The Way We Talk

I think it's safe to say that we were all hesitant to leave Mexico. After all, we were in no hurry to return to the daily grind of school and the hangovers we were carefully avoiding. But our plane tickets were non-refundable, we had no where to stay, and our families would inevitably report us missing. So, we boarded the plane back to the real world.

We left a lot in Cancun. We had to stop the religious Corona-drinking, the partying every night (and day), the morning guava juice and rums, and Footy (temporarily?) left his relationship with Leila there as well. Unfortunately, the Mexican Truce was null and void the second we landed in Orlando, though that could have been the hangover. Either way, life returned to normal.

"Erica, I know I'm not supposed to be here for another hour, but I need my Chem book."

Correction: I may have brought one thing back from Cancun and me.

Chris mutters a swear under his breath, and hurries back into his jeans. He tosses his shirt back on, pecks me goodbye, and tells me he'll text me before scurrying out the door.

Sammy snickers at me, sheet up to my neck, as she walks into our double. "You know that as a friend, I applaud the action, but as a roommate, can you please not sexile me during daylight hours?"

I belong in True Life: My Roommate Thinks I'm a Whore.

"I'm not sleeping with him," I say in defense, and I feel an intense sense of deja-vu. Fuck.

She shrugs. "Oral-sexile doesn't quite have the same ring to it. And don't try to deny it; I totally saw you blowing him yesterday when I forgot to read the white board."

I sigh, then bury the rest of me under the sheets. I am so busted.

"Relax," she continues, clucking her tongue with a giggle. "I'm considering it a repayment for when you had to wake up to me and Danny hooking up. But if this is going to be a regular thing, we're going to have to work this out."

I peek my head out from my top sheet. "This is...I don't even know."

Sammy shrugs. "Well, how about I go to class and we will have this humiliating conversation at a later time." And with that, she grabs the book from her desk and heads out.

I sit up in bed and grab my bra. I stare at the previously discarded material and frown. What the fuck AM I doing?

--

Christian is of no help at all.

He doesn't really approve of me hooking up with Chris. He says that Kamrada's using me as a hole to stick his dick at this point, and he just doesn't want to me to get hurt.

Jesus, if I wanted a lecture on the sacredness of my virginity, I'd have seen a priest, thanks.

Perhaps it's because he's missing the very crucial, I-wish-he-was-you-ignorant-asswipe, part but I'm all too eager to change the subject.

Even after a positive first experience with tattooing, I am anxious about round two. It's exactly why I'm thrilled that Christian begged me to go with him.

I steer the conversation towards tattoo designs as we sit in the waiting room of Jinx-proof, awaiting our needle treatment.

--

"Okay, I'm not going to lie, that hurt more than the other arm," Christian admits, collapsing onto my bed. We rarely hang out here, but Maika's sexiled Christian (apparently, he likes this Allison girl enough to have her take the train up) and Sammy's back in the city for the weekend.

I lightly pull on his bandage, revealing the outline globe on his right bicep. I smile; it's my first glimpse of this latest edition. "I take it you like to travel?" I ask sarcastically, to which he chuckles.

"I wanna seethe world," he responds, grabbing the tube of anti-bacterial gel and twisting off the cap with his teeth, "All of it. We might spend all of our time here and here," he points to the general area of Florida and the District, "But me and the guys are gunna travel the world and tour everywhere," he continues, grinning as he covers the entire Asian continent in a thin layer of gel.

"Are you gunna remember little 'ole me when you're a big time rockstar?" I ask, grabbing the tube from him so I can cover my own new ink.

He chuckles, throwing his free arm over my shoulders and pulling me towards him gently. "I couldn't forget you if I tried, Ric. Once you graduate, we'll hire you as a personal photographer." At that, he points to my new tattoo, small cartoony camera and the words 'we use the negatives to develop' in script underneath it on my inner arm.

"And I'll psychoanalyze the shit out of you to make my degree worthwhile."

He shrugs. "You do that already. But if it makes you happy, you're good."

We're silent for awhile, and I wordlessly inspect his scabbed-over arm. I think of all the places I've been and I find myself thinking about where Christian could have been by now if he hadn't gone to college.

"You really didn't want to go, did you?" I ask, and his confused face begs for me to clarify, "To college, I mean."

He shrugs. "Before I joined There For Tomorrow, no. I was in this band, and we were so terrible but, naturally, we thought we were the hottest shit. All we talked about was leaving Florida behind the second that high school gave us a diploma. But then we decided that none of us actually liked each other, and that was the end of that."

Christian pulls me to his chest, and I sigh as I listen to his steady heartbeat. Our relationship is so fucked up and so wrong that I should give up. But I'm addicted to this boy, and this is one habit I don't wanna kick.

"Jay approached me in study hall after the breakup - we used to play shows with TFT back when they had their old guitarist. He said that they all thought I was a better guitarist than James, and they needed an excuse to kick him out. But Jay's parents wouldn't budge on the college thing, so we decided to follow him."

He takes my hair out of its bun and messes with my wavy locks. "We all wanted to get out of Florida, and Jay liked American. We all wanted to be close, so we decided that Maika would go to Georgetown and me and Chris would go to GW."

"But Maika goes to GW and Chris is at UDC."

He nods. "Chris didn't get into George Washington. Or American. Kamrada had okay grades, I guess. He had it in his mind that he was gunna go, but his grades just weren't high enough. Luckily, UDC is rolling, and he applied last minute but still got his letter. And Maika decided that Georgetown was too pretentious and he'd be so far away from us and the Metro."

"Good to know that you've continued your education to fill time." I don't know exactly what I mean by that. I guess it's just that I'm in college because I want to learn, and GW's not a cheap place to spend on a whim.

I guess what hurts the most is, had Christian gotten his way at eighteen, we never would have met.

"I never knew how much I wanted it until I got here. I've learned so much about music and the industry since I got here, and that's just the academics of it. I've met two of the three most important women of my life here."

"Let me guess, the other third is your mom."

He smacks me on the arm at that. "You got a problem with that Saunders?"

His face is too close. His face is too close. I'm not sure who leans in - maybe we both did - but our lips bump together before Christian pulls away. "Shit Erica, I'm s-sorry. Instinct, I suck." Christian stutter appears as he turns bright red. "Just because you're beautiful doesn't mean I don't have a girlfriend." He sighs, cracking a weak smile. "Can we please go to laughing about this now?"

"You took the words right out my mouth." I nod. "In fact, I have no idea what you're talking about," I add, ignoring both the zing that I'd felt when whatever that was happened and the disappointment that occured when I realized that he had no intention to use his get-out-of-jail card on me.

He pecks me on the forehead, then moves to Sammy's bed. I sigh again, then pull out my laptop.