I’d gone back to Rose’s place, waited on her couch to come clean. Beg. Do what I had to to get her back. But it wasn’t enough. I knew as she stood before me, hands shaking, tears streaking her cheeks, eyes full of betrayal. She told me never again. She told me I wasn’t forgiven. She told me it was over for good. Forever. And I believed her.
So I’d spent the last seven months wishing I’d done things differently. Waiting in the wings. Watching her for an opening, looking for any sign that there was a chance for us.
But if Rose was anything, she was stone cold. One chance. Just one. And I’d wasted mine.
I heard her come out of her room and pause in front of the doorway to Lily’s for only a second before she turned with a huff, and her footsteps grew quieter until the door opened and closed, marking her exit.
I imagined her walking down the hall grumbling, wondered how likely it was that she’d actually let me stay.
I sighed and climbed out of Lily’s bed, making it like I always did to leave it just like I’d found it. I found myself looking over the painting I’d done for her years before, after I went to my first ballet. As a principal dancer for the New York City Ballet, dance was her life, a devotion I understood. A sacrifice of her time and body for her passion. Shoes from various shows hung on her wall around the painting, all noted with the date and performance. The piece was almost entire black with the edge of her body and tutu visible in the softest whites, pinks, peaches and yellow, painted in oil with raised brush strokes. I always noticed what I saw as flaws, wished I could pick up a brush and just apply a little paint here, a little over there, make it perfect.
But perfect didn’t exist. It was a lesson I’d learned long, long before.
I pulled on my sweatpants and T-shirt just as my phone alarm went off, and, once dressed, I made my way through the apartment, which was as familiar to me as my own. For four years, we’d lived down the hall from each other — me and West, Rose and Lily. We all had keys to the others’ apartments, for emergencies like running out of coffee filters or milk. Plus, the girls had cable and we didn’t, so it wasn’t at all uncommon for any of us to find the others in our place. Although, I’m the first to admit that sleeping in Rose’s apartment without her knowledge crossed the line.
My only defense was that I was desperate for sleep. And that it was Lily’s idea.
Two months ago, Lily and West got together, and she started sleeping over. A month ago, I stopped sleeping.
West and I shared a wall, and when the headboard started pounding in the middle of the night, every night, the first thing I did was move my bed across the room. Every night, it seemed to get a little louder, a little longer, and every morning I’d wake up a little more exhausted.
I’d tried everything I could think of. Earplugs drove me nuts. Music was too distracting. I think there was an electrical problem in our apartment because every white noise machine or fan I bought didn’t last more than a day or two before shorting out. So when Lily offered me her old bed, I took her up on it, eventually. After she twisted my arm, convincing me it wasn’t creepy because she’d given me permission, after all. There was no need to tell Rose, she’d said.
I’d barely slept for a week at that point. Desperate times, and all that.
It was so quiet that first night when I snuck in while she was work, and I slept like I was dead. There was no going back after that.
Keeping it a secret was easy enough. Rose didn’t get in until late, usually around three when the bar closed, long after I was asleep. And she never woke up before noon, well after I was already gone.
Until today, at least.
I padded down the hall, opening the door of my apartment to find West and Lily at the table with two bowls of oatmeal between them like there was no one else in the world.
I couldn’t help but smile.
They glanced over when I closed the door.
“Hey, Tricky,” West said with a smile from behind his dark beard.
“There’s breakfast on the stove, if you’re hungry,” Lily added with a smile of her own, pushing her long, blond hair over her shoulder before taking a bite.
“Thanks.” I made my way through the kitchen and grabbed a bowl, savoring the secret about Rose for only a moment before throwing it at them casually. “So, Rose just caught me.”
Everything grew still, and I smiled, my back to them as I spooned the oatmeal into my bowl.
“Shit,” Lily said. “What happened?”
“She tried to brain me with your vibrator.” I dumped a spoonful of brown sugar into the bowl and turned to find them both staring at me. “What?” I asked innocently as I took a seat.
Lily’s cheeks were pink. “You’re serious.” It wasn’t a question.
“Dead serious,” I said with a smirk. “That’s a pretty impressive piece, Lil.”
“Oh, my God,” she groaned.
I chuckled. “Anyway, we scared the hell out of each other. She was wielding that thing like a nightstick. I don’t know how much damage it would have done, though.”
She laughed, trying to cover her embarrassment. “You’d be surprised at how much destruction a silicone dick loaded with a couple of C batteries can do.” She abandoned her spoon for her coffee mug, wrapping her long fingers around the cup before bringing it to her lips. “What did she say?”
I raised a brow and stirred my breakfast. “Besides ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes. Besides that.”
I shrugged. “Just wanted to know why I was there, so I explained myself and asked if I could stay for a while.”
Lily watched me expectantly. “And?”
“She said she’d think about it.”
West leaned back in his seat, smirking. “Well, I’d call that a win. Better than death by vibrator.”
Lily snorted. “Depends on how you’re using it.” Her smile fell, and her bottom lip slipped between her teeth. “How mad is she at me?”
“I don’t know if she’s mad, but she’s definitely not happy about it. I told you we should have asked her,” I said as I took a bite.
