“Karissa,” I say, wild now, and frantic. I think if I slap her maybe she’ll snap out of it. Pour cold water on her. Remind her he’s my father.
“It’s okay! It will be fun. I swear. You have to trust me. This is going to be so good,” she says. I don’t say anything, and in the pause she changes. Not much. Only a little. A little to the left, a little bit toward indignant and frustrated that I would interfere with her relationship. Her marriage. Her big moment. “I need this,” she says. “I deserve a little happiness, after everything. And he makes me happy. And it’s going to be fantastic. I’m promising you, okay?”
I don’t answer. I wonder if it’s possible to faint from feelings. I wonder if this is when I start loving her a little less.
She waits for me to say okay but I don’t.
She leaves a puddle outside my door, and I feel like I’m drowning in it.
twenty-two
Two days later, Bernardo and I are naked on the couch in my basement, doing everything but. We are hanging out in the everything-but stage, and it feels good.
I haven’t told Arizona and Roxanne what happened with Karissa.
Instead I tell Bernardo’s naked body about it.
It’s Thursday afternoon and Friday feels like a death sentence, and when I tell him things, he looks in my eyes and says he understands.
“Would it make you feel better to see Natasha?” he says. I like the way his thighs feel against mine. I like that his shoulders and back and belly are paler than the rest of him. His knee is between my thighs and I like that too.
“How’d you know that?” I say. It’s so obvious, that’s absolutely what would make me feel better. Or if not better, more grounded.
“I know you,” he says. He shifts me off of him and looks at me hard. I want to be kissing but he wants to be staring, so we settle for switching back and forth between both.
“You’re getting to know me,” I say.
“Don’t get all scared,” Bernardo says because he does, in fact, know me.
“Okay,” I say. “You can know me.”
Bernardo starts tickling me, and there’s a manic two minutes of naked squirming and screeching and batting his hands away, even though what I want, what I really want, is for him to touch me so much more. Then he’s kissing my neck and touching my thighs, not tickling anymore, and things start to happen, whirling-mind things, heart-expanding things, opposite-of-ticklish things, but he stops when I tense up. He has a knack for noticing the constant tensing and relaxing of my limbs. He said he’s never known anyone who expresses so much in their biceps and toes.
There’s a Sharpie on the coffee table down here from Karissa addressing big envelopes with her head shot inside, and Bernardo picks it up like he’s made a decision. He draws a heart on my shoulder.
“Are Sharpies dangerous for skin?” I say, the chemical smell hitting me hard.
“Can’t be too bad,” Bernardo says. He draws another heart on my wrist and sneaks down my body to draw two on my upper thighs.
“I can pretty much feel the lead or whatever it is seeping into my bloodstream, just so you know,” I say. The actual drawing feels good—the soft tip of the pen tickles my arm, and I like the intense focus Bernardo gets after we’ve hooked up, like I’m all he can see or will ever see in the world. He draws hearts on my knees and polka-dots my feet.
He twirls the marker like it’s a baton. His fingers are sure. It’s weird to feel like I know everything about him and nothing about him all at once.
He draws a ring around my ring finger. He draws a diamond and little dashes sprouting out from it so that I know it’s a sparkly one.
I can’t stop laughing.
“Oh come on,” I say.
“Hey, someday,” he says. I try to imagine any other guy I’ve been with saying or doing anything the way Bernardo does, but it’s impossible. He’s all raw and open and unafraid. He’s an old soul and naive and strange and in love with me all at the same time.
“I wasn’t kidding about the poison,” I say. “I think it’s, like, pretty possible that Sharpie on skin could kill me.” I’m not all the things he is. I keep wanting to be, but it’s like my brain is holding back my heart. Or maybe vice versa. I can’t tell.
“Then we have to go together,” Bernardo says. “Romeo and Juliet style. Poison me too.”
“I love Romeo and Juliet,” I say.
“I figured. You have three copies in your room,” he says.
It’s irresistible, the way he sees me and knows me and notices me and doesn’t want me to change.
I draw hearts on all his joints and spirals on his arms. He takes the pen from me and writes his name on my back, flipping me over and running the marker along my spine. I can’t stop shivering. He writes his name everywhere. Covering my whole body in him.
“We aren’t going to be able to wash this off,” I say.
“True.”
“Natasha will think we are insane,” I say.