Page 26 of Into the Deep Blue

The next morning, Nick checks us out. I toss my backpack in the car and wait for him in the parking lot. Across the street, the red lights of a tattoo parlor, the Tatomb, blink on and off above the shabby entrance. It’s been on my mind since the night we pulled in.

Nick comes out, folds the receipt into a square, and tucks it in his back pocket.

“You ready?”

“Almost.”

He follows my gaze across the street.

“Then let’s hit the road.”

“Just give me a minute.”

I leave him behind, heading for the sidewalk.

“Where are you going? We’re already leaving way late. I don’t want to do a night drive,”

he calls out after me. He slams the trunk of my car and catches up, sweeping his hair away from his face. He’s been grouchy all morning, and I get it. Too much sun and sand, and he has to work tomorrow.

“I just want to check it out.”

But I don’t. I’ve been slowly talking myself into this all weekend, and it’s now or never.

The door jingles when I push it open. It’s empty inside and smells faintly of bleach and incense. There’s a chair deep in the room with a beaded curtain separating it from the entrance and a ton of designs taped across the walls. Hearts, birds, symbols, all the usual suspects are on display.

A petite woman steps out from the back, dressed in ripped jeans and a t-shirt.

“You legal?”

she asks, giving us the once-over.

“Yeah,” I say.

“IDs.”

Nick side-eyes her.

“We don’t need ID just to be in here.”

But I’m already placing my license on the counter. She examines it.

“You getting or looking?” she asks.

“Getting,” I say.

Nick’s mouth falls open.

“Wait . . . are you serious? You’re doing this?”

The way he says it makes me think twice, but I back out of everything, so I stubbornly commit. “I am.”

The woman opens Instagram on her phone and holds it out to me.

“That’s some of my work.”

Nick leans over my shoulder as I scroll through the art on her account. It’s kind of intimidating. There are a ton of giant tattoos. The account name is MikiArt.

“You did all this?”

“Studied under the best.”

She beams.

“You know what you want?”

I’m panicking because I don’t. Something small, ideally, but I don’t want to copy Mom. My mind jumps to yesterday. The beach.

“I think so.”

Nick says.

“Let me guess, my name in a heart on your ass?”

Miki gives him an amused smile. Nick’s charms are irresistible to everyone.

“Because that’s what I’m getting.”

He flashes her an extra charming smile back.

She leads me through the beaded curtain, and I catch Nick studying the drawings on the wall.

“So I guess I have to get one, or else I’m a chicken shit, right?”

he calls out.

“What should I get? Some random band logo on my shoulder? An anchor? This is sweet.”

He flicks a sailor’s anchor with a vine crawling over it.

“You don’t have to get anything.”

He gasps.

“You’re not getting the word breathe, are you?”

“You’re the creative one. I’m sure whatever you come up with will put mine to shame.”

“No pressure there.”

It’s the most painful thirty minutes of my life, and I didn’t even choose anything complicated. I went with a small outline of a scallop shell. Something to remind me of our days at the beach. When it’s done, I feel a rush of exhilaration, then remember this is permanent. What did I do?

Miki checks over her work and says the redness will fade in a day. I sling my bag over my shoulder and leave through the curtains.

“So? Are you in?”

she asks Nick.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m down,”

he says with a grin.

He shoos me out the door, sending me to a sandwich shop down the road so I won’t peek.

***

When Nick comes out, he’s pulling on his hoodie.

“Hey!”

I yell from the parking lot, waving a paper bag.

He flashes me a wave and froggers his way across the street. We jump in the car, and I pull out of the lot.

Nick rips the paper bag and reaches inside.

“So? What’d you get?”

He means the tattoo.

“Hummus wraps with stuff.”

He smiles at my answer but plays along, unraveling the wax paper and biting into the wrap. “So good.”

He holds the bitten wrap out to me, and I lean over, taking a bite. Gobs of hummus fall on the center console, and I sweep it up with my finger.

“Oh my god. Yum.”

“Right?”

“I would come back here for this alone.”

The wrap is demolished before we get onto the highway. I watch Monterey grow smaller in the rearview, and a silence settles over us. Everything feels different, and now we’re going back to a place where everything is the same. It’s like the tape is rewinding with every mile.

“Did you get what you needed?”

Nick finally asks.

And I’m not really sure.

“I think so.”

He puts on some music, and we fall into our routine of singing until we can’t stand the sound of music anymore.

We left too late to take the scenic route back and stop at a Starbucks outside of San Francisco. I park around the back and toss Nick the keys so we can switch up. After we get our drinks, we lean against the hood. Nick with his iced espresso and me with my iced tea.

“So.”

Nick studies me, a smirk on his face.

“You’re killing me. Spill about the tat.”

“What’d you get?”

I ask, tugging at the hem of his shirt.

“Nuh-uh.”

He steps back.

“You first.”

“Guess.”

