“It looks like a cross.”
“Well, it’s a bird. See, it’s got a neck and wings?”
Violet considers this for a moment, a slight breeze moving her hair against my arm.
“I’m not seeing it,” she says. “Show me a better constellation.”
“Cygnus is a perfectly good constellation,” I argue back, but I’m laughing.
“It’s a B minus constellation at best,” she teases. “Come on, you can do better.”
I sigh dramatically and point at something else.
“There, that one’s a dragon,” I say, pointing at Draco. “It’s got a tail, and a head, and it’s kinda wrapped around Ursa Minor there.”
Violet shifts against me, tilting her head. Then she tilts her head the other way, the side her body against mine, her warmth radiating through me.
I like this. She’s soft. She smells good. She’s here, on my roof, keeping me on my toes like she always does. Violet’s not always the easiest person to get along with, but who wants easy? I’ll take interesting any day.
“That’s your tattoo,” she finally says. “Right?”
“Right,” I confirm.
She looks up at me.
“You gonna tell me about it?”
“Are you gonna ask?”
“Is it weird that I never have?”
“Not really,” I say. “Half the time I forget I have it.”
“I figured people must ask you about it all the time, so you’re probably sick of explaining it,” she says. “Or that you got it so people would ask, and I didn’t want to give you the satisfaction.”
“It’s on my back, no one ever sees it,” I point out, amused. “How often do you think I take my shirt off?”
“Seems like pretty often to me.”
She has a point.
“And yet you’ve never asked about it.”
“Okay, okay,” she says, but she’s laughing. “Eli, please tell me about your tattoo.”
“Well, now it’s built up to be this whole big thing,” I say. “It’s just a tattoo. I got it with my brothers once when I was visiting home.”
“You all got tattoos?”
“Different constellations, but yeah,” I say.
“Daniel has a tattoo?”
I just laugh.
“Earlier tonight he fussed at me for saying hell,” she goes on.
“Do you not remember him when he was twenty-two? It’s a miracle that he only ended up with one tattoo and one surprise baby.”
“True,” Violet laughs. “Which ones did they get?”
“Daniel got Serpens, the snake, because, and I quote, ‘snakes are badass,’” I tell her. “Levi’s got the crow, Corvus; Caleb’s got the sextant because he’s a nerd, and I think Seth has… shit, he changed his at the last minute, and I can never remember what he ended up with.”
“Why’d you get this one?”
I stare up into the night sky, right at the constellations that are also tattooed on my skin. The truth is, I don’t really know. I just always liked them: the dragon wrapped around the bear, the bear escaping anyway, led by the North Star in its tail. There’s something in there about keeping my bearings and finding my way home, but I can’t quite grasp it right now.
“Well, I was twenty-three and thought dragons were badass,” I say.
Violet just laughs.
“I liked the idea of tattooing the North Star on myself,” I say, my voice getting quieter. “It made me feel like I could always find my way when I was lost as fuck.”
“Could you?”
“Hell no.”
She’s quiet. Quiet for a long time, a little too long.
“What was your favorite place?” she asks. “Of everywhere you went.”
I go through the possibilities: mountains and oceans and rivers, busy cities and small quiet towns, safe places and dangerous places and everything in between.
“I liked the food in Chiang Mai and Saigon,” I say. “I spent a Christmas in a village in the Swiss Alps and I swear it made me think Santa Claus was real. I spent a month living in Istanbul as a politician’s temporary personal chef and every morning I’d go to the market and find something new to try. I went to Peru and once I got over the altitude sickness, it was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen.”
“So you liked everywhere,” she says.
She’s even closer to me now, one leg draped over mine, my hand on her ribcage. I stroke her with my thumb, thoughtlessly, the feel of her warm skin beneath her skin anchoring me even when I feel like I could fall into the sky.
“Not everywhere,” I say.
“But you miss it.”
“I miss it and I don’t,” I say after a moment. “I worked a lot of shitty jobs and lived in a lot of sketchy apartments. I kept moving because nothing was ever like I thought it would be. Nothing interesting stays interesting. Everywhere has the same problems after a while.”
“You can’t convince me that Bangkok and Sprucevale are anything alike.”
“You’d be surprised,” I say. “They won’t fix the damn potholes there, either.”
That gets a laugh. She slides her hand over mine, winding our fingers together. I turn my head and kiss her hair softly, so softly that maybe she doesn’t notice.