Walla Walla University - Creative Writing Program Final Project

I saw the picture of her new tattoo on Instagram. I thought it was of flames, burning out from the line of her jean shorts and consuming her skin. But I couldn’t really tell, because Instagram doesn’t let you zoom in, so then I had to text her.

It was a lion, apparently, a large, leg-sized lion, that came down from her hipbone all the way to just above her knee. The lion’s locks waved as if in the wind. It looked like the flowers surrounding the lion’s head wrapped all the way around the back of her leg. I tilted the phone.

I asked her if it was Aslan.

It wasn’t. Then I noticed the lion had an earring.

A new picture of the tattoo chirped into my inbox.

“Do you like it????”

It was like a train wreck. I zoomed in and zoomed out.

“Yeah, Wow!!”

“Thanks :) :) The flowers still need to be filled in next week.”

Oh. My. God.

“Wow, Jenny!” Wow. The only word I could come up with. “What the significance??”

“My one year anniversary showing me how strong I am, that I came this far, and I’m such a happy, healthy girl :)”

“Wow! I’m so happy for you!” This time it didn’t feel forced. Had it already been a year?

I remember…

Jenny, standing in the doorway of her house, wearing a crop top and booty shorts. “Your dad lets you go out like that?” She popped her gum at me and rolled her eyes.

Jenny, calling me from Lindsey’s apartment, sobbing. “Rach, Timmy—he’s been drinking. I told him to leave and he hit my face with his elbow. I think it was an accident. Should I just lock the bathroom door? I can’t drive.”

Jenny, cancelling plans. “It’s five, Rachel. You know I have to work out at five. I’ll see you next time you’re in town.”

Jenny, sitting on the edge of my bed with her goopy black mascara stumbling down her cheeks. “I hardly ever throw up anymore. It’s just that we ate so much of those breadsticks. And I had to work out at five.”

Jenny, calling me from her car at three in the morning. “I just saw TImmy. He’s so in love with me, Rach.”

Jenny, calling me from a bar bathroom. I can hear the thump of the bass below her words. “Rach, I met someone else. He’s really cool. We have deep conversations and he’s 28. I think it might be going somewhere. He’s always calls me after we hook up. You know? That’s something.”

Jenny, calling me the night before I leave for Jamaica, “It’s just so hard sometimes. It would be so much easier to just give up.”

Jenny, lying on her bed, her brittle hair falling around her face. “My therapist says I might have to go live somewhere for awhile. I don’t always stick to the meal plan.”

Jenny, curled up in a ball, her eyelids twitching over her eyes. “My nails don’t grow anymore. My hair is falling out. Sometimes I can’t sleep because my body wakes me up in the middle of the night. My therapist says it’s going into survival mode.”

Jenny, standing in the kitchen, crying as she holds four blueberries in her hands, “Please don’t make me eat them. Please.”

Jenny, lying on the floor, “They give me books to read…But every time I read the stories about how girls survived on half a banana a day, all I think about is how much better they are at it than I am. I wish I could only eat half a banana. I don’t think that’s what I’m supposed to think after reading these things.”

Jenny, hiccupping her tears through the phone, “They say I might not get better, even if I eat right. It might be too late. I might not be able to have children.”

Sent to voicemail.

Sent to voicemail.

Sent to voicemail.

Sent to voicemail.

Mrs. Carter, “It’s not that Jenny doesn’t love you dear. She just needs to focus on herself.”

Jenny, posting on Instagram, “50 days recovery!”

Jenny, posting on Instagram, “Me and my recovery pup! 100 days recovery!”

Jenny, posting on Instagram, “Redhairdon’tcare! 150 days recovery!”

Jenny, posting on Instagram, “Woo! New whip! 200 days recovery!”

Jenny, posting on Instagram. “New Tat! 365 days recovery!”

I can’t really look back on the situation objectively. I look at her and think of how it could have happened to anyone—it could have happened to me. It’s strange to think that we started out college being so similar, and a year later we could be so different. I wonder how a few decisions an eighteen-year-old girl makes can affect the rest of her life.

I stand in the kitchen of Jenny’s parents house, washing tomatoes in the sink. Jenny’s head is in the fridge looking for cheese as Mrs. Carter hovers behind her.

Jenny has just finished telling us about the new Dutch Bro house that has opened next to Bella Vista high school. “We get a lot of business, but none of the high schoolers ever tip.”

Jenny tells me about how she thinks that maybe next fall she might take one class at the CC. She wants to enroll in the spring, but it’s hard to get classes, and she doesn’t want to have to cut back on work hours. She tells me about how she saw Joey from academy over the weekend, and how Arianna came into town the weekend before last. She talks about her newest boyfriend, and she wonders if we are going to get good snow this winter. She tells me about her latest trip to Disneyland—she drove down on a Wednesday and hardly waited in any lines, and have I seen the new Disney movie Frozen?

The knife slices through the tomatoes as I chop. Thud. Thud. Metal against wood, the squelch of juice as the blade tears through the skin. Thud. Thud. Disneyland. Snowboarding. Joey from academy. Thud.

Mrs. Carter politely asks me what I’ve been up to. I don’t think she really cares, but the room has gotten quiet; Jenny has run out of things to say, and I’m standing there feeling embarrassed, and then wondering why I’m feeling embarrassed to tell my best friend’s mom about school.

I mumble about graduating in June.

Jenny exclaims that it’s wonderful! Wow, in only four years, even with that quarter in France.

Mrs. Carter rips the lettuce. “What are you doing after school?”

I tell her that I want to get my masters, but then quickly say that I don’t know what in, and that I might take a year off.

“To travel and teach English, right?” Jenny asks. “With Chandler?”

Mrs. Carter looks from Jenny to me, and then back down to her lettuce. “Do you think you are going to marry him?” she asks.

I scoop the chopped tomatoes into my hands and drop them into a bowl. “Oh, I don’t know,” I say vaguely, as I rinse the slime from my skin.

“We’re still so young.” I look at Jenny, standing in the kitchen with her red-feathered hair and turquoise toes. “We still have lots of time.”

Mrs. Carter looks up at me. “I was married at twenty-two” she says. Then she takes my bowl of tomatoes and sets it next to her lettuce and Jenny’s, whole-milk cheese.