One Tiny Lie: A Novel (4 page)

I go back to flipping through the pictures to distract the blush from creeping up my face. There’s a close-up of a guy with a kilt and a bagpipe, his arm around Kacey. I flip to the next to see Kacey pointing intentionally at his kilt, her eyebrows arched questioningly. “What’s he doing at a toga—” I begin to ask but then flip to the next picture and gasp.

“That’s called ‘going traditional,’” Kacey explains.

With a deep frown and a shaking head, I keep moving through the pictures and I feel my face lose more blood by the shot. Kacey and I are hugging in most of them. In some, we look like we’re trying to seduce the camera with wagging tongues and wild eyes. Every once in a while, Reagan’s big grin shows up alongside us.

“Oh no . . .” It’s funny how just a photo can trigger a memory. That’s exactly what happens when the picture of myself pointing to a sign that says “Inky’s” appears. “Ohmigod!” I’ve said that at least ten times this morning. “Oh God, oh God, oh God . . .” I mutter frantically as I flip through the next pictures, hoping my mind is playing tricks on me. Nope! Sure enough, there I am, straddling a chair, holding my hair and the top of my toga to the side as a burly man in black leather pants and covered in ink grips a tattoo gun behind me. I stare at the picture, my mouth hanging open. That explains why my back is so sore. “How could you let this happen, Kacey!” I hiss, hysteria kicking in.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Kacey interjects, snatching the phone from my hand. She quickly finds a video file and hits
play
before shoving the phone back in my face. I’m all smiles in it, though my mouth and eyes look a little droopy. “I will not hold my sister, Kacey Cleary, accountable for my actions when I wake up!” I declare with resounding clarity.

I hear Kacey’s excited voice as she responds. “Even though I warned you that you would not be happy about this in the morning, right? And that you would try to blame me?” She doesn’t slur when she’s drunk either.

“That’s right!” My hand flies up in the air and the artist stops for a moment to place my arm back down and order me not to move. He goes back to work and I say, “I demand the right to have a tattoo because I, Olivia Cleary”—I jab myself in the chest with my thumb like a caveman, earning another pause and annoyed glance from the artist—“am a super
badass
.”

My hand holding the phone falls to the side of the bed as I rub my eyes. “How could that guy tattoo me in good conscience? I mean, look at me!” I thrust the phone in her face. “I was drunk! Isn’t that illegal?”

“I don’t know about illegal—it probably is—but it’s definitely frowned upon,” Kacey admits.

I cringe, my stomach curling. “Well, then, how did—”

“He’s a friend of Ashton’s.”

I throw my hands up in the air. “Well, that’s just great! Because
he’s
reputable. What if they used dirty needles? Kacey!” My eyes widen. “People catch HIV and hepatitis from those places! How could you let—”

“It’s a legit, clean place. Don’t worry,” Kacey muttered in that calm but annoyed tone she uses on the rare occasions that I get hysterical. “I wasn’t as drunk as you. I knew what was going on.”

“How? You had a shot in your face every time I looked at you!”

She snorts. “Because my tolerance for booze is
slightly
higher than yours. I promised Stayner I’d stay lucid.”

“Stayner.” I shake my head. “What kind of psychiatrist masterminds his patient getting blitzed to the point of tattoos and random make-out sessions?”

“The completely unorthodox and therefore brilliant kind?” Kacey responds with a severe stare. Her response doesn’t surprise me. In my sister’s eyes, Dr. Stayner can turn water into wine. “And he didn’t have anything to do with that, Livie. He just told you to go have fun. You did all this on your own.”

“And you knew I’d be furious today,” I say with a resigned sigh.

She shrugs. “The tattoo is pretty. I promise you’ll like it when you see it.”

I pretend to study a mark on the ceiling for a moment as I clench my jaw stubbornly. I’ve never held a grudge against my sister. Never. This may be a first.

“Oh, come on, Livie! Don’t be mad. Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy last night. You told me it was the best night of your life. About a thousand times. Besides”—she rubs her shoulder and I know she’s not even aware of it—“we deserve to have some harmless fun together after what we’ve been through.”

