The Thrill of It

Chapter Fifteen

Trey

Beads of sweat form on my upper lip and I lick them away.

Another drop falls and lands on my tongue. Salty.

The needle is hitting every nerve ending in my body, frying them. My ribs rattle and shake, and I am queasy. I swear I’m about to revisit this afternoon’s turkey sandwich if this isn’t over soon because I can taste the bile rising in my throat. I draw a sharp breath, like that can center me. But nothing changes. A thousand bees still sting my ribs, my sides, my hip. I grip the edge of the chair, digging my fingers hard into the vinyl, as if I can relocate the pain, send it elsewhere, deliver it to this inanimate object I’m sitting in.

Then, like a rainstorm ending in a snap and the sun appearing, the pain ends. It doesn’t drift off, it doesn’t fade away. Nope. It’s like electricity. On. Then off when Hector removes the needle from my skin.

He steps back, a master artist appraising his work. “It’s beautiful,” he says.

“Thanks, man. It’s all you.”

He shakes his head. “You gave me a beautiful drawing. All I did was bring that drawing to your skin.”

“We were a team then. I couldn’t have gotten this sucker on my flesh without you.”

He hands me the vaseline and I apply it to the new ink, smoothing it over. Then he gives me a bandage and I wrap it over the tattoo and tape it down. I’ll leave it there for a few hours.

“You know the drill. It’ll scab over tomorrow,” he says.

“Like a sunburn.”

“It looks good, man. I want a picture of it. Those trees are works of art.”

A tree is the symbol of strength. Of healing. Of remembrance. Of understanding. But most of all a tree is the the symbol of regeneration, of new life. And it’s the record on my body of the trees I planted myself in a park one night when my parents were out on a call.

They are my trees. They belong to me.

Harley

I spend the next twenty-four hours running on Diet Coke and determination. I churn out page after page for Miranda, more than she asked for, more than she expects. I am a machine. I am a turbo-charged robot on meth. I am an elite athlete jacked up on performance drugs. I ride faster, climb harder, run further than anyone. Kristen knocks on my door a few times, asks if I’m okay, if I need anything. I tell her I’m working on an epic history paper for my final assignment of the year.

I only hate myself slightly for the lie. Because I am so accustomed to lies they feel true now.

“Want something to eat?” She offers. “I’m making myself a peanut butter and honey sandwich. It’s kind of awesome. Especially with a cup of milk.”

“Sure.”

I eat the peanut butter and honey sandwich, but not the milk. There will be time for calcium later. Besides, Diet Coke makes my bones stronger. I briefly consider ordering in a triple espresso too, but the coffee shop around the corner doesn’t deliver. Bastards.

I crumple up can after can as I down them. Sounds of crushing, followed by sounds of typing are the soundtrack of finishing. I give Miranda everything she wants. I satisfy her every salacious demand with more, more, more. Shame, shame, shame. Whore, whore, whore.

It’s what she wants. Even though she’ll never know the whole truth of how I got into the tangled mess.

I write more, stopping a few times to text Trey to check in, but I don’t hear back from him. My mother writes though. She tells me things with Neil are growing stronger, and that she’s even starting to forget about Phil. Isn’t that great?

I want to say: We should all forget about Phil.

Instead, as I do for Miranda, I give my mom what she wants. I am so happy for you, Barb.

Another lie. But soon the lying will be over.

At ten-thirty-five p.m. on Sunday evening I am done.

I should be exhausted. I should collapse. I don’t. I feel victorious instead. I want to kiss the moon, I want to tango with the fattest, brightest star in the sky.

I snatch the thumb drive from my purse and save the file on the tiny silver drive for safekeeping. Then I email it to Miranda. “Dear Miranda: I believe I have satisfied the terms of our agreement. Good bye.”

I jump up, snag my field hockey stick and pretend I am slamming ball after ball into the goal, raising my arms in victory.

Kristen opens my door. “If you are playing field hockey in the apartment, I want in.”

“Dude, I will crush you!”

“You’re on. Downstairs. Laundry room.”

“Let’s do it.” We grab a tennis ball and run down five flights of stairs and then one more into the basement with its storage room, washers and dryers, and a long hallway. We start whacking the tennis ball up and down the dingy linoleum floors.

Laughing, racing, chasing, trash-talking. Like the good old days in high school. Back when I was still a normal girl. Well, as normal as I could ever be. But before I wrapped myself in lies, concealed my life in secrets.

It feels good to play free.

“So Jordan is kind of cool,” she says.

“Yeah? Are you guys a thing?”

“I don’t know. But I sorta like him. Even though it’s complicated since he has bad taste in movies.”

“That’s an awesome kind of complicated.”

I deliver a punishing blow to the green ball, sending it careening down the hall and bouncing off the white concrete cinder block walls with several loud twangs. “Oh man! Someone is going to hear us,” I say. “But I don’t give a shit. Because I am a free bird.”

Kristen darts in front of me, her agile field skills in play, and she slams her stick against the ball on its return path. Then she smacks the top of the ball, skipping it up in the air and catching it in her hand.

“What are you free from?” Her eyes are brimming with curiosity. Nothing gets past this girl.