“Ohhh, what is this—who knows who better?”

“Well, I obviously know you better, and I pay more attention to things.”

“Okay, then you guess first.”

I pace in front of him. The thing with Nick is, as much as I know him, he can be so abstract. I have no idea what he’d settle on for a tattoo. “.”

“Wow. Nailed it.”

He’s joking, but my eyes widen, feigning excitement.

“Seriously?”

“No!”

He says in mock disgust.

“Mom?”

He laughs. “No.”

“Pi, or Pissis or whatever.”

The mountain he’s talked about visiting near the crash site.

He tilts his head to the side.

“I’m impressed, you remember. Thought about it, but decided not to go there.”

“Good call. Bullshit?”

“I’m not in prison!”

I squint in concentration. “Bear.”

His mom used to call him that.

“Ouch. That hurt.”

He clutches his chest and staggers back.

“No, but maybe you do know too much about me.”

He gives me sad eyes, and I feel guilty for mentioning it.

I tuck a strand of hair behind my ears.

“If I keep guessing, this will just get sadder.”

“Good point.”

He turns around, his back facing me.

“Where is it?”

“Left shoulder.”

I pounce on him, tugging at his neckline, but he makes a strangling sound, so I lift his shirt from the back, and my hands travel up his body until I see it. The word echo in lowercase black script. Nick’s always had a thing with echoes. He’s told me how he, Alex, and his mom used to yell into the void at the falls. It should have been an easy guess.

He spins around to see my reaction. “So?”

“It’s perfect. So poignant and devastating.”

He raises his arms in victory.

“That’s what I was going for.”

“I like how the line continues after the O, like it’s still going somewhere.”

“Me too.”

He snaps his fingers.

“Come on. Your turn.”

“You didn’t guess.”

He looks up to the sky, thinking, and then into my eyes.

“A narwhal,”

he says, sounding so sure.

I knew he would say that.

“Ha! Nope.”

“Camera?”

I shake my head.

“A date? Tube of film? Balance beam?”

He drums his fingers against his cup.

“Face cream. Can I see? Where is it?”

“Left hip.”

My fingers point down to it like an arrow. He puts his cup on the car and steps closer. I step back, suddenly insecure. After everything we’ve been through, I shouldn’t be, but the tattoo feels private, like it’s just for me.

“Just forget it. You don’t need to see.”

“Come on!”

He steps closer again, eyeing me curiously.

“No fair. I showed you mine.”

“Are you sexually harassing me right now?”

“Yes. Yes, I am. Now show it!”

My nervousness heightens. I lift my shirt a bit, and he closes the gap between us, glancing around the parking lot as if we’re about to do something verboten. He gently tugs at the waist of my shorts.

“Fi,”

he says, softly, his head falling to the side as he studies it. I step away, waiting for him to say more.

“It’s amazing.”

He thinks for a minute.

“Did you choose it for the symbolism?”

Symbolism? Please tell me this doesn’t mean something weird like I’m in a cult.

“What do you mean?”

“Scallop shells are associated with pilgrimage, rebirth, Venus, you know . . . ”

“Oh.”

I squint at him.

“How do you know all this stuff?”

He slides a hand down his face.

“Don’t judge me. I went down a rabbit hole once.”

“A shell rabbit hole?”

“It was for a paper on Botticelli for art! Did they not teach things at your school?”

“Yeah, but it was so long ago. Like ninth-grade material.”

We laugh.

“Well, now I want to say that I did a deep dive into shell lore, but, no. I’ve just always loved them.”

“Huh,”

he says, threading the strings together in his mind. A hint of a smile plays on his lips.

“I love that I know this about you. Did I see a hint of color?”

I nod. A glimmer of pink lines the scalloped edges.

“Let me see it one more time,” he pleads.

“You get three seconds, tops.”

I lift the corner of my shirt again, and he folds down the edge of my shorts.

He studies the shell, then his eyes connect with mine. He’s standing so close.

“You made the memory your own,”

he says quietly, brushing his thumb low across my hip.

I shiver. And it sucks that my body betrayed me this way without my brain’s permission. I step back, but he caught it, and I die a thousand awkward deaths.

A car pulls into the spot beside us.

Nick wipes his palms against his jeans. He looks as surprised as I feel.

“I’m sorry.”

“Noitsokay,”

I say rapid fire, heading around the back to the passenger side.

“Zombie Bob’s going to kill you,”

he says, once we’re in the car, as if nothing happened.

“And probably me.”

“No. We are taking this to the grave.”

“Deal.”

We’re acting normal, but that’s all it is—acting. Imaginary Nick says.

“Why did you shiver when I touched you?”

Real Nick says nothing. Real Nick watches the world go by while he selects a song I will inevitably read into. Real Nick plays something by Frank Ocean. It’s unreadable. He drums his fingers against the steering wheel. He flicks his feelings to off, and I wish it were that easy for me.