My eyes catch the long, narrow surgical scar along her arm. A scar that puts all of this into perspective. “You’re right,” I murmur, my finger trailing the thin, white line. “It’s nothing.” There’s a long pause. “You said it was pretty?”

She flips through the rest of the pictures until she finds one of the finished product:
Livie Girl
, in delicate scroll writing between my shoulder blades. It’s no more than four inches wide. Now that the initial shock has subsided, my heart swells seeing it. “Pretty,” I agree, staring at the beautiful calligraphy font, wondering if my dad would agree.

“Dad would love it,” Kacey says. Sometimes I swear my sister has a channel into my brain. And every once in a while, she seems to know exactly what to say. I smile for the first time this morning.

“I washed it for you last night. You’ll need to clean it a few times every day for the next two weeks. There’s a bottle of Lubriderm over there.” She waves a lazy hand toward a desk. “Wearing light clothes will help with the tenderness.”

“Is that why I woke up practically naked?”

She snorts and then nods.

My hand moves to rub my brow. “It’s all making sense now.” Drunken, idiotic sense. I study the picture again. “Is it supposed to be that red and puffy?”

“Yeah, there was some blood.”

I groan at the thought, my hand pressing against my still-queasy stomach.

“I think there’s another planter over there.”

I groan again. “I’ll need to replace that later today for Reagan.”

We lie in silence for a long moment. “How did you end up on the top bunk, by the way? That really sucks,” she says. Some of the dorm rooms have bunks. Some of the rooms are too small to separate the bunks into two individual beds. We ended up in one of those rooms.

“Reagan’s afraid of heights, so I gave her the bottom. I don’t mind.”

“Huh . . . I guess that makes sense. She’s so short. Almost a dwarf.”

I turn to shoot a scathing glare at my sister. Reagan is right below us. Sleeping, but
right below
us!

There’s another long pause before Kacey continues with that devilish little smile. “Well, I hope she doesn’t mind your rampant sex life. It could be lethal for her if this thing isn’t stable.”

Sudden tittering tells us Reagan is in fact awake and listening. “Oh, don’t worry. I know the rules,” she calls out in a groggy voice. “I have a red sock we can hang on the doorknob when Livie’s in here with Ashton—”

I yank the covers over my head because I know exactly where this is going and my cheeks are flushing furiously. Somehow I’ve ended up with my sister’s mini-me as a roommate. Unfortunately my sheets aren’t soundproof, and I have no problem hearing Kacey’s continued teasing. “No need, Reagan. Livie likes witnesses.”

“I noticed. From what I hear, so does Ashton. And I’m okay with that because that body is to die for! He has the most incredible chest. I could run my tongue down it all night long. Just like Livie did—”

I burst out in nervous giggles, both horrified and delirious. “I did not. Stop!”

“Not until you admit that you enjoyed messing around with him last night.”

I shake my head furiously.

“His ass is hard too. I’ve copped a feel before. Not the two-handed grip that Livie had on him, though,” Reagan continues.

“STOP!”

My raised voice only feeds Kacey’s amusement. “I can’t wait until the first time she has a two-handed grip on his—”

“Okay! I enjoyed it! Immensely! Stop this conversation now, please! I don’t ever want to see him again.”

“Until the next time you’re drunk.”

“I’m never drinking again!” I declare.

“Oh, Livie . . .” Kacey rolls over to snuggle against me.

“No, I’m serious! I’m like Jekyll and Hyde when I drink.”

“Well, Dad did say there’s always a bit of crazy in even the most reserved of the Irish. You sure proved that last night.”

Irish
.

“Ashton called me ‘Irish.’ Why?”

“I don’t know, Livie. You’ll have to ask him the next time you guys get drunk and make out.”

I roll my eyes but don’t bother to respond. Something is nagging at me still.

Irish.

Irish.

My eyes pop open. I pull the cover off my face. “Did Ashton get a tattoo on his butt that says ‘Irish’?”

