Chapter 7
Seven
Love Darts
The music returns, but the silence is heavy between us. Keeping my eyes on the road, I wait, giving Eris room to open up if ze chooses. Strangely, I kind of want zim to make good on the heart-to-heart ze referenced before. But the silence stretches on.
“There’s a drumlin over there,” I say tentatively. “It’s a glacial hill.”
“You don’t have to change the subject.” Zis voice is thick. “You can ask questions if you’re curious.”
“You don’t have to explain. Or you can? If you want?”
Eris laughs. “Yeah, that’s how conversations work, Bambi.”
I huff. “Just… Don’t feel like you have to talk about anything unless you want to.”
“Chill out. I’m just giving you shit.” Ze slumps back in the passenger seat, bunching the hem of zis sundress in a clenched fist. “My grandma has dementia. Early on, she made reminders for herself to call her family. I always answer when she does, because it means she’s lucid and lonely enough to miss the people she loves, even if she doesn’t remember exactly who she’s calling.
But she gets confused easily, and she gets upset when she’s confused. ”
That explains the uncharacteristically gentle tone in Eris’s voice. “So you have to come out to her every time she calls, or be deadnamed the whole conversation?”
Eris nods. “I’ve got the delivery down pretty good by now.”
“I’m sorry.” I put my hand on Eris’s this time.
Zis fist relaxes, letting go of the cotton skirt to lace our fingers together instead. “Stop apologizing. I’m used to it.”
“Who hung up on you?”
“My mom.”
Surprised, I glance at Eris, whose jaw clenches.
“I’m not welcome back home until I ‘get my act together.’ So be less embarrassing, basically.
Not so visibly queer. A respectable cis man, discreet about who I sleep with, if I must ‘choose’ to be bisexual.
” Ze scoffs. “So no one ever contacts me, except Abuelita. It’s nice that someone in my family reaches out, even if she doesn’t actually remember who I am. ”
I never know how to sound sympathetic, but I can’t not say something to that. “That sounds tough, Bud.”
After our murmured conversation, Eris’s cackle is like a tree trunk splitting in the dead of winter. The high-pitched laugh is less irritating after hearing zis grandma has the same one. “Jesus Christ! Good thing you’re not a therapist, Bambi.”
“I don’t know what to say, and you told me to stop saying sorry!” I snap, pulling my hand away. “Thoughts and prayers! Is that better?”
With a grin, Eris grabs my hand and laces zis fingers through mine again. “I’m just giving you shit, dude. Awkward sympathy accepted and appreciated.”
After a moment’s silence, I say, “You don’t talk about yourself often.”
“You never ask me anything.”
“I figure you’ll share whatever you want to tell me.”
Eris hums, and I’m not sure if that tone means ze agrees or not. “Hang out with us besides brunch, then. Hard to talk about real shit when we get interrupted by drag queens every few minutes.”
I hum back, equally unsure if I’m agreeing or not. “So, what should I know about you? Since we’ve been dating for a few months and all.”
“Right,” Eris chuckles sardonically. “What do you want to know?”
Besides dragging up the apparently touchy subject of why Eris chose zis pronouns, I’m mostly curious about why Eris stopped tattooing. But ze didn’t answer the last time I asked about it directly. “Work history? Education?”
“Is this a job interview?” Eris laughs again, and I can’t help but smile along.
“My dad comes from this old rancher family, and my mom basically transformed his inheritance into this farming empire. I went to school for agriculture because she expected me to expand the family business, but college was…freeing. Being queer wasn’t in Mom’s plans for me.
Hard to break ground with conservative farmers in Texas when your successor is trans, you know?
So after I finished my master’s, I moved here and got a tattoo apprenticeship, instead of working for my parents because I wouldn’t go back in the closet.
Haven’t really talked to my family since.
” Zis hand tightens around mine. “I dunno. Same sob story lots of queer people have, but I’m lucky.
I grew up well-off, no college debt, got a degree in something useful. ”
I frown, heart lurching at how much pain Eris must have been through to speak about it so nonchalantly.
“But family is important. They should still be there for you.” I want to say something more sympathetic, but Eris will probably just tease me again, so I give up. “That’s fucked up that they’re not.”
Eris snickers. “You had a really good childhood, didn’t you, Bambi?”
I huff. “Why do you say that like it’s an insult?”
“Just jealous. Can’t relate to all that secure attachment.”
Instead of downplaying it like a more polite person probably would (because my childhood was pretty great, sorry not sorry), I nod to the rolling hills and the forest on our left. “You see that?”
