P. Hoover - Solstice

She’s right. I am eighteen now. I have a whole life ahead of me. Chloe wants me to go off to California for college with her, but my mom insists I should stay here in Austin, go to UT, live at home. Chloe and I laugh and plan, but I never really think it’s possible. Still, maybe being eighteen will make a difference.

“I wouldn’t even know what to do with myself,” I say. I may want to explore new horizons, but I’ve never done it before. I motion to the present on the table; it’s so thin it’s hardly a box at all. “Can I open it?”

“Of course.” Chloe gives me her best bubbly smile. “Happy birthday!”

“You didn’t have to get me anything.” Not that I’m complaining. With being homeschooled, I never got many presents from friends growing up.

Chloe rolls her eyes. “Whatever, Piper. How was your birthday? God, it sucked that I couldn’t come over. But we were stuck in that stupid dome all weekend.”

“My mom made me the greatest cake,” I say. “You would have loved it. And then, you know how my mom always goes out scavenging seeds?”

“Doesn’t she have enough yet?” she says.

“Not according to her.” My mom has seeds stored up to keep us with live plants for three hundred years. If I ever have grandkids, their children’s children should always have fresh flowers growing. “Anyway, when she left, you know that girl Melina I’ve told you about?”

“The one who hardly wears any clothes?”

“Yeah,” I say. “She brought me this old box. Told me she saw it in a flea market and bought it for me.”

I don’t tell Chloe, but it was weird, because as soon as Melina handed it to me, I couldn’t wait to open it—like it was wired right to my brain. The second she was gone, I locked the door and ran my hands over the etched surface of the box. It was small and round with a background of coal black, but around the entire perimeter, painted in red, were images of birds and flames.

I lifted the rounded lid and looked inside, and there amid the ebony interior, sat a single red feather. It called to me, beckoned me to pick it up. It knew my name. I felt like it was a part of me, tugging at my heart, and I set the box down and picked up the feather, and letters started swirling around in my mind. A jumble of Greek characters, blending together and forming words; I had no idea what they meant, but it was like they were trying to tell me something. Trying to give me some sort of message. But all I could see was a red feather and an empty box. And before I could catch them, the letters drifted away, and the feather burst into flames and burned to ash.

I don’t tell Chloe about the feather because it’s just too freaky, but I give her all the other details.

“Did you hide the box?” Chloe asks.

“Under the bed,” I say.

“That’s a horrible hiding spot.” She slides her present over to me, and I pick it up and begin untying the grosgrain red bow, running my fingers over the ribbed lines. When I finish untying it, I knot it around my ponytail.

I unwrap the paper and open the lid of the wafer-thin box. But when I look, I’m not sure what to make of the piece of paper tucked inside. I pick it up and unfold it. It’s about an inch wide and has a bunch of Greek letters on it. Greek letters like I saw when I held the red feather.

I hold it out to Chloe. “What is it?”

Chloe licks her lips and smiles. “The design for our friendship tattoos.”

“Tattoos!”

Chloe nods. “Yep. We’re finally going to do it.”

Getting a tattoo has been my ultimate dream. A permanent sign of rebellion against my mom. Something that will last forever, like my friendship with Chloe. We’ve talked ad nauseam about the tattoo—where we will get one, how much it will hurt, what it will be. But I’ve always doubted that I’d truly follow through. “Get real,” I say. And I fold the piece of paper and put it back in the box.

Chloe grabs it. “I’m serious.” She holds the paper open to me. “It’s Ancient Greek.”

Goose bumps rise on my skin even though the eco A/C is anything but cool. “What does it say?” I feel like I should be able to read the letters, to piece them together into a word that won’t quite come to the forefront of my mind.

Chloe shrugs. “ Giving or surrender or something like that. I looked it up.”

I squint at the design, still trying to read it. “How’d you decide on it?” As much as we’ve talked about tattoos, we’ve never been able to agree on exactly what to get.

Chloe smiles, and I lift my eyes to meet hers. “I saw it in a dream. Last night after we talked. And as soon as I woke up, I scribbled it down just like I remembered.” She holds the piece of paper up. “It’s perfect.”

Chloe had a dream with Greek letters. And I’d seen Greek letters yesterday when I’d opened the box. It seems a bizarre coincidence, but I push it aside.

“I’m not getting a tattoo,” I say. But the thought of Shayne comes back to me, and the life I want to lead flashes before my eyes. I play a vision in my mind of actually getting the tattoo. Of defying my mom. Of living my dreams.

Chloe draws an invisible band around her bicep. “Here. We’re getting them here.”

I roll my eyes. “I could never hide that.” With every day being over a hundred degrees, tank tops have become the school’s standard uniform.

Chloe looks like she’s just eaten the last piece of chocolate in a Valentine sampler, and I realize she’s been planning this for a long time. “I know.”

I blow out the breath I’ve been holding since I saw the piece of paper. I can’t get a tattoo. I won’t get a tattoo. “I wouldn’t even know where to go to get a tattoo.”

“But my brother does,” Chloe says, and I remember her brother who graduated last year has at least twelve tattoos, some in places I’ve only heard about and never seen.

“Chloe…”

“What?” she says. “You need to do something. Something for yourself. Not for your mom. Not for me. Do it for you. Make a decision for yourself.”

I let the heat of the world soak into me and think about my future. With the Global Heating Crisis, some people aren’t even convinced there will be much of a future. What would I do if I only had days to live? Where would I go that my mom would not be able to follow?

“When?”

Chloe smiles. She knows she’s won. “We’re skipping the rest of the day. I set up an appointment for us in a half hour.”

I’ve only been to the Drag once before. My mom needed some special seeds for a plant she wanted to grow, and the only place in Austin which claimed to have them was some hippie shop located behind the college bookstore. We took a shuttle there, and she left me on a bench to watch the world while she ran inside. Which says something about how horrible the shop must have been. The Drag was a world I’d never seen. One I hadn’t even imagined. The kids walking around hardly seemed older than me, but none of them had their mothers with them. Looking around now, it’s kind of hard to believe my mom actually wants me to go to college here. Does she plan on coming to classes with me?

Chloe jumps the three steps down from the shuttle, and I follow. She grabs my hand, and we start weaving our way through the crowd, backpacks in tow. Within two steps, I’m immersed in a sea of tattoos and body piercings, shaved heads and bare chests—at least on the guys. And based on the fabric of tattoos surrounding me, It seems the Drag is the right place to come for permanent ink. The misters spray down on us, and a slick of gel forms on my skin. I imagine the tattoo there on my bicep—forever.