Bone Deep (15 page)

Chapter Sixteen

"…who is in attendance for at least seventy-five percent but less than ninety percent of the required days may be given credit
if
the student meets the instructional requirements of the class." Agudelo pauses, looking at me like he’s expecting me to say something.

“Um…I was?” I respond lamely, folding my hands over my jeans.
If I close my eyes, I can transport myself back to my school counselor’s office last year where after Dad’s trial, I—by God’s grace and maybe a little flirting on Wrenn’s behalf—
bar
ely graduated.

Agudelo
taps his chewed-off nails on his desk. “You, Mr. Ledoux, have been in attendance a mere forty-nine percent of my class this semester. That is less than half.”

As if I couldn’t divide.

“Is there anything I can do?” I say anyway.

“Considering your
extenuating circumstances,” he says, and I can’t help but think this has something to do with my father and his name in the papers, “you could either drop the class and retake it next semester or make up work to regain credit lost due to absences.” He sounds like he’s reading straight from the CCC Book of Guidelines, if there is such a thing. I wonder if he had to memorize it.

He starts vomiting a list of assignments I’ve missed, and so
I stare at the silver clock above the window and watch the minutes tick by until the long hand hits the twelve. Once he appears finished, I stand. “Thanks for the second chance. And now I have to get to class. Perfect attendance and all…” I sling my bag over my shoulder and head out the door, but instead of slipping into my next class five minutes late, I make my way to the parking lot.

I’ll start my perfect attendance streak tomorrow.

Tires whirl along the pavement behind me, lighter than a car’s with a faint sense of familiarity. I turn from the car, tighten my grip around the keys.

A bike. Cambria pulling it t
o a stop beside me.

“Hey,” she says, smiling. She straightens her striped shirt
, tugs the hem over her jeans.

“A long ride from U of C,” I say flatly. We haven’t talked s
ince the concert a few days ago.

“It’s mostly downhill. The ride back might be killer, though.” She pushes her hair out of her face, still smiling. I could offer to drive her back, but after this past hour discussing my
extenuating circumstances
and the sheer fucked-up-ness of all my other
circumstances
I’m not in any mood to watch what I say right now. Or to skirt around the fact that she’s been the one writing me those letters.

“You don’t have an a
fternoon class?” I say instead.

“I do. Manicuring.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Manicuring is an actual class? What do you do—spend the hour painting each other’s nails?”

“And toes.” She jiggles her foot in my direction. Brown sandals, green paint on her toes. The color of grass.

“Interesting.”

“And easy to ditch.”

In my head, I’m trying to come up with an excuse to leave:
Homework. Dad’s out of jail. I have to work.
But none of these will do; I’ve never mentioned a job and I sure as hell don’t feel like mentioning my father.

“So…” she says, lifting her voice in such a hopeful way that it makes my chest tighten.
I have to go
I decide on saying, but just as I open my mouth, the image of one of the earlier notes flashes in my mind. Something about turning history to dust. What Wrenn said was a suicide note. All along I’ve assumed the letters were about me—that someone was out to torture me. But could it be the messages were simply someone’s cry for help? More than threatening? If so…that means Cambria’s words…
turning history to dust
means she’s thought of taking her own life…because of what my father did to her mother.

Without thinking, I ease her off the bike and pull her into a hug. Her hands warm a line around my waist, chin tips up toward me as she breathes out a sigh. “You haven’t called,” she whispers. Her chest presses against me, hands skim up my back and into my hair. “I thought, maybe,”
she continues, “I did something the other night to upset you. Like you hated the concert or something.”

If I close my eyes and listen to just her words…it almost sounds like this whole thing’s not a scam. That the reason she’s here is because she actually enjoys being with me, not because she wants to ruin me. It’s there in the way she drifts closer, nose and lips within a tongue’s reach. In the wa
y her eyes look deep into mine.

Mentally, I slap myself. I
can’t let her cuteness fool me.

“I thought the concert was really great,” I say, backing away the distance she closed. “Especially that last song where Lewis walked on top of the crowd. What was it called again?”

