Page 33 of Cruel Summer

NINETEEN

She actually found the tattoo parlor that she wanted in Iowa.

It surprised her. But it was a small-town studio that had a reputation for good art.

More hipster than it was biker, which suited her just fine.

Deciding what she wanted for a tattoo had been easier than deciding where she wanted the tattoo.

It was so difficult not to ask somebody else’s opinion.

It felt like growth, buying a dress and not asking Will or one of her friends if it looked nice.

This was like an extreme version of that.

She had a lot of worries, about whether or not she would choose the wrong location for it, and then feel annoyed when it showed and she no longer enjoyed it.

She thought about all these hidden places, but then she wouldn’t be able to see it.

She wanted it to be her reminder. Of her mother. Of an event that had changed her.

Of the simple comfort found in the scent of lavender. How even in the end, there was comfort. She knew what she wanted.

She just had to stop being insecure. About her own decision-making. In the end, she decided on the inner part of her forearm, near her wrist.

She booked an appointment with the studio online en route, and they ate a quick lunch at a little hole-in-the-wall diner before walking down the street two blocks to the tiny shop.

The receptionist up front clearly had no issues deciding tattoo placement.

She had determined that they should go everywhere.

Her hair was bright purple, and she had big fluorescent-pink gauges in her ears.

Samantha had to wonder what it was like. To not worry at all about standing out like a sore thumb when you walked down the street.

Like a sore thumb or like a brightly colored bird?

She intentionally shifted the thought from the original negative phrasing.

Because of course in her world, standing out was a negative, so she applied a negative term to it.

But you sort of want to stand out. In some ways. You just want everyone to be happy with you also, so…

She was the author of many of her own problems. She was beginning to be aware of that. Sure, there were contributing factors. But she’d left everything as it was for so long, unexamined, unthought about, undealt with, and that was on her.

“Samantha Parker,” she told the receptionist.

“Right,” she said. “You’re with Justine. I see that you sent some information in here, so you just need to sign the medical waivers.”

Logan sat next to her while she did.

“I’m sort of surprised you don’t have any tattoos,” she said as she tapped the paper with the tip of her pen.

He lifted a brow. “Who says I don’t?” She whipped her head to the side and looked at him, her eyes roaming over his body without her permission, and her heart started to beat a little bit faster as she took in…all the everything.

Broad shoulders, muscles that she could see through his T-shirt, hard-looking thighs…

She’d seen him shirtless before. Now she was thinking about that.

“Well. You don’t have any that I… That can be…”

“Many people have seen them,” he said, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

“Oh. Many people have seen. You didn’t even bother to tell me about them.”

“Privileged information. Usually for drunk girls in bars.”

“Wow.”

Now she wanted to know about the tattoos. Desperately. He really did look like the kind of man who would have them. But like a full sleeve, something very visible. They weren’t. What was that about? Why hadn’t he mentioned it when she had started talking about the tattoo?

“You keep a lot to yourself too,” she said.

“I never said I didn’t.”

“You were all yelling at me about honesty,” she said, scribbling her pen violently against the paper as she signed off on the fact that if she got hepatitis or died of tetanus, the shop wasn’t liable.

“No. I said that I wanted you to be honest about what happened between us. It wasn’t a demand of wholesale honesty. Or spilling of one’s guts.”

“Right. Well. I think that’s made-up. A made-up double standard.”

“Okay,” he said, a shrug in his voice.

“Why aren’t you bothered by that?”

“I never said that I had a burning need to be fair.”

“But people should want to be fair.”

“Why?” She could see that he was amused. She could see it in the way the lines by his eyes scrunched up just a little bit, at the same time the grooves by his mouth deepened. He was holding back a smile.

“Because good and decent human beings care about fairness, Logan.”

He looked at her, and she felt it, wicked and illicit, down in her stomach. “Who said I was decent?”

“Samantha?”

