Page 117 of The Way I Am Now
I tell her what happened with Josh, but she interrupts me before I can tell her the worst part. “Oh my God, Edy, are you telling me you’re pregnant, is that why you—”
“What? No! God, no. I got the morning-after pill—well, actually, Josh got it for me—wait, is that why I what?” I ask. “What were you gonna say?”
“Oh. Nothing. You just look a little . . .” She pauses, squinting as she stares at me. “A little rough. That’s all.”
“Yeah, that seems to be the consensus.”
“Sorry, keep going,” she says, dipping a tortilla chip into the queso and offering it to me. “How did this lead to you breaking up?”
“I knew I’d missed too many days, like I knew it was risky. But I let him . . . you know, come, anyway.”
“Oh,” she murmurs. “Um.Why?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know anymore; I just did. And he’s really pissed. I’ve never seen him so angry. And then I got angry that he was angry, and the next thing I know, he’s telling me what a fuckup I am, and then we’re taking a break and I’m throwing a water bottle at him.” I pause, trying to recall whether I left anything out. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what happened.”
“You threw a water bottle at him?”
“It missed.”
She nods, seeming to think about this detail for longer than feels necessary. “But wait, he really called you a fuckup? That doesn’t sound like him.”
“Well, okay, he didn’t use the word ‘fuckup,’ but that’s what he meant. And he was right,” I continue. “I am a fuckup.”
“Edy, don’t say that.”
“No, I am. What I did? That was fucked up—you think so too.”
“Okay, but one fuckup doesn’t makeyoua fuckup,” she argues.
“I just keep thinking, if I hadn’t told him and just dealt with it on my own . . .” I venture back into the loop my thoughts have kept getting stuck on these past few weeks. “But I guess that’s not the point,” I say, more to myself.
“Yeah,” Mara agrees. “Can I say something to try to make you feel better that I also happen to believe is true?”
“Okay.”
“I think you did the right thing telling him. I think that’s actually you fucking up less, because you were honest. And I think you guys can work it out.” She takes my hand. “Actually, I know you can.”
I squeeze her hand in thanks, but it just reminds me of how that was our thing—me and Josh—the hand-squeeze private Morse code thing.
“Oh,” I add. “And, of course, there’s that whole little trial thing happening in January. So, I basically have a month to pull myself together and get ready to go through that whole fucking mess all over again.”
She squeezes my hands even harder now. “You can do it.”
I breathe in deeply through my nose and try to absorb some of the tears back into my body before they can make it out of me. “All right, I can’t start crying again—I’ve been crying for three weeks straight. I can’t physically cry again right now or I’m afraid I’m going to cause permanent damage to my body.”
Mara’s eyes light up. “Okay, that gives me an idea.” She wraps up all our food and sticks it back in the carryout bag by my feet, then starts the car—all with this wild smirk across her face.
“Okay, why am I scared right now?” I ask her as she shifts the car into drive.
“Buckle up,” she orders.
She takes us down the familiar roads of our tiny town until, twenty minutes later, we’re pulling into the parking lot of a mostly abandoned strip mall that looks vaguely familiar. And then I see the sign:SKIN DEEP.
“No,” I tell her.
“Hear me out,” she begins. “I was just thinking that we need to do something that’ll remind you of what a badass you are, and seriously, nothing makes me feel like more of a badass than getting a new piercing.”
Mara has been collecting them. First her nose—I was there for that one—then her eyebrow, then her lip, then her tongue, then her navel, and who knows where else these days.