“My Angel Called in Sick.”

“Right. Your Angel Called in Sick.”

She tilts her head. “No. My.”

“Are you sure it’s not
your
angel?”

“
Krister, why are you acting strange?” Ever so softly she cradles her hand to the side of my neck, its warmth singeing my skin. I bite the inside of my cheek. Why is she doing this to me? Pretending to like me. Looking at me like she actually gives a shit about my answer. “Is everything okay?” she traces her finger up behind my ear and says. “Is this because of…” Her words trail off into the half-filled parking lot, as if I’m supposed to know what she’s thinking.

I narrow my gaze on hers. Maybe it would just be easier if she came clean. Admitted what she knows. Sever ties with me and be on her merry way. “Because of what?”

Fingers slip down to my collarbone, the heel of her palm pressing into my chest just above my heart.

“Your situation?”

The lift in her voice snaps at me like a whip. I ease back another step, out of her reach, and press my shoulder blades into the car’s hard, plastic mirror. The sharp edges digging into my muscles might be the only thing keeping me from screaming. “Are you asking me, or telling?”

She glances to the space between us and the way my arms slowly cross over my stomach. “I’m sorry,” she says. “This is coming out all wrong.
I just…feel really bad that you’re dealing with your dad leaving all by yourself. I can’t imagine being alone. I mean, my mom’s gone, but I have my brother. Sure he’s a pain, but at least I have someone. You don’t have anybody.”

She doesn’t know?

Her gaze zeroes in on mine, tiny crinkles crawling out from the corners of her eyes.

She doesn’t know.

All of this because…why then? Because she really likes me?

A car whizzes by, lifting the tips of her hair like the heads of snakes. The edges of her mouth draw up, and it’s not the smile that shatters my last bit of reluctance. It’s the connection her eyes make wit
h mine. The goddamn way she stares deep into my soul and doesn’t see the one thing that should send her running. I’m the good guy in her eyes, the distraction from thinking about her mom and the fucked-up position she’s in—taking care of her brother all alone.

I can’t ruin that for her. Not right now, anyway. Who would she become if I did?

I take her hand in mine, twist her arm, and kiss the inside of her wrist, right in the middle of the circle of rabbits. Burn Me Up Inside may give her something, but I can give her something more.

“I’m sorry, too,” I finally
say. “It’s been kind of a screwed-up day. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.” My lips slide farther up her arm to the crook of her elbow. Her body leans into mine as my mouth lingers on her skin, my blood awakening at the slight pressure against my hips.

I cover her mouth with mine, tasting her cinnamon gum the moment my tongue dips in to meet hers. It’s not her taste that has me suddenly aching for more; it’s the unbearable
desire to strip off her clothes right here in the parking lot.

Spinning, I pin her back
to the door of the Camry and close every inch of space between us. Her hands slip beneath my shirt and just the simple warmth of her fingertips on my skin has me wishing for her bed again.

Gasping for air, she pulls away and says, “If I didn’t have an appointment, I would be driving you myself to a place we could be alone.”

At least we’re on the same page. “Appointment?” 

Worming her arm up between us, she taps her wrist with the tip of her finger. “Another session.” The intensity in her eyes dulls. Not sadn
ess, but something close to it.

And it’s enough to say, “Can I go with you?”

Chapter Seventeen

The room looks like a doctor’s office with rows of wooden-armed chairs, racks of magazines, and pictures of kittens on the walls. Only it smells like burning flesh and antiseptic spray.

Or, possibly that’s my imagination.

I find a seat along the window as Cambria checks in for her appointment at the counter, giving her name to the fluffy-haired woman with a hesitant smile. The woman says it’ll be a few minutes, and Cambria comes to sit beside me.

“Will I get to see Dr.
Tattaway, too, or am I not cool enough?” I try to keep my voice light because since we rounded the corner to the office, her lip has been caught nervously between her teeth. She elbows my arm.

“That’s not her name, just what the business is called. The doctor’s name is Gail. And, yeah, you can come in…as long as you’re not squeamish.”