She turned, and there was a woman with black hair and prominent cheek piercings standing there smiling at her, the silver balls in her face making dimples.

“That’s me,” she said.

“I’m Justine,” the woman said.

Justine had intricate webs of ink all over her brown skin, and extremely creative-looking piercings.

She was almost otherworldly. Samantha found herself fascinated by the two women in the shop, and how they created their own standard of beauty that seemed to exist simply to please themselves. It was innately their own style.

It wasn’t Samantha’s. It wouldn’t be, ever, no matter how much growth and change she went through.

But she was still in awe of the kind of self-possession they must have. Especially living in a place like this.

She was stereotyping, sure. But she herself was from a small town. People who looked like this stood out. They were remarkable.

It took a lot of courage to be remarkable.

“I’ve done a couple of drawings,” Justine said. “So you can let me know what you think of the sketches based on your notes, and I’ll do some revisions.”

It was a line drawing, delicate and perfect. She didn’t have any notes for Justine at all.

The back room had gold stars hanging from the ceiling and glitter on the walls. It was like being in a night sky. It was a great distraction, because her nerves suddenly kicked in.

“Do you want me to stay?” Logan asked.

“Please?” she asked.

He nodded and sat in a chair near the one that she would be sitting in. She wanted him here, because having him around felt right. Because being near him was a comfort.

Logan would always be part of this. As permanent as the ink.

That scared her.

It felt like something too big to grab onto, but she was trying to step away from denial, so she did her best.

He mattered.

A lot.

“This is your first tattoo?” Justine asked.

“Yeah,” she said, sitting down, a rush of anxiety rising up inside her.

“You’ll be back for more. They’re like that.”

Justine looked over at Logan and winked.

He smiled. Then he winked back. He was far too good at that. It should have been both annoying and cheesy, but he just looked good.

Obviously Justine could tell that he was a man that had ink. She was also flirting with him. Not that she could blame her, but Justine was probably barely thirty.

Of course, she bet women in their twenties hit on Logan all the time. He was hot whatever age you were. She was taken aback to discover that she felt a little bit possessive.

Was it that obvious that they weren’t a couple? Because that was a little hurtful. He was hot, yes. Hotter than her, she would grant. But ouch.

Justine prepared her for the tattoo, placing the guide on her arm and leaving behind an impression of what she would leave there permanently in a few moments.

Samantha wasn’t especially afraid of pain, but she didn’t go seeking it out either, and she always got just a little bit of tightness in her stomach right before getting a shot.

This felt like that, but magnified. Justine turned the gun on, and it made a buzzing sound, and then she brought it to her skin, and Sam’s breath hissed through her teeth.

It hurt. It wasn’t horrific, but it wasn’t pleasant either.

But she watched, rather than looking away, watched with intense interest as the design was etched into her skin.

Those fine, delicate lines becoming part of her.

Like the loss was part of her. Like the need for comfort was part of her.

She wanted it there, because she wanted to remember. She wanted it there because she wanted to feel, deeply, what her mother had meant to her, and also not be afraid to be her own person.

It was like taking that relationship and making it something new. Progressing it even though her mom wasn’t there.

Because Samantha was her own person. Not just the person her mom wanted her to be.

It didn’t mean she loved her mom less. It just meant she needed to be free.

To be herself. To make her own decisions.

She knew her dad would raise his eyebrows when he saw the tattoo.

She was going to have to be okay with it.

She was okay with it.

It was a weird thing, this moment. Reclaiming. Or claiming, maybe for the first time, herself in a very interesting way. For her, it hadn’t been the bikini. For her, it was this.

Deciding to change something about her own body that she wouldn’t have done before. Because she had given some kind of broader ownership of it to other people. She wasn’t doing that anymore.

Justine finished the tattoo, and gave her instructions for aftercare. She paid, a kind of euphoric haze settling over her.

They walked outside, and she got into the passenger seat of the Ferrari. As soon as the door closed, she burst into tears.