The Way We Talk

I love Friday nights, but not Saturday afternoons.

Obnoxious freshmanism allows me to have a very late physics lab, which, in turn, makes me look very forward to whatever party I'm attending later. Naturally, I'm drunk before midnight, and I'm not always sure where I'll crash for the night.

On second though, how did I get home last night?

The Korean man at Carvings knows that I'm hungover as hell and offers to bring my coffee and sandwich over to me. I smile politely as he hands me my order, then take a seat by the window.

The french bread of my Uptowner makes my brain slam against the sides of my skull, but the basil / tomato / mozzarella / vinaigrette combination is, without a doubt, my go-to hangover food, and the cappuccino is a no brainer.

I stare out at the apartment complex across the street. Two girls in ADPi sweatshirts make the walk of shame back to Thurston, and their slight stumble says they're still drunk. Lucky bitches.

My phone vibrates on the table, and I open it.

From Rena Vigarro: this is rena's corpse. does jinxproof tattoo dead people?

So I'm not the only one. That's promising.

To Rena Vigarro: hope so. god, i'm too hungover to function.

I get up- I told her to text me once she was on the Metro. Considering that it's only a few stops on the Orange Line, she'll be there soon.

From Rena Vigarro: same here, twin, same here.

--

I wring my hands together as I sit on the bench, the tattoo design on my lap.

I know it's cliche to tattoo angel wings on your shoulder blades, but it's an "in memorium" thing that I've planned for years. I've never been the quitting type, so I'm going to do it.

However, the idea of it all is making my stomach turn. Last night was a poor, poor decision.

A burly man with full sleeves calls my name and I walk over to him with shaking legs. He leads me to a cubicle and has me take my shirt off. He aligns the design and presses it against my back, leaving an ink imprint. I have the artist take a picture so that I can verify that it will be in the right place, then he has me lie on my stomach. I pop in my earphones - something that both Rena and Christian suggested. I hit "Artist", then "Christian Climer", selecting the shuffle icon before closing my eyes.

"Hey Erica, it's January 7th. I get to see you again in three days," his recorded voice says, and I mentally urge him to get to the song already as I feel a prick on my shoulder. I still can't believe that I'm finally doing this. Four years of planning, and right now, it's getting inked. "I know you hate my pre-playing monologues, but I miss you, best friend." And with that, he launches into "Come On Get Higher".

--

"So, how does it feel?" Rena asks as we head down M Street. I instinctively run my finger over my tattoo, separated by my shirt and the thick bandage.

"A little sore, but that's to be expected," I admit, grinning, "But so worth it."

She grins, throwing an arm over my shoulders gently. Her small "amour" in script is definitely not her first tattoo, but that doesn't make the new addition any less tender. "Matt would be so proud of you."

I shrug, but do not hide my widening smile. "Yeah, he should be." I then, quite abruptly, change the subject. "So, you've been avoiding the question all day. What is up with you and the soccer player?"

She giggles at this, sighing. "Eh, we're sleeping together. We'll say we're dating, but it's basically a cover for 'fucking like bunnies'."

I laugh at this. One of the things that I like about Rena is that she's a little blunt, but at least she doesn't sugarcoat it. There's no stupid bullshit with her, and it's so refreshing.

"It's like, I don't like being tied down and I don't like deep, emotional connection with guys," she continues, adjusting her waves with one hand, "This way, I get what I want and he gets what he wants."

"So you won't be inking his number with a heart around it anytime soon?"

She raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow and elbows me lightly. "Never. So, you and frat boy Chris. Dish."

I shrug. "What's to say? We went out a few times, he ended it on Valentine's Day".

"Aren't you guys still listed as engaged on Facebook?" She asks as we slip into CVS, looking for supplies to clean our new ink.

"We were never really together-together, and we're still friends. Even if he hadn't broken it off, I would have soon enough," I say as Rena goes through the aisle with a careful gaze, looking for what she usually uses.