There’s a long pause. And then Kacey bolts up, her eyes wide and bright, her mouth hanging open. “I totally forgot about that!” She and Reagan are suddenly howling with laughter. “How did I forget about that?” Jutting a finger in my face, she says, “
You
dared the cocky bastard!” She’s clapping her hands with a level of giddiness I rarely see from Kacey. Or even a four-year-old hopped up on sugar. She raises one up to me and, after a long pause, I give her a reluctant high five. “You think
you
have regrets, Livie? Wait until he figures out why his ass is sore . . .”

Reagan is laughing so hard that I’m sure there must be tears running down her face, and it’s infectious. Soon the entire bunk bed is shaking as we laugh at the gorgeous rowing team captain and his inked ass.

And as much as I hate to, as hard as it is to do, I have to admit to myself . . . yeah, last night was fun.

Every second of it.

By three o’clock that afternoon, I’m feeling a lot better. Enough that the smell of coffee and fresh pastries didn’t turn my stomach when we grabbed a quick bite at a quaint local café. But now the hangover has been replaced with melancholy.

I’m saying goodbye to my sister today.

Of course there are texts, and phone calls, and email, and face time, and I’ll see her when I fly down for our friends Storm and Dan’s wedding in a few weeks, but . . . it’s not the same. I remember the two months away from her while she was in Dr. Stayner’s care. I felt like someone had ripped a chunk of my heart out. Outside of that time, I’ve seen her face every single day of my life.

Every. Single. Day.

Even when she was in the ICU after the accident, even when she was messed up with alcohol and drugs, even when she was working those crazy hours tending bar at Penny’s, I still always peeked in on her asleep in her bed, just to get a glimpse of her face. To prove to myself that she hadn’t died on me too.

Knowing this day would come hasn’t made it any easier. Now, standing here, I’m sure I’m losing something. It’s as if I’m saying goodbye to a part of my life that I’ll never get back.

“Well . . . ,” Kacey says, looking up at me with glassy blue eyes and a tight smile as we stand next to a taxi. My sister doesn’t cry much. Even after everything we’ve gone through, and how far she’s come, she normally manages to use inappropriate humor to shrug off any threats of sadness. Now, though . . . now I see a single tear trickle down her cheek. “Little sis,” she mumbles, sliding her hands around my neck to pull me down so our foreheads meet. “You did it, Livie.”

I smile. “
We
did it.” It would have been easier for her had she left me with Aunt Darla and Uncle Raymond three years ago. Heck, it would have been expected. She didn’t have to burden herself with a mouth to feed. I think a lot of other siblings in her situation would have simply walked out the front door and never looked back. Not Kacey, though. “Thanks to you—” I start to say. She cuts me off with her typical stern brow.

“Oh, no. No thanks to me, Livie. I’m the train wreck of a sister who somehow, miraculously, didn’t derail your future with my mountain of shit.” She closes her eyes as she whispers, “It’s me that owes you. Everything.” She pulls me tight to her in a hug. “Remember, I’m never too far. You let me know if you ever need me and I’ll be here in an instant. Okay?”

“I’ll be fine, Kacey.”

“And even when you’re not, I’m still here. Okay?”

I nod, not trusting my voice.

I hear my phone chirp, indicating an incoming text. Thinking it’s Storm—because she’s the only one aside from Kacey who texts me—I check my phone.

Tell me you did one out-of-character thing last night?

“You have got to be kidding me!” I burst out.

“What’s going on?” Kacey asks with a frown, leaning in to peek over my shoulder at the screen.

“What kind of doctor
texts
his patients?” I mean, non-patients.

“You have about five minutes to respond before he calls you. You know that, right?” Kacey says.

I nod. I’ve learned that Dr. Stayner is a very patient man . . . unless he wants answers. “What should I tell him?”

She shrugs and then grins. “I find shock value works best with him.”

“Well, I definitely have enough material for that.” She waits with arms crossed as I type:

I drank enough Jell-O shots to fill a small pool, and then proceeded to break out every terrible dance move known to mankind. I am now the proud owner of a tattoo and if I didn’t have a video to prove otherwise, I’d believe I had it done in a back alley with hepatitis-laced needles. Satisfied?