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SHELLEY FLASHES A FAKE grin in my direction as she pins her fiery red hair behind her ear again and pulls at my arm, glossing her eyes over me. I’m ecstatic. She’s finally going to read my palm, except she flinches.
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
Shelley blanches, staring at my shoulder. “Your tat...too,” she stutters. “Your dragon—it’s looking at me weird.”
I look down and sure enough, the creature that should be permanently painted to my arm looks as though it has wound itself differently—further up my arm so it can get a good look at Shelley with its eager eyes and wide-open hungry mouth.
My eyes roll, although my response is all for show. “Pfsst, that’s silly,” I say smugly, despite my dragon looking keen on Shelley, watching her for whatever reason.
“Where did you get that tattoo?” she asks.
“At a carnival. I told you.”
Shelley looks at Henry, who’s intrigued. He raises his brows with a cocky nod and Shelley turns back to me. “Tell me again.”
I slouch. I’m sure I told this story to Shelley before, except it wasn’t as interesting to her the last time because she wasn’t involved with Henry then.
I take a breath. “A witch suggested I get it. When your aunt would not read my palm, I got a bit obsessive about it so I sought out a palm reader. I stumbled on one at a carnival. She claimed to be a witch. She was a black woman—mysterious, but quite lovely. Most patrons seemed afraid of her, walking straight past her tent. She was oddly dressed—very little clothing that revealed her curves. But I got a warm and welcoming feeling from her. I paid her five bucks for my fortune and she suggested I see the tattoo vendor next door. She said my soul was lost—wandering through time, and I needed something permanent on my body to unite the two—my soul to my body, like a beacon. I told her there was no way I was going to allow a stranger to stab me repeatedly with a needle for hours on end. Plus, I wasn’t too thrilled about enduring that kind of pain. But it was her argument on pain that won me over. The witch said she could sense an aching loneliness in my core that lingered since before I could remember anything else. ‘The pain,’ she promised, ‘I would not feel alone.’ She made up some mumbo jumbo about my true love and how he can feel my pain no matter how far apart we are. It all seemed ridiculous and I left more confused than when I went in until I passed the display of tattoo samples outside of the tent next door. The dragon didn’t just appeal to me, it almost seemed to beg to be on me and I endured a whole night of endless torture to be united with the thing.”
Henry wheels his chair closer and runs his fingers over my shoulder. I swear my tat looks like it just blinked and is now wearing a sweet and pleasant smiley face.
It irritates me. This dragon and me have been through a lot together. The witch was right—I don’t feel as alone with it tapering down my arm. But to see Henry manipulating it with his magical, mystical crap pisses me off. I decide to give him a bit of my own funky magic.
I kick Henry in the shin and he grunts as he rubs at it.
“Hey!” cries Shelley dropping my hand. “What’d you do that for?”
“Your boyfriend just touched me,” I smirk. “Doesn’t that upset you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snaps getting up and walking to the counter to fold more clothes as Henry rolls his wheels to follow behind her. “He was...he was...”
She’s stuttering, which means Shelley’s hiding something.
“He was what?” I get up. “What is going on, Shelley? You and Henry both know something. Read my palm! Why won’t you take a moment to read it?”
“Because I don’t have to!” she blurts. “I already did. Whenever we’re hanging around, your hand is just there and it reads itself to me, like it’s speaking to me.”
“So, what does it say? I demand to know! Stop keeping secrets. Tell me my fortune or—”
“You died!” Shelley cries. “And if you don’t come to terms with what’s happening here, especially with Orphelius—if you don’t start to believe, then you’re going to die again.”
I feel sick. “What...what are you talking about? Don’t you think that’s something you should’ve told me?” I question her, exasperated and confused.
“No,” she whines. “If there’s one thing I learned from my parents it is that we have choices. Death isn’t always the end of everything and if that’s your path, if you should choose it when the time comes, then, as your very best friend, I will respect that. But right now, Henry and I have to leave.”
“Leave?!”
Shelley just dropped a bomb on me—talking about my death or my several deaths, and now she’s leaving? I see two suitcases in the corner and I realize why they’ve been folding clothes with their laundry sprawled about. “Where are you going?”
