one breath while squeezing
the breath out of me in an anaconda-grip hug. He informs me that
he, Benji, and Tank will be riding with Noah and me to take me
home.

“Noah said I couldn’t, but I told him that he
owed me because you sent
me
the video, not him,” Nat says.
“So obviously I’m the better brother and I win at life, and I need
the number of your brilliant stylist because your hair is perfect
and he’s hot and obviously gay, right?”