“Squeamish is so not my middle name.”

She laughs and lifts her tattooed wrist to inspect it. The black has faded to a charcoal gray now, still with pinprick spots of flesh floating in the rabbits’ bellies. The ears and feet are an even lighter shade of gray.

“How does the laser removal work?”

“I don’t know exactly.” She glides the tip of her finger back and forth along her skin, distracted. “Something like the laser breaks up the ink so the particles can be absorbed back into my body.”

“Does it hurt?”

Yanking her legs up, she twists in her chair to face me and wraps her arms around her knees. “Before I started, Gail told me it’d feel similar to the slap of a rubber band. But to me it’s more like hot bacon grease dripping onto my skin. I don’t know why it hurts more for me. Maybe because the wrist is a more sensitive area.”

“Maybe.”

The empty silence of the room settles over us. Cambria rests her chin on her knees and picks at her shoelace. I take her hand in mine. Despite the warm sun outside, her fingers are as cold as icicles. I press them between my palms
, and after a moment she looks up at me with a slow blink that makes my insides feel like they’re melting.

And then, because I’m so good at it, I go and ruin it. “Why is it you really want this tattoo gone?”

Her eyes narrow, lips tightening at the same time. “I already told you.”

I hold still, not moving a muscle. “Is it to erase the guilt of running away? Or the guilt of what you’ve been doing this past year to cover it up?”

“Really, Krister? You’re going to make this about you?” Her words aren’t loud, but the piercing tone is.

“
Me?
How—”

Leaning closer, she whispers, “You want me to regret being with other guys. You want me to wish that I hadn’t
whored
myself out to erase the memories of coming home to a broken brother and a dead mother. Oh, and my non-existent father, shall we add him to the mix too? Maybe he’s the reason I chose you.” She pushes back, squaring her shoulders as she gestures around the office. “It’s not because of any of that. I want this gone because every time I look at it, I’m reminded of the day I was sitting under a tattoo gun, eating ice cream at two in the morning and doing virtually anything to piss off my mom because I was so sick and tired of her telling me what to do, while my brother was watching the doctor write
severed heart
under ‘Cause of Death’ on her death certificate. Is that what you’re looking for?”

Stakes of metal, bloodied and splintered, jammed into her faceless mother’s chest. The image is too quick to catch
, and it takes a few seconds to force it away. And another few to push away the pressure building in my chest.

“You can’t blame yourself for that.”

She glares at me. “How can I not? She would’ve never been on that train if it weren’t for me and my immature, selfish desire to be all grown up.” I don’t really have a response. Suddenly, I see why she’s so hard on herself about it and, now that I think about it, I would be, too. But I don’t want to tell her that. “On top of that,” she adds, “my brother feels like it’s
his
fault. For not going to look for me in her place…” Silence stretches out between us, air so heavy it could drown a butterfly. She blames herself for her mom being on that train, and she’s taking on her brother’s pain, too?

I don’t know if I
’ll be able to live with myself, close my eyes at night, knowing the guilt and regret she’s carrying around is because of something my father did.

“Listen, Cambria. I need to tell you something.”

Just as she glances to meet my eyes, the fluffy-haired woman calls her name.

“Later?” Cambria asks, and we follow the woman back through a stark hallway to a tiny room. Under the assistant’s orders to “get situated,” Cambria slips her phone from her pocket and hands it to me, then stretches out across the padded bench in the center of the room on her stomach, arm extended out in front of her. I linger near the door where a large, metal machine blossoming with tubes and wires stares at me from the other side.

The doctor, Gail, an extremely-tanned woman no larger than Cambria enters swiftly. She moves like she’s in a hurry as she slips a pen from behind her ear and jots something on a clipboard.

“All right, Miss Lockwood, let’s see how much progress we’ve made.” Gail hands the clipboard to her assistant and takes Cambria’s wrist in her leathery-skinned hand to inspect the tattoo. Cambria holds still, jaw clenched, concentrating on a certification plaque attached to the wall like this is a routine they perform every time. Squinting, Gail says, “The ink’s responding very well to treatment. We may only have one or
two more sessions after today.”

