I don't know where she got my number, but Billie calls me at 12:40 am that night, telling me to get dressed. I get dressed. It's cold out so I put on waterproof boots and a coat that's a bit uncomfortable around the neck, but I'm covered and content. Also, I'm a bundle of nerves, waiting for Billie outside in the rain. Rain. Rain. I shake my arms, trying to keep the cold out of my ridiculous coat and my squeaky boots, but it doesn't help too much.
Billie's on a bicycle, dressed in tight jeans that should make it impossible for her to pedal and a jumper that stops just underneath the lump of her breast. She's dressed cold. I feel stupid on the back of her bike in a thick coat that makes me feel immobile like a cocooned caterpillar.
We fly through the blackness of the night down empty streets, not taking, just racing through the cold air. I don't know where we are going, and I'm scared and I'm a bit anxious.
"Where are we going?" I ask, but it's in my head and I'm not really saying anything.
We end up somewhere on the other side of the city at a Chinese tattoo shop. Billie pulls me out of the frigid night air and into the shop.
"What are we doing here?" I ask quietly. But, it's in my head again. I don't know how to form words with my lips anymore.
Beyond the counter, there's the girl from last night. Only, she's dressed in black, black skinny jeans and a leather jacket that sparkles in the dim of the shop. Her hair is cropped and dark and her eyes are sharp, sharp, staring. Wondering why I'm here.
She walks up to us. "If you're looking to get tattooed, dad's not coming in today," she said huskily, running her tattoo artist fingers through her neatly cropped hair.
Billie gives her a sweet smile, kissing the girl lightly on the lips. "I don't mind having you do it," she says. She's flirting.
Ashlae flushes a bit, but it's just gratefulness that makes her go red. She stares at her feet the way I sometimes do when I can't look at Billie being so intense all the time. "What would you like?" Ashlae asks.
Billie shows her a drawing of a squiggly crescent moon, red and vacant. Eyes little red dots in its dented head. I imagine something like that in the sky, shinning burgundy on us all, red like blood.
"You should come to my party," Ashlae says, needle hot on Billie's forearm. "We hadn't hung out in a hot second, Kat."
"Only if my plus one doesn't mind," Billie says. She's trying to be playful, but she's demanding again. I just stand there, staring and staring at the red ink sinking into Billie's olive skin with tiny pinpricks until she bleeds.
I don't have a choice. Billie crams me into an Uber with Ashlae, gets in herself and locks the door. Then we off the second time that night. Our cold, frozen bodies like sausages in the backseat of an Uber to a place where there are no goldfish or respectable people like Shay. A place where there's no dad.