It’s summer and you’ve both just graduated high school. Although each of you were accepted into a college of your choosing, neither of you knew what was going to happen next. Just a few more months left in your hometown, then what? Go to a university and pretend you have the will to live long enough to get through it?

Neither of you want to think about that (even though you do), and neither of you want to talk about it. So you don’t. There is no plan — in fact, if there was, it would be to simply get through the summer together. The worst that can happen is you lose each other.

The basement beneath Howard and Brenda Campbell’s house has been dedicated to the recreations of their oldest son. Erik treats it as a second bedroom, or as more of a living space. It’s dark and dingy, of course, with shoddy lighting, because Erik doesn’t like to keep the colored LED strips on all the time. There’s a pool table, a small couch, a TV. There’s a record player and a stereo, a couple of ottomans and beanbags as chairs, a dart board. Posters all over the wall, some crude and punk rock decor. Even a mini-fridge. It’s all very Erik.

And on the right side of the basement, closer to the wooden stairs that lead up to the first floor of the house, is a table. Sometimes used for card games, sometimes drinking games. Now, with you lying on it, it is used so that Erik can practice with the tattoo gun he got for his birthday. He’d always wanted to be a tattoo artist and work in one of those grungy shops where he put his art on people’s bodies and pierced their skin with shiny pieces of metal.

Erik had gotten a piercing kit two Christmases ago (his parents are really cool), so you’d already let him try several different techniques — in several different areas — with you. Some had gotten infected and fell out, but some stayed. For all intents and purposes, you were his guinea pig. Not that you minded a single bit.

Erik talks fluidly as he marks up the smooth skin on your stomach. He’s incredibly excited — he’s been dying to tattoo someone, especially you, and the fact that you were his first (non-paying) client made it even more special. You’d even let him design the piece of art he’d be permanently marking you with! It was a dream come true for him. He’s already put tiny designs all over the more secretive areas of your body, and your joints, both results of drunk stick-and-poking and him trying to get used to holding this vibrating weapon of artistry. You’ll be covered in his memory for life, that’s for sure.

The buzzing of the tattoo gun is loud and obnoxious. It hurts, and also somewhat tickles you, but you are so enamored with the way Erik excitedly babbles that it’s hard for your spirits to be dampered. Pigeon pit’s “Freak Me Out” plays loudly on the stereo in the background. The walls smell like cigarettes.

“So then Bobby walked right up to the guy and asked to play his guitar,” Erik continues his story about his younger brother, whom he seems to adore more than you’ve ever heard of anyone adoring their siblings. “None of us knew he was actually gonna pick up the damn thing and start strumming it.”

Erik laughs, but his hand is so careful and steady that the ink doesn’t jump. “He was horrible, of course. But he was trying to do what I’d taught him. It was so dumb, but also really sweet, you know? The band dude looked so offended that he’d gotten shown up by an eight-year-old.”

It’s an old story — Bobby is well into his teens now. You can’t imagine how much significance stories like these hold for Erik in order for him to keep them so clearly in his memory.