“Are those glacial trees?” Eris snarks.
“No, the opposite, actually!” I snort. “This is my favorite ecological region, the Driftless Area. This region was never covered during the last ice age, so it escaped the glaciation process. Basically, it’s really pretty and hilly and very fun to drive through.
” I turn my blinker on and take the branch of the freeway leading toward the hills that will bring me back home.
“Maybe on the way back, we can take the backroads so you can really appreciate it.”
“If you want to spend more time with me by then, Bambi, I’m along for the ride.”
We drive in silence a while longer, until I remember I’m supposed to be asking questions. But I only have one question— Well, two. But I am still minding my own damn business with the pronouns. “So why did you quit tattooing?”
Eris flexes the hand that isn’t holding mine. “Arthritis. Easier to manage the pain when I’m not hunched over and clenching a vibrating needle machine for six hours a day.”
That was not the reason I was expecting. “Uh… Wait, how old are you?”
Ze laughs. “That is definitely something you should know after a few months of dating! I’m only thirty-two, just overworked myself. How old are you?”
“Twenty-five,” I admit, wondering if Eris will think I’m immature instead of an asshole.
“Damn, and you’re already done with law school?” Eris once again sounds impressed with me, and I don’t know how to handle it.
I shrug. “I moved here a week after I finished undergrad.”
“That’s dedicated. Working is gonna be a culture shock for you.” Eris adds, “Do you have any tattoos? Or piercings?”
I stiffen. “No piercings.”
Oh, I can practically hear zim smile. “Oh? But you have tattoos?” When I don’t speak, or even look at zim (because I’m trying not to squirm, burning with preemptive embarrassment), Eris adds in a smug tone, “I’m assuming your Matt would know about this, and he might be confused why I don’t.”
With a sigh, I admit, “I have a tramp stamp.”
Eris squeals, a new sound for me. “I’m so proud! What of?”
Another sigh as I keep my eyes forward. “A snail.”
“Bambi, what the fuck?” Eris’s laugh is delighted. “A snail? That’s amazing!”
“They’re really interesting, okay?” My huff is defensive.
“They are biologically—as in Capital B Biology the science—bisexual, so they’re both male and female.
Also, they’re cute, and they have eyestalks, and a spiral shell, and penises and vaginas, and they stab each other during foreplay, and I think they’re just really neat. ”
Eris laughs the whole time I ramble, eventually pulling up the hem of zis dress with our joined hands to show me (a frankly hideous) cartoon snail on zis thigh.
Zis leg hair is coarse on the back of my knuckles as I graze Eris’s bare skin, and I’m curious what it’d feel like under my fingertips.
“I did this one as practice for my linework when I had no idea what the fuck I was doing.”
That spiral does not follow the Fibonacci ratio, and the eyes are between the upper and lower tentacles.
I frown, because that is my pet peeve; the whole point of the upper tentacles is the eyestalks.
“That’s…cute.” I turn back to the road so ze can’t see my judgmental expression (and to remove any temptation to touch it). My snail looks way better than that.
“Matt ever come on yours?”
“Excuse me?!” I cough.
“You know, the slime. ‘Cause it’s a snail. He ever pull out during backshots and just paint the shit out of it? Turn that thing into a toaster strudel?”
My whole body burns. “No!”
“Shame. That’s the fun of a tramp stamp!
Waste of a weird tattoo.” I refuse to look away from the road, but I know Eris is wearing that shit-eating smirk.
“So, Bambi, tell me about your relationship with Matt. How you got together, why you broke up, your unhealthy codependent friendship now, the freaky shit y’all used to do together. All of it.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Do I have to?”
“Of course not,” Eris murmurs, then adds, “Look, from what you’ve said, he’s a tall Adonis with a heart of gold. He’s going to wonder why you think I’m an upgrade, so give me something to keep up my sleeve when he tries to intimidate me.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” I scoff.
“He wouldn’t do that to you!” Eris snarks back, then softens. “I’m not weaponizing your relationship, just wanna know what I’m walking into.”
I huff because I want Eris to be wrong, but ze isn’t.
“Fine. We grew up next door to each other, high school sweethearts, stayed together in college. Broke up because he didn’t want to do long distance.
He was and always will be my best friend, and he fell in love with my other best friend after I left, so now they are still my best friends. Just…more of a unit.”
“Those are facts, Bambi. This is the shit I was talking about.” Eris tsks. “Open up a little. Give me your feelings, your hopes and dreams, your fears and regrets.”