Fresh Ink: "Eraser Tattoo" by Jason Reynolds

Double-parked, killed the engine, toggled the emergency blinkers, rolled the windows up until there was only a sliver of space for air to slip through.

Shay pushed her finger into her own sternum, like pushing a button to turn her heart on.

A show fireplace and ornate molding.

Ugly prewar bathroom tiles, like standing on a psychedelic chessboard.

Where she scribbled her name on the wall in her room under the window, before slinking into her parents’ bed to snuggle.

“What if we break up?” And before Dante could interject with all the reasons they wouldn’t, and why would you even think like that, Shay added, “Not that we will or that I want that, because I don’t. But...what if we do? Then I gotta have that ugly D on my arm forever.”

A smile crept onto Dante’s face. A perforated smile, interrupted every few seconds by a grimace. Partly due to the burn from the eraser, partly due to the burn from the memory.

She was scrubbing his skin vigorously with the eraser, now coming into the second curve.

When the “no doubt, homie” fiasco first took place, he thought his heart would split in half.

Before Shay got in, she gingerly put the pencil back behind Dante’s ear, and he held his arm out so she could see her work.