She hands me a box with a smile. "I think you being in love with his best friend doesn't help matters."

I snatch the box and humph. "I am not in love with Christian."

"You're crazy, Saunders. Honestly, I'm waiting for one of you to finally snap and jump the other." I laugh at Rena's innate ability to segue the conversation to sex yet again, but she continues, "I'm serious. You said yourself that he would have hooked up with you had the thing with Chris never happened. What's stopping you now?"

I don't have a good answer to that.

--

"Christian Climer, you're going to rip my skin off," I hiss as the boy struggles with the bandage. He mutters an apology as he gets the last of it off. He then grabs the wet washcloth, running it lightly over the scabbed over skin. "It's beautiful, Ric," Christian whispers, running a finger over the ink lightly, "I was a little skeptical about how it would turn out, but it's incredible."

I pull the ointment out of the bag and hang it to Christian, who squeezes a dab onto his finger, then begins working it onto the tattoo. This is something I only trust someone who has a tattoo to do at this point, so my roommate is out in this case.

"Would I be a dick if I asked what of the little details meant?" I turn my head to look at him and he removes his finer to add quickly, "It's just, you've never mentioned much about Matt and he was obviously very important to you. but if it's not something you want to talk about, I should really shut up now."

I half-smile at him to tell him that I'm not mad, then turn around so that he can continue. "Matthew Michael Casaltas," I begin, wincing as Christian rubs an especially tender spot with a little too much force, "was my best friend in middle school. The Roman Numerals are his date of birth and date of death. He was the only person I trusted, really, for a really long time. We didn't really fit in, and we depended on each other a lot."

I pause. It's not painful talking about him as much as it is just emotionally draining. I stopped really being sad about his death a long time ago. You talk it over enough times with a ninety-dollar-an-hour psychologist and you realize that he got what he wanted - an end - and you just have to accept that there wasn't nothing you could do to stop it.

"He committed suicide two months after I moved away from Connecticut. It was my wakeup call. Like, we were seriously, seriously depressed. But Matt was the one that talked about making it all better. He was able to keep himself together while I was around, only to self-destruct when I left."

Christian pecks the center of my tattoo, then pulls me to his chest in a way so that he rotated my back away from colliding with his abs. "It took a long time for me to stop being angry about it; angry at him and angry at myself. But I've learned that I couldn't change his mind. I saved him as long as I could but there's a line even I couldn't cross. He was so sick. The things in his mind still scare me. I can't understand how someone could hate themselves as much as he hated him."

Christian wipes a tear from my eye, pecking my forehead slowly. "He loved you."

I nod, "He did. In his suicide note, he only wrote to me. It was actually addressed to me. He kept telling me it wasn't my fault and that he would love me for as long as he was breathing, and then some. He asked me to live for the both of us, to make myself everything we couldn't be in middle school. His name is in his handwriting, how he signed his note."

I adjust my torso so that Christian can see the tight script of "Matthew M. Casaltas". His fingers brush over the letters than travel down. "Whose handwriting is the bottom one in?"

"Mine," I answer, taking a deep breath, "My answer to him."

I feel his lips curl into a smile against my forehead. "I hope I kept my promise," he reads aloud from my loop script after detaching his lips from my skin. "I hope you know that you did. Unless I'm missing something - and in that case, I'd like to know that now rather than later - you're so much stronger than you were when he was alive. It takes an unbelievably strong person to bounce back from something like that. And now, you're quite the popular lady. You are everything that Matt wanted you to be and so much more. If he's not proud of you, then he just doesn't know you the way I know you."

I half-smile back at him. "Sometimes, I wonder what I did without you, Christian."

He grins stupidly, tucking his hands behind his head. "I don't know. You must have had such a boring life."

I smack him on the arm, but settle back onto his chest. God, I love this boy so much.

Where did that come from? Fuck you, Vigarro, fuck you.