Page 13 of The Intimacy of Skin

When I was a kid, I was infatuated with where I had come from.

Mom’s stomach was my favorite pillow, soft enough to lay my head on and fall asleep if I wanted to.

We would cuddle up together on her bed, my head on her stomach, my ear pressed as close against her as possible.

I’d listen to the soft gurgling and giggle when a particularly loud roar would rumble in my ears.

Every time Mom spoke or moved, an echo would bounce around in her belly. I loved listening to her speak or sing, my full weight on her stomach as I tried to climb my way back inside. I would ask her over and over about when she was pregnant with me.

She would smile so wide; I would get scared her teeth would fall out.

I was always kicking around inside her belly, desperately trying to make more room for myself.

Mom had been so tiny when she got pregnant with me.

Her stomach wasn’t the only thing that ballooned— her feet and hands would swell until she could barely wear her favorite shoes.

The doctors told her I was big. Every appointment she went to, they’d warn her that I was only going to grow more. I was so big, in fact, that I had decided her belly was too tight, and I came early. Much earlier than anyone was expecting.

When I think back, I realized just how much I clung to Mom.

All my best memories from that far back included her.

I remembered how tidy she kept her toenails.

She used to joke about how, when she died, I’d have to make sure she was buried with her nails done.

Not her fingernails, though. Only her toes.

They were never bare nor were they ever any color except a dark, rich red that she bought by the dozen on an annual subscription.

Now and then, Mom would let me paint her toenails for her.

I was awful at it when I was really young.

She would spend more time cleaning them up than I did painting them.

As I got older, my hands got steadier. By the time I was seventeen, I was a pro.

Not only would I paint Mom’s toenails, but she’d let me paint her fingernails, too.

We’d have a girl’s night with Willow, Mom, and I lounging in the living room, talking shit, drinking cheap beer, and I would act as their personal nail painters.

No matter how much I’d hurt myself, how much I hated myself, or how long I’d been out the previous night selling my body, girl’s night would always perk me up.

The massive, genuine smile on Mom’s face would make the world—and everything wrong with it—feel safe for the time being.

I haven’t painted Willow’s nails since Mom died.

Mom and I had a game we’d play a lot. When her nails were freshly painted, and she’d just taken a bath, she would splay her legs out on the couch.

I’d come up beside her, push my chest into the cushion, and make up stories about each little piggy.

I wasn’t more than six years old, so I thought it was hilarious how Mom would wiggle them around and make up voices for each personality.

She was my one true safe space. Sure, she fucked up.

A lot. When I became a teen, she picked up more jobs, drank herself to sleep, filled the house with cigarette smoke, and fucked more lousy men than I did.

The odds of her being sober when I got home from school became less and less if she was even home at all.

Mom stopped paying much attention to the world around her, including me. She tried her best. I knew she loved me. I knew she was working hard to provide for me.

I was only a kid, though. I clung to the moments we had together when everything was good. She was my light, I was hers, and nothing was wrong in the world.

She sent me to Tiger Claw in an attempt to let me socialize with more kids my age. She could work longer hours if I was gone. I understood.

Even though Mom was my safe space, I never told her what happened at Tiger Claw Camp. She had worked so hard to make life easier for me, and I could see the exhaustion on her face. I knew what the red letters on our bills meant. When our power went out or our water got shut off, I knew why.

As a child who loved my mother more than anything else in the world, I couldn’t burden her with anything else.

When she died, I made sure her toenails were painted before they placed her in the casket. I took one of her precious bottles of nail polish with me when Willow and I moved. They were congealed and useless now, nothing more than sentimental.

I tried to think of the noises Mom’s stomach would make. I tried to let it block out the memories in my head. Maybe if I thought hard enough, I could block everything else out.

The way her voice softened through the layers of skin made her sound like an angel.

My angel.

I tried to fight the smell that plagued my nostrils.

Mom’s laughter. Mom’s singing. Mom’s voice in the hallway while she made her face pretty at her vanity every morning.

Mom screaming at whoever she brought home that night.

