Mia spun in a slow circle on her stool. “No. But you and Nina are the only ones I’ve met.” She paused in her spinning. “We could’ve gotten one together.”
“Yeah right, your mom would love that. As if she needs another reason to be mad at me right now.” I’d had Mia and Kitty call Beth as soon as they’d gotten in the van and tell her they were staying.Seriously?she’d said. I switched my shift to pick you up. Now my sleep schedule will be off.But she sounded relieved.
When the outline of the tattoo was almost finished, Kitty said she was bored, though I suspected the sight of ink and blood had gotten to her. She joined Greyson and Nina at the front to look through displays of jeweled earrings, belly button rings, and nose rings. Alex caught my eye and shot me a small smile that I returned, reminding me of the first time I saw him. My heart fluttered like a sail again—no,againwasn’t right. It just kept on fluttering. I don’t think it ever really stopped.
Mia nodded to my arm. “What’s it mean?”
We were alone with the tattoo artist, our voices muffled by the buzzing. I looked in the mirror and watched the progress unfold. It felt likescratching at a sunburn, but it was more uncomfortable than painful. The tattoo artist had finished the outline and began filling it in with bursts of red. A sword lily, or, as Samson had called it, a gladiolus. Our birthday flower.
“It’s for Samson.”
“Obviously.” Mia rolled her chair closer to me. “But why that one?”
I told Mia about the morning Samson had discovered my blog. How he’d helped me pick out flowers for my garden and answered every question I had about taking care of them. I told her what he’d said about Roman gladiators wearing them around their necks for protection. How whenever I saw them in my garden, I took a picture for him, even though I couldn’t send it. I told her how I imagined the most beautiful ones were ones he’d sent for me.
Mia stared at her hands in her lap. The hard lines that had taken over her face this summer softened. “I can’t stop thinking it’s my fault.”
“I know,” I said. “But it’s not your fault. And I wish I could’ve told you that sooner. I spent all summer trying to distract you—and myself, I guess—from thinking about what had happened. But all along we should’ve been facing this together.”
Mia laughed. “You come up with pretty good distractions.”
“I do, don’t I?” I winced as the tattoo artist passed over a sensitive part of my arm. “Though maybe this wasn’t my best idea. I’m only trading one type of pain for another.”
“Which hurts worse?”
“I think you know.”
Mia nodded. “Yeah, I do.”
“You’ll be okay,” I said. “Not all the time, not every day. But you will be. And I know you can’t forgive yourself right now, but eventually you will. I promise.”
Tears ran down Mia’s cheeks again, and she pressed her hands to her face. “Ugh, what are you doing to me?”
“What I should’ve done all along,” I said, reaching out with the arm that wasn’t currently being jabbed by a needle to take her hand.
—
When we returned to the condo after getting the girls clothes at Target and stopping to pick up pizza, the six of us piled into my living room to watchMy Super Sweet 16. Nina sat on one side of me, and Alex on the other. The girls spread out on the floor in front of the TV. With everyone here, safe, I relaxed for the first time all day.
“My first charter season I had a primary whose kid was on this show,” Nina said. “That kid thought he could get away with murder.”
“He probably could,” Alex said. “I don’t get the appeal of this. It makes me scared for the future.”
I took the last bite of my pizza and leaned over Alex to set my plate on the side table. “You don’t have to worry. For every kid like that, there’s three like them.” I nodded to Mia, Kitty, and Greyson.
“You mean for every entitled brat, there are three trespassing delinquents?”
I elbowed him in the side. “You know what I mean.”
When Nina went home, Alex and I left the girls to another episode and escaped to the patio. We each took a lounge chair and leaned it as far back as it could go. After the chaos of the morning, Alex had been quieter than usual all afternoon. I wondered what he was thinking about as he sat there, so near to me, and yet not near enough.
“Alex?”
He turned his head to me. “Hm?”
“I’m sorry about what I said yesterday. I didn’t mean it. I don’t really think you’re a... a martyr or anything. Greyson’s lucky to have you. And I understand if you never want to speak to me again. I shouldn’t have brought her into it.”
Alex shook his head. “How could you think I’d never want to speakto you again? I was mad, but it doesn’t change how I feel about you. You can’t get rid of me that easy. And I shouldn’t have said what I did either.”