She made a know-it-all face. “Well, if she wasn’t so prickly when it comes to you, we could have. I’m not using my bed, and you’re not getting sleep. It makes sense. Anyway, better to ask for forgiveness, right?”
“Hopefully she lets me stay.”
Lily gave me a reassuring smile. “I’ll see if I can convince her.”
I smiled back. “Thanks, Lil.” I scooped up another bite. “So, what are you two doing today?”
West set his napkin on the table and let out a satisfied sigh. “Absolutely nothing.”
“Glorious nothing,” Lily added, her face mirroring his. “I’ll start rehearsals for the Saratoga summer season next month, but otherwise, it’s just a lot of this. I’m still holding out for a weekend trip to the Hamptons. Cooper better come through on that for me.” She smiled and stood, picking up her bowl.
West chuckled. “Hell hath no fury.”
She made a face at him, still smiling as she moved to pick up his bowl.
He stopped her as he stood, taking the bowls. “I got this, babe.”
Lily handed over the bowls and reached up on her tip toes to kiss him on the cheek. “I guess I’ll go get ready for the day, then. Leave you boys to gossip. I’ve got to prepare my ass for Rose’s reaming.”
“I’m sure it won’t be so bad,” West said half-heartedly as he rinsed off the dishes.
She snorted. “Yeah, right. I’m prepared for her to eat my face off like a piranha.”
He looked over his shoulder at her. “Sounds scary.”
But she waved a hand. “Nah, I can handle it. Plus, I earned it.” And with that, she turned and headed into the bathroom.
I took another bite as West set the bowls in the drying rack. He turned and leaned against the counter with a dish towel slung over his shoulder, shaking his head at me, smiling proudly. “Staying with Rose. How about that?”
“Hey, man. She hasn’t agreed yet.”
He folded his arms. “Yeah, but she will.”
“How can you be so sure?” My brow climbed.
“Because there’s no good reason not to.”
I chuckled and poked at my breakfast. “Yeah, I’m sure Rose could find a reason or two.”
“Or three or four, but in the end, they’re all bogus, and she knows it. Don’t worry, man.”
“I guess I could always try to sleep in my own bed,” I joked. “Maybe kick you guys out, send you to christen Lily’s bed and keep Rose up instead.”
West laughed. “Like anything could keep Rose up when she’s fully immersed in the cave.”
“Perfect. So when are you moving?”
“We actually talked about it. I mean, it made a lot more sense when Maggie was sleeping in there. There’s not enough money in the world to convince me to sleep with Lily eight feet away from my little sister. Plus, I have a full-sized bed, and Lily has a twin. Not to say we couldn’t move the beds, but that’s … well, that’s moving. I just don’t know exactly what we’re doing yet, you know?”
“Yeah, I get it. It’s fine. I’ll keep paying rent here, Lily can keep paying rent there, and we’ll figure it out when we have to.”
He nodded. “All right. Rose will come around. Maybe in more ways than one.”
I raised a brow. “Somehow I doubt that.”
West smirked. “Oh, ye of little faith. Lily and I have a theory.”
“Oh?” I took a bite, amused.
“Yup. The only thing in between you two is the two of you.” He looked proud of himself.
“Well, I’m glad you have the answer,” I said flatly. “Should be easy to solve.”
“I’m just saying that maybe this will be good for the two of you, bunking together. But maybe you can find a way to get through the other side and into something new.”
I wished it were true, wished it wholeheartedly. “It’s more complicated than that.”
He made a face. “You’re not the only people in the world to ever break up.”
I nodded and spooned some oatmeal into my mouth, pausing for a moment. “That’s true. But I burned the bridge with her. She doesn’t want to forgive me.”
His dark brow arched. “And you know because you’ve asked?”
“I asked after I brought Veronica to the bar, yeah.” I set down my spoon and sat back in my chair. “Look, here’s the thing. I get where she’s coming from. Being with her was like …” I looked away at nothing in particular. “It was like seeing in color for the first time after a lifetime of black and white. It was too much, too big, so I broke up with her because I was scared of how I felt. And after everything with Veronica … well, there was no going back. She doesn’t want to forgive me. She tolerates me at best.”
West wiped his hand on the towel with a disapproving look on his face. “So, what, you’re just giving up?”
“I’m just being realistic.”
“Rose can be worn down. Lily does it all the time.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, I’ve seen it. But the same physics don’t apply to me and Rose as they do Lily and Rose.”
He hung the towel up and took a seat at the table again. “I’m not suggesting you go full white knight and try to get her back, but maybe you can at least to find a way to remind her why she didn’t used to merely tolerate you.”
“If I agree, will you drop it?” I took a last bite of my breakfast and pushed away from the table.
He smirked. “Probably not. It’s leg day today. Meet you at the gym after work?”
“I’m supposed to meet Rose to talk about our sleeping arrangements, so I might have to skip it,” I said as I washed out my bowl and set it on the rack.
He pointed at me. “Don’t puss out. You’ll end up with chicken legs.”
“Who needs a trainer when I have you?”
“Exactly. Good luck with Rose, man.”