I suppose I should feel stupid for letting free bird slip out, but I don’t. It felt strangely good to unspool some of my wound-up secrets with Joanne the other night, and I’ve been wanting to do the same with Kristen. To take ownership of my actions, to be honest, to let go to the past, no matter how risky that may be. Because this is the real risk – will she stop wanting to be my friend when she knows? I can feel my heart beating faster, my nerves skating back and forth under the surface of my skin. This must be what it feels like to open yourself up, to let someone see who you really are.

Especially if that person might not like what she sees.

“Sometimes I go to group therapy,” I blurt out.

She tilts her head to the side, furrows her brows. “Does. Not. Compute,” she says like a robot.

I laugh, loving her ability to be totally direct and silly too.

“This group. It’s like a support group,” I say and I’m still kind of embarrassed to say it, am still totally ashamed, not of the group, but the fact that I am a card-carrying member.

“Like AA? Is that why you don’t drink?”

“Sort of, but not for alcohol addiction. For something else.” I swallow hard. “I’m in a sex and love addicts recovery group.” I don’t tell her that’s how I know Trey, or that he goes, because that’s not my secret to tell. Instead, I start to unravel one little lie. “Because I’ve made some pretty dumbass choices about boys and men.”

“But you’ve never even given a blow job,” she says, as if she’s found the loophole that will prove I’m wrong.

But I push through and focus on the facts. “I know. And I’ve never had sex either. Which I know makes it seem ridic that I’d go. But yet, therein lies the conundrum. I took money for sex. Well, not sex. But weird little fetishes. I was sort of an escort.”

Kristen drops the field hockey stick on the floor. “You were an escort?” She repeats. “Like an escort-escort?”

I nod, bracing myself for the goodbye. For the sneer. For the tell-tale signs that she’s thinks I’m disgusting. “Yes. A high-end call girl.”

“But you never had sex with them?”

“No. Never. Not even close.”

She exhales loud and long, as if that will somehow help her make sense of this news. She holds out her hands. “I don’t get it. You were a call girl during the time we were friends in high school?”

“I started when I was seventeen. So, yes. When I was a senior in high school and all through freshman year of college.”

She smacks her palm against her forehead. “Am I stupid? How did I not notice? Not see it?”

“You’re not stupid. I’m just really accustomed to covering up. It became a way of life for me. To cover up.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” she says, still in a monotone, eyes wide as the moon.

“I’m sorry,” I say, as if I’m being chided. Maybe I am. I can’t just drop this bomb on her and expect her not to jump or flinch. But at some point you have to stop running from your past. You have to stop letting it define you. You have to puncture it before it swells so big and full that it takes over you. “It wasn’t something I told anyone though, Kristen. It was something I did secretly. It was something, to be honest, that I was kind of addicted too.” Each word tastes strange on my tongue, but not dirty, not bitter. They just taste like a new food I’ve never tried.

Then, as if Kristen has snapped out of her shock, she nods quickly many times. “I get it. I understand. I’m just kind of reconfiguring my hard drive now,” she says, tapping her skull. “And finding room for this new data point about you.”

“Do you think I’m gross?” I ask, worrying away at the cuticle on my thumb.

She shakes her head. Vigorously. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Why not?

“Because you’re not. You’re you. Yeah, I really wish you’d told me sooner,” she says in that direct and honest way Kristen has. “But I also understand that it’s not something you wanted to share. And if you do want to share, I’ll listen.”

We sit down on the linoleum floor and I tell her more. I tell her about Morris, about Cam, about Miranda, about the book she’s making me write. I don’t tell her everything. I don’t offer up every sordid detail. Being truthful doesn’t mean you have no boundaries. Sharing a secret doesn’t mean you have to overshare. But I tell her enough and her eyes go wider with every detail. It’s like stripping bare in front of someone and asking do I look fat, when you know you are fat, when your skin is rippling with cellulite waves.

And now I want to know if everything has changed. Worry lodges deep in my belly, and my throat catches as I ask the inevitable. “Do you still want to be friends with me?”

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be silly. Of course. And I might want you to tell me tawdry tales from time to time so I have fodder for a screenplay someday. Could you do that?” she asks with a wink.

I laugh once. “I’d much rather give you my stories than Miranda.”

She smiles sympathetically. “That really does suck that you had to do that.”

“It was pretty much the worst homework assignment ever.”

Kristen leans forward, pats my knee. “Hey. I know that was hard to tell me. All of that. But I also think it’s kind of cool that you trusted me enough to tell me. And now I want to ask you something, and I want you to be honest, okay?”

I brace myself, my instinct, my fear zooming back. I try to remind myself it’s okay to let people in. “Okay. Hit me.”

“You are in love with Trey, aren’t you?”

My breath stops. I don’t even know what love is, I want to say. Instead, I borrow a phrase from her playbook. Because it’s the truth she asked for. “It’s complicated.”

“Or maybe it’s not. Why haven’t you seen him much in the last few days? Just busy? Or is he suffering from some tattoo-induced stupor?”

“What do you mean?”

“Jordan said Trey got himself a new tattoo today. I figured that’s why you guys weren’t together. That he was busy getting inked.”

My stomach contorts with fear and worry. With Trey, a tattoo is never just a tattoo. It’s a symbol, it’s a message, it’s the way he expresses the things he won’t say.

A tattoo is a cry for help.

I need to find him. Even if he won’t call me back.