“I’m taking Henry to see a specialist down south. Doc called in a favor and we have to leave today. Henry is getting worse. He’s losing feeling in his feet and doc says the bullet is migrating closer towards his spine.”
“But I thought his doctor said surgery was not a good option.”
“It’s not but at the rate it’s moving, Henry could lose function of a lot more than just being able to walk.”
“Like his fin?” I sass. “Maybe if he stopped morphing into a fucking fish so he can fuck you how you want it, he wouldn’t be having this problem.”
Shelley sighs. “That’s mean.”
“Yeah, well, so is leaving your best friend alone in this rinky-dink small town filled with creatures from the Black Lagoon. If I could’ve afforded to stay in the apartment by myself, I would’ve.”
“Look,” pauses Shelley staring blankly. “Stay here. Stay in the beach house. It’s perfectly safe. If you run into trouble, just call the sheriff.”
I’m fuming again. “You said I couldn’t trust the sheriff!”
“No, right. Don’t call the sheriff. Call the deputy.”
“So, that’s it? You tell me I died and that I might die a-gain and you’re just going to leave?”
Shelley stops folding and walks to me, putting her hand on my non-tattooed shoulder. “If you really want to know more, you can go to the library and see Athena. But honestly, Kumiko, curse his heart, if you just give Orphelius a chance—”
Curse his heart?
“Curse his heart! Fuck you,” I tell her as I flick her hand away and allow my feet to march me into Shelley’s old bedroom and slam the door behind me.
I walk over to Shelley’s vanity and sit in the little wooden chair before an oval-shaped mirror on the wall that’s frame is constructed of cemented seashells between globs of glitter and sand; I get more irritated when I see my grumpy face in the mirror.
I just don’t get it. I know Shelley grew up here and I know she’s been exposed to a lot of this hocus pocus, but it all still seems unreal to me. Not to mention now I’m about to be stuck here alone because she needs to take her disabled merfreak to see a damn surgeon.
“I hope that freaky fucker is never able to walk again,” I say to my reflection. “Ah!” Pain shreds through my flesh over my shoulder—it’s penetrating deep into my bone where it throbs. I swear it feels like I just got bit and I can’t help but get the feeling I did.
I look in the mirror. My dragon is looking back at me, looking pissed and angry.
“You know I didn’t mean that,” I say to the cartoon painted on my arm. I feel foolish for talking to it—to myself, but the urge to apologize feels overwhelming. “You know, I love Henry. I’m just jealous of him, or more likely the two of them—stupid lovebirds always hanging out on that couch they call the love nest.”
I always thought it would be wonderful to see people in love. I always wished it for my parents—that I could’ve seen them just once loving one another instead of always arguing. I never even saw them kiss and my whole life I wondered what it would’ve been like to see the two in a tight embrace, swapping tongues. But it’s as if they were doomed, doomed from the beginning, as I know in my heart I’ve been since the birth of my existence.
I look the dragon straight in the eyes through the mirror. “You would think that seeing people like Shelley and Henry in love would be soul lifting. But it’s not. Watching people in love sucks!”
I ditch the mirror and decide to lie down on Shelley’s creaky, wooden twin bed. When I lay my head to the pillow, her parents are staring at me. They are in a tight embrace and smiling inside a dusty 3x5 fake metallic picture frame, which I fold back to avoid seeing them.
My gut wrenches. Perhaps I’m being selfish. Shelley’s past has been as tumultuous as my own, if not more. My parents may not be together anymore, but at least they are still alive.
I think of Henry; I’ve never considered his past. I never even asked. Maybe its because I don’t really want to know the history of his current circumstances, mostly since deep down I know it might negate the turmoil I experienced in my life. Fundamentally, I know Henry’s history could be, and probably is, much, much worse. He is cursed, after all. Curse his heart.
...and now I’m thinking about—Orphelius.
I wonder if he too can change the way Henry can form his legs. Orphelius is quite handsome from the waist up, but the rest? Yikes.
Well, if Orphelius had legs, I might be interested.
...the fuck am I saying? I’m not interested in tentacle man!
I close my eyes, shutting them firmly and pulling the covers over my head. No more thoughts of tentacles or broken legs or sea monsters and mermen.
Sleep. That’s all I need. A nice long nap and thoughts of...
Rainbows. Those seem safe enough.