The assistant makes a note on the clipboard then wheels the metal machine closer to the bench. She lifts a tubular extension—much the shape of a thick Sharpie, hands it to Gail then brings the machine to life with the flick of a switch. A loud whir echoes in the room, followed by a continuous knock that sounds like an old
, clunking car engine.

Gail leans down, bracing her forearm
along the side of the bench with the tip of the metal contraption a half inch from the tattoo. “Tell me when you’re ready,” she says just loud enough to be heard over the machine. Cambria clamps her eyes shut, waits one, two, three seconds then nods her chin once. White light starts to flash from the tip with an electric-sounding crack. Immediately, the skin exposed to the small bursts of light raises up into a sickly-yellow blister, the ink disappearing completely. After the lower rabbit is done, Cambria lets out a groan, and Gail pulls back. “Breathe,” she reminds Cambria as she presses a clump of white gauze to the area.

I step forward, rest my hand gently on her calf. She doesn’t flinch like I anticipate. The assistant assents with a bob of her chin. I take another step, cl
oser to the front of the bench where I can hold Cambria’s hand, but the assistant raises her hand with a scowl. It’s as close as I can get without getting in the way.

The machine continues clunking.

Gail prompts Cambria to get ready again and, just as the flicker of white light starts up again, Cambria’s phone buzzes in my hand.
Jeremy
the caller ID declares.

He’s not in a healthy place right now.
Cambria’s words clatter like marbles inside my head, twisting my insides into a sailor’s knot. He’s as much as a victim at my father’s hand as she is.

I stare down at the phone until it stills in my hand. Gail finishes two more rounds of
lasering, drawing up yellow blisters over the remaining two rabbits. When she’s finished, the assistant wraps a bandage around Cambria’s wrist reminding her to use a cool compress for inflammation and discomfort, clean with soap and water, apply a light application of antibiotic ointment and—

“Don’t pick the scabs,” Cambria finishes, righting herself on the bench. “I remember.” We follow the assistant to the front office where Cambria schedules her next appointment, and then we’re breathing warm
, spring air again.

“That was intense,” I say as we head for the parking lot. A few people are out, strolling the sidewalk in leisurely, I-do
n’t-have-anywhere-to-be steps.

“Honestly, if I would’ve known how bad the removal is, I might’ve considered not getting the tattoo in the first place.” She’s still shaken: her left hand, below the bandage, trembling and her face ashen
next to her black, ruffled top.

Careful not to bump her wrist, I tug her
to my side. She rests her head against my shirt, and we make it to the car in silence. I hold the door for her as she climbs in then looks up at me. “What was it you wanted to tell me in there?”

Pinched at the brow, her forehead and measured swallows are a sure sign she’s in a lot more pain than she’s letting on. Gently, I take her hand in mine and say, “That I think you’re really
brave. For, you know, going through that pain to get rid of your tattoo. I’m not sure I’d be strong enough to do that.”

Someday, I’ll grow enough balls to tell her.

I drop off Cambria and when I get home, I walk in to my dad and Wrenn sitting together at the kitchen table, paint brushes in their hands and smiles on their faces. They’re talking about Wrenn’s Wheel, and laughing, and being absurdly normal.

And there’s a part of me—a grain-of-sand-sized piece of me—that wants to go sit with them. Join their conversation. Laugh with them; it’s been so long since I’ve laughed with my father, but I can still remember it. Like I can remember my name. It was a week before the accident, on one of his days off. He and I went to the park to play basketball. I kicked his ass, and not because he let me. He was trying his hardest
, and laughing, and it was…fun.

“Hey, bud,” Dad says, yanking the thought away like an opened curtain. “Want to help? We’re glazing
Wrenn’s last batch.” He holds up his paint brush. I step farther into the room, the word “yes” on my lips, but stop. They look like they’re having fun, and I don’t want to ruin it.

Instead, I point down the hall. Draw up a smile. “I have homework.”