The Way I Used to Be

“SO, EXPLAIN TO ME how you wound up here last night?” Dad says, standing over Mara at our kitchen table. It has only been a few hours since we crept in; Mara meets my eyes cautiously as she scoops up a spoonful of cereal and puts it in her mouth. This was about our fifth bowl of cereal each.

“I told Mom already,” I lie. “Megan started with us, and we decided to leave. Now that Mara has a car.” I smile at him.

“I never liked Megan, anyway,” Mara adds. And we can’t help it, we burst out laughing.

“Scary thought, you girls behind the wheel,” he says, blowing on his coffee. He walks into the living room, shaking his head.

“See?” I tell her.

“Hurry up, Edy. There’s something I wanna go do,” Mara whispers.

Twenty minutes later we’re sitting in Mara’s car in the parking lot of a seedy strip mall I’ve never even seen before. There’s a liquor store, a watch-repair shop, a hydroponics place, and a dollar store.

“Okay, you got me, Mara. What the hell are we doing here?”

“Look,” she says, pointing to a detached building at the very back of the plaza. The sign says: SKIN DEEP: ALTERNATIVE BODY ART.

“Again, I ask, what are we doing here?”

“You kno-ow . . . ,” she sings, unbuckling her seat belt.

“Are you still high?” I shout.

“It’s my birthday!” she yells back.

“No, your birthday was Thursday. Remember, you got your car and we went out to eat. And then your birthday was Friday—I’ll give you that one, okay? And we bought alcohol illegally. And then we got baked with two complete strangers from our rival school. But now it’s Saturday. It’s not your birthday anymore, Mara. And I am absolutely not letting you do anything you can’t undo, if you’re thinking what I’m thinking you’re thinking!”

“Okay, Mom,” she says with a laugh, getting out of the car.

I open my car door. “Wait!” I call after her. She turns around and grins, walking backward a few steps. I run to catch up with her. “Okay, just hold on. This seems like a super shady place, Mara.”

“It’s not shady! Cameron works here. It’s fine,” she says, shooing me with her hand as she walks ahead of me.

“Him again?” I moan. “Mara, please.”

“Not him again. Him . . . still. Look, he’s my friend, Edy. He’s not a bad guy. I don’t know why you hate him so much.”

“He hates me too!” I try to defend myself.

“He does not!” she snaps, reaching for the door. “Edy, please just be nice to him. I want you with me for this, okay?”

“Okay, okay. Just tell me it’s not going to be a tattoo.”

She smiles. “Nose ring.”

I smile back. “Fine. Let’s go in.” I even hold the door for Mara, just to show her how cool I am with this.

“Hey, you!” Cameron calls out from the back of the room, walking toward us with a smile. Toward Mara with a smile, anyway.

“I told you. As soon as I turned sixteen. I’m here.”

“Wait, don’t you actually have to be eighteen?” I ask.

“Sixteen with parent’s consent,” Cameron corrects.

“But you don’t have parent’s consent,” I say to Mara.

Cameron rolls his eyes and looks at Mara like I must be the most tedious square on the planet.

“Well, we didn’t have parent’s consent last night, either,” Mara says, laughing.

Cameron grins at her. “Do I even want to know?”

“You would definitely not approve, Cam,” Mara tells him. “We were bad girls.”

“Then don’t tell me,” he says, pretending to cover his ears. “I don’t believe you could do anything bad.” He looks at Mara so sweetly, like maybe he really is into her, finally. Then he looks to me: “Edy, on the other hand . . .”

I roll my eyes at him.

“Kidding, Edy.” But I know he’s not. “Okay, come on back,” he says, leading the way down a hall to a little room. “Have a seat.” He gestures to what looks like a dentist’s chair. It’s all very clinical and sterile. Smells like rubbing alcohol or iodine, or something. It leaves a bitter, chemical taste in my mouth.

“You’re sure you want to do this, right?” I ask her as she climbs into the chair. “It is your face, you know?”

“Is it gonna hurt? Tell me the truth?” she asks Cameron, instead of answering me.

He dabs at her left nostril with a cotton swab and smiles as he looks down into her face. “I’m not gonna lie. It really will hurt. But only for, like, two seconds, and then it’s over, I promise.”

“Okay,” she whispers. Then she looks to me, taking my hand.

“Cameron, do you really, really know what you’re doing? Not being rude, I promise. Just—you can really do this, right?” I ask him.

“Yes, Edy. I do this every day. Really. It’s okay.”

“Cameron’s going to be a tattoo artist,” Mara says.

Yeah, sure he is, I want to say. “Fine, just be careful.”

“I will,” he says softly, gripping on to her nostril with this creepy-looking pair of silver tongs. “Your eyes are going to water, but it’s okay. That’s totally normal,” he tells her, placing a tissue in her hand. “Okay, Mara, turn your head toward me and close your eyes.”

I watch him bring the biggest needle I’ve ever seen in my entire life up to her tiny little nostril. I squeeze her hand harder than she squeezes mine.

“Okay, take a deep breath,” Cameron says. I do. “And exhale.” I close my eyes, and feel Mara’s whole body go tense. But she doesn’t make a sound. “That was it, now I’m just putting the ring in. Take another breath. Okay. And exhale. That’s it! That’s it, you did it!” He laughs.

I open my eyes. Mara has a little sparkly stud in her nose. Tears are streaming from her eyes, but she has the biggest smile on her face as she looks up at Cameron.

“That was it?” she asks him.

“Yeah, look. Here,” he says, handing her a mirror.

“Oh my God!” she shouts, sitting up straight.

Then she looks to me, then back to the mirror, then back to me. “Do you like it?”

“I love it!” I tell her, and I mean it.

“This is the best day of my life!” she says, throwing her arms around Cameron’s neck. He smiles as he leans in and hugs her back. Then she lets go and hugs me, too. Cameron and I smile at each other, truthfully, for the first time ever.