The weight of these thoughts far outweighs the worst-case-scenario ones, pushing me forward as I sign on the dotted line, my fear no longer debilitating.
Big Eddie heads back up to take the clipboard, motioning to the faux-leather tattoo chair sitting empty in the middle of the room.
I walk over and slide into it, my legs squeaking noisily against the leather as I perch on the edge. Big Eddie has me put my arm up on the armrest, cleaning it with rubbing alcohol. I’m surprised when he pulls out a razor to shave down the faint brown hair on my right arm, the skin underneath prickling. He puts down a stencil of the sunflower, transferring it onto my arm with water, his thick fingers working carefully as he slowly pulls the paper away.
And suddenly there it is. My soon-to-be tattoo. I exhale slowly, taking it in.
“Look all right?” he asks. “There’s a mirror over there if you want to double-check.”
I push myself up and walk over to the mirror attached to the back of a worn closet door, turning my arm right and left in the reflection. The flower stands out against my pale skin. A lot. My eyes find Blake’s in the reflection, and I hesitate, but she nods with absolute certainty, her arms crossed.
“It’s the perfect thing to get. Your mom would love it.”
I swallow hard on the tears that begin to bubble up at her words and head back to the tattoo chair, putting my arm back up on the armrest.
Big Eddie gets all the ink ready while Blake wheels a stool over, sitting down across from him, and suddenly he’s asking me, “You ready?”
And that’s when my eyes find the glimmering silver needle.
“Uh,” I manage to get out. Big Eddie stops in his tracks and gives me a once-over.
Am I ready to do this? I think of all the other items on the list. How I don’t regret doing a single one.
Everything my mom had on it has led me to feeling closer to not only her…
But also to the person I actually want to be. And this is a reminder of that.
Blake scoots the stool closer and holds out her hand to me. The same hand I held last night, underneath a blanket of stars. “You can squeeze it when it hurts, okay?” she says. “It’ll be over in no time.”
I pry my fingers off the armrest, placing my sweaty palm in her very dry and very soft hand, her fingers folding safely over mine, the feeling familiar and dizzying and distracting.
“All good?” Big Eddie asks again, the tattoo gun buzzing.
This time I nod.
He presses down, and the pressure goes from nagging to unpleasant to painful. I grimace, squeezing Blake’s hand tighter as the pain swells from an uncomfortable prickle to blindingly overpowering.
Even when my grip tightens hard enough for her fingers to lose color, or the bones to pop straight out, Blake never pulls her hand away. She sticks by me, just like she has this entire summer.
I squeeze my eyes shut and count to five, over and over again in my head, until the buzzing stops, giving way to absolute silence.
I pop one eye open and then the other, peering down to see the result.
It looks different from the one drawn on the page of that thick binder, something about the colors and the shape transforming underneath these dim tattoo parlor lights.
The sunflower on my arm looks alive. Like it was plucked straight from my mom’s garden. The petals are an identical, glowing yellow, the stem a soft green.
“Good?” Big Eddie asks hesitantly.
I nod, trying again not to cry. “It looks just like the flowers from my mom’s garden. Thank you.”
It’s a part of her. A part of me. A part of us that can never be taken away. No matter where I go, I’ll always have this.
He puts a clear wrap over it, taping it carefully down as he goes over basic care instructions. For once in my life, I hardly listen, my eyes fixed on the sunflower and the bright red skin around it. My vision blurs as I think about my mom’s forearm, her tattoo in the same spot as mine, another shared experience we’ve now had.
I didn’t think we’d have any more of those, and now I have so many of them.
I finally relax and let go of Blake’s hand as we walk to the front, my palm tingling without the constant pressure of hers against it. She flexes her fingers, grinning at me.
“They all still work! I’m shocked,” she teases.
I smile at her as I pay Big Eddie. A warm, happy feeling begins to build, swelling like a balloon until it takes up my entire chest.
Soon I am pushing through the front door, the bells looped around the handle ringing noisily behind me.
“I fucking did it! I got a tattoo!” I scream to the empty street, adrenaline coursing through my veins.
Blake gives me a big smile, watching with an amused expression as I dance around.
Before I can process what I’m doing, I throw my arms around her, my skin buzzing as her hands wrap around my waist and my chin rests on her shoulder.
I pull away before she can feel how fast my heart is beating.
21
When we pull up to my house, I’m surprised to see that my dad is home, his truck sitting in the driveway.
“That’s weird,” I mutter as I slide into a zip-up hoodie from my backpack.
It’s a Monday afternoon. He should be at work. He’s always at work.
I feel my stomach flip-flop with nerves, the worst-case scenarios inevitably swimming into my head. I hope everything is okay.
“Thanks, Blake,” I call as I throw open my door, scooping up my enormous teddy bear. I pause to meet her warm brown eyes, my stomach flip-flopping for a different reason. I glance toward the house and let out a long sigh. “I kind of… don’t want to go.”
She flashes me a smile that