Mom’s drunken slurring as she complained about shit I couldn’t understand, a bottle of wine in her hand, her grip so tight I was always afraid the glass would break.

Fucking anything to make it go away. The smell was toxic. The fake, fruity scent gave me the distinct craving to mar my skin until I couldn’t feel anything anymore. To remove my nerves one by one. I needed to slice until the burn overwhelmed the memories I could feel on my arms.

I didn’t pay enough attention. Just like Mom, I had missed something vital, and now I was paying for it dearly.

The back exit of the restaurant was quiet enough, but it couldn’t hide me completely.

I felt the prick of tears behind my eyelids, yet I refused to let them fall.

It was hard enough to appear normal right now; I didn’t need to look like a complete freak if someone came by or looked at the camera.

Price was ruining me. I knew I never should’ve agreed to this. I was never meant to see him again. I almost caved in the walk-in, told him I wanted him, and grabbed him by the arm to kiss him senselessly.

But then I breathed in, and it all came rushing back. The smell of the gum he was chewing held me hostage. I had only two options: run or fight. There were so many reasons to fight, ones I could use to justify it easily.

What I couldn’t justify was the reason why I didn’t. From the moment I looked at his face in that shitty motel lobby, I knew Price would be the end of me.

I never should have gotten into his car that night. I was desperate, but was desperation enough to excuse this soul-deep disruption to my life?

Adding to that, I definitely shouldn’t have agreed to work here.

He asked me about my type as if I were lying.

Whether I was or not, it didn’t matter. My reputation was more than a reputation; it was my lifeline.

I couldn’t survive if I did anything different.

I couldn’t have a type. I could only have what I deserved. What I was used to.

“Fuck,” I whispered to the ghosts settling around me. Maybe I should go back in there and rescind my agreement. Tell Price this was a mistake.

But then he would look at me with those amber fucking eyes, filled with compassion. Worry. I would crumble immediately, like I seemed to always do when he looked at me.

A job, Crew. This was a job and nothing else. I’ll do my six months, get the payout, and go back to how life was before. Willow would finally see that I just wasn’t cut out for life. If I thought Willow could handle it, I wouldn’t even be existing right now.

Life had taken my childhood, my sanity, my mother, and any ounce of care that was born into my heart. The universe put in so much effort to cause me pain that, at this point, it would be too cruel to try anything different.

The metallic flick of a lighter startled me, my back pushing against the cold wall behind me. Looking up, my eyes landed on Callum as he sank to the ground with me. Our backs were uniform, pressed against the wall, our feet digging into the gravel below as Callum nursed a cigarette.

Cigarette smoke. At least that was familiar to me.

Callum blew a large cloud in front of us, keeping his eyes forward. “Know what I usually do?”

The question threw me so off guard that I neglected to answer.

“My pops used to sing this lullaby to me when I was a kid. It was the only way I could sleep.” Another puff, a long inhale. “It’s pretty dumb now that I think about it as an adult, but it calms me down a lot. Gets me out of my head and into the real world. ”

What the fuck was he on about? “What was it?”

Callum pushed his blond hair out of his face. It was light, almost bleached. The same color I had attempted to get my hair to and failed. On him, it made him look young. Too young to be smoking and far too young to be sitting beside a lowlife like me. “You want one?”

“I don’t smoke.”

“Oh, good. I think my lungs are fucked, and I’ve only been smoking for, like, a year.”

He didn’t say anything else, focusing on his cigarette as he stared into space. I cleared my throat, sorta invested in what he was telling me before. “The song?”

“Huh? Oh, right.” He shook his head like there were cobwebs in his hair.

With a flick of his cigarette, he started to sing.

“ Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop. When the wind blows, the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, but Papa catches baby, cradle and all. ” An easy, serene smile washed over his face when he stopped.

I watched the ash fall from his cigarette, wondering what Mom would have sounded like singing that same thing to me. “That’s really nice.”

“Yeah.” With a quick flick, he threw the cigarette onto the ground and snuffed it out. “Pops changed the ending, though. It’s supposed to end with, like, down will come baby, cradle and all . Pops said it was too morbid that way.”