Page 51 of Go Luck Yourself
MOM
MOM
Kristopher, you obviously didn’t see this photo your father sent. If you had, I know you would have responded.
Your brother did not respond either.
Why haven’t you spoken to him yet?? You said you would get him to talk to me.
Your father is here. Nicholas is the only one who still refuses to move on. You know how much I love all of you, and you haven’t gotten through to him yet.
You are behaving petulantly!!
Why can’t you both be happy for me??
My hand shakes, and that shaking travels up my arm.
If I don’t acknowledge her, she’ll keep texting.
She’ll keep texting anyway.
I click on the response window.
Saw the pic. You look happy.
Well, Dad does. Mom looks annoyed, honestly. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her happy in my life.
I pocket my phone before I can see if my message is read, the ache of nausea churning now and my headache on a warpath.
A lifeline comes when footsteps precede someone entering the foyer. Something else to focus on, thank god—
I flick my eyes up too fast. The room rocks violently and I squeeze my eyes shut.
Goddamn headache. Goddamn nausea.
Goddamn texts.
“You have tattoos?” I hear Loch say.
Well. He’s a distraction, at least.
I tip my head and squint up at him. No pulse of nausea this time. Baby steps.
He’s outfitted for the run too. Black tights, his thumbs hooked in the sleeves of a form-fitting gray fleece hoodie, the color almost the exact shade as his eyes. His beanie is a bright, cheery green with a white shamrock.
I stare at his tights. His sleeves. I’ve got tights under loose running shorts, but my baggy tank suddenly seems like a dumb idea, given that the 5k isoutsideand it’s going to be cold. At least I thought to shove my hair up into my own beanie.
Mine is far superior. It has a T-rex in a Santa hat eating a small group of fleeing elves.
“Yeah?” I roll his words back through my head as I connect the way his rather severe stare is hopping from one of my shoulders to the other. “Oh. Yeah. A few.”
Ha, a few. I spend so much time at a tattoo parlor in Cambridge that I should have a plaque on the chair.
The tattoo on my left shoulder is an abstract swirl of black and gray tribal designs. It was my first one, and after I got it, Iris mocked me ruthlessly, saying how if I was going to get art permanently inked on my body, it should be meaningful and notthe same base-ass tribal stuff most gym-rat dudebros get.
I wasn’t even able to argue, because my whole thought process with it had beenOh, tribal swirls, badass, do it.
So for my right half-sleeve, I asked Iris to help me with the design. That one has two pine trees set against snow-covered mountains with wrapping script woven through them. I’m half sure she worked her name into the mountain range somewhere, but I’ve never been able to find it.
