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“Wrap it around your neck,” she said, pulling.
Bars of light stretched across her bed, her tugging arms, and the floor as a thin layer of dust danced frantically, an effort that was either an ode to fleeting nature of existence or the close approximation of those nightclubs with the blacklights. All movement, then nothing, then movement again, as she pulled off the duvet to get at the fitted bed sheet. She had twig arms he used to make fun of. Little brown branches under the guidance of dangerous eyes. She looked ready, on any given day, to tear through layers of fabric, of skin, of years to get at…something. Something bloody, and pulsing, and not hers. Strangers didn’t much like her. There were rumors.
She handed him the blanket, smiling. His arms were nearly as skinny, too, but he was pale. Pale like angels and milk and kittens and Aryan Jesus and whatever millions of happy words people associated with white. Even in junior high, even during their most pock-marked, pants-with-thousands-of-buckles phases, her tree bark skin caught light in a way that was, shiny, new. Like a snake that had shed. Like she’d torn through to her very center, carved new branches. She’d leave band practice and the next afternoon it was like he was trading sandwiches with a very familiar stranger. Cucumbers on rye for whole wheat and PB&J. Somewhere out in the woods there must have been thousands of her, hollowed out.