I chuckled. “Thanks. I’m gonna need it.”
I walked through the apartment and into my room, feeling … displaced would be a good word, I guess. It was my home, the only place I’d ever called my own, but I felt foreign there lately. Lily had moved in all but officially, and as much as I loved the two of them, and as happy as I was for them, I felt like a voyeur most days. As if I were intruding, even though they never put that out or treated me as an inconvenience. It just all of a sudden felt like their space. And that underscored my loneliness.
I’d been alone my whole life, but I’d never been lonely, not until I found love in my friends. Because once you have something, you can lose it. It almost makes you wonder if it’s easier to be alone.
Solitude had always been a part of who I was, and it was a place where I found comfort. When I was a kid, I spent hours alone sketching, painting, learning mediums. Just me and my headphones. I was used to isolation, used the time alone to recharge. Find my center.
I made my way into my room, which was more of an art studio than bedroom. A rubber mat covered almost all of the hardwood, and my easel stood close to the window with an unfinished charcoal piece waiting for me. Canvases stood stacked against every free inch of wall space, some blank, mostly not, and my bed and dresser stood against the only wall not otherwise occupied.
I pulled open a drawer, rummaging around for jeans, then headed to the tiny closet, which was only big enough to hang a few shirts, deciding on my short-sleeved houndstooth button-down, thinking about Rose.
But then again, I was always thinking about Rose.
How do you move on when she’s the only thing that feels right? I’d been looking for the answer for seven long months, since we’d gone our separate ways.
Except we didn’t go our separate ways.
Rose was everywhere. Habits. Down the hall. Every day, always. She lived in my thoughts, in my heart, present in nearly every moment of my life. She was my ghost, haunting me, and I couldn’t escape. I didn’t know if I even wanted to.
It was my penance.
I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, jaw set as I combed my hair back. My face was just about the only part of my body not covered in ink, and I saw the hardness in my brow, in my eyes. As if the tattoos were my warning label. Damaged goods. Beware. Turn back now. I saw them as a reminder of all I’d been through, though I knew it was in part to keep people away. They told you what you’d get, if you dared take the chance. And most people weren’t willing to take the chance.
Maybe West was right. Maybe Rose and I could find a way through, even though I’d conceded to exist in the state of purgatory we found ourselves in. Maybe there was a way out. Maybe this was a chance.
A flicker of hope ran through me.
If I got the chance, I wouldn’t waste it.
FLESH AND INK
Patrick
SUMMER IN NEW YORK WAS in full effect, though it was early enough that we weren’t to the unbearable humidity that made most New Yorkers flee to Long Island at the first opportunity. I smiled as I approached Tonic, the tattoo parlor where I’d worked for almost ten years. The sign over the door was black and white filigree, like an old apothecary label, and I pulled open the heavy black door, greeted by the sounds of Nirvana playing on the overhead speakers.
I jerked a chin at Shep, standing behind the counter as I walked across the planked floors and to my booth near the front of the shop.
Tonic was one of the top shops in Manhattan, in business since the late 90s. The talent that Joel and his younger brother Shep had acquired was noteworthy enough to have won a host of awards, and we were all booked out weeks in advance.
I counted it as absolute luck that Joel had taken a chance on a skinny, quiet, eighteen-year-old junkie. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was looking for more, looking for something real, and I found it when I walked into Tonic. If you can imagine a father figure, a big brother, and a best friend, all rolled up into one, that was Joel. No telling where I’d have ended up, if it weren’t for
him.
I set down my bag and took a seat on my red leather stool, grabbing a pair of black rubber gloves to start setting up. I rolled over to the antique cabinet where my supplies were kept to gather ink cups, ink, and needles, using the sketch I’d done — a cobalt photo-realistic butterfly framed by a set of complex geometric lines — as a guide for sizes. I glanced in the speckled old mirror next to my cabinet to see Shep air drumming “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and I shook my head, smiling.
Our booths lined one side of the shop, each separated by low walls, keeping the shop open. The walls were either black or covered in velvet damask wallpaper all the way up to the brick and exposed piping, and each booth was decorated per the personality of the artist who filled the space, though all with a macabre, Victorian feel. Mine featured an oil painting of a skull I’d done, taxidermy crows, the speckled rococo mirror, and a series of smaller acrylic paintings I’d done of Victorian girls in corsets, all in elaborate, oval frames.
Joel walked up from the back and leaned on my wall, smiling. He was thirty-eight, though if I didn’t know better, I’d peg him much closer to my age, a decade younger than he was. His beard was thick and dark, hair long on the top, shaved on the sides, and he was covered neck to heel in tattoos, with bright eyes and a comforting smile.
He smirked at me, which was the expression he wore most of the time. “How’s it going, Tricky?”
I smiled. “Can’t complain.” I fed my machine’s cord through a plastic cord bag and hooked the end on my tray. “How about you? Did you go to that show last night?”
“Paper Fools, yeah.” He threaded his fingers together, jumbling the letters tattooed there to say TSHHAIT rather than THIS and THAT like they usually did. “Dean always sends me passes when they’re in town. Perks of being his tattoo artist.”