NINETEEN
I make us reservations at that restaurant, the one where I started all this s**t, and leave him a text message, even leaving a voice mail on his phone that I will be there, at the booth we were in last time (if I can beg and plead my way to it and make it seem like it’s life or death), and now I have nothing else to do but wait and think.
I’ve taken care with my makeup, trying to mask the redness under my nose, the redness in my cheeks from swiping all the time to take care of the onslaught of tears. My hair’s straightened, silky-straight down my back, hiding the undercut from view, my hair parted right down the middle so you don’t even see my ear piercings.
My hands are adorned with rings—gold and silver—bringing even more attention to the tattoos on my fingers and hands, the
