Page 56 of The Intimacy of Skin

I didn’t tell her. I didn’t even ask about situations like what I went through last summer. Didn’t utter a single fucking word because I was too scared.

Now I’m going back to camp, and this time, Mom says she hopes it’ll fix my attitude.

As if I can just turn it off. I’m angry and I’m fucking confused and I know exactly what’s gonna happen the moment I see Thompson again.

Now he’ll have a reason to fuck with me. I’ve been an asshole for a while now.

Mom says she knows I’m going through puberty and that it’s hard on me.

She doesn’t know the fucking half of it.

It isn’t puberty I’m so angry about. It’s the fact that I screamed and begged and punched a hole in the goddamn wall just so she wouldn’t send me back to Tiger Claw, but apparently that only made her want to send me more.

Whatever. I looked it up a few months ago. What the kind of thing Thompson does to me means. My search history is shot to shit. All that came up was gay porn ads and questionnaires to figure out if I’m gay or not.

Well, I figured that part out. I just don’t know if Thompson plays a part in it or not.

Summer camp, here I fucking come.

June 2015

Thompson snuck me away from the campfire.

I told myself I wasn’t gonna go no where with him but he gave me “that” look and I crumbled.

I fucking froze again. Even though I felt like a damn iceberg, I followed him.

He told me Mom told them all I had some anger issues and attitude problems. I told him to fuck off and not to touch me.

He said he was sorry about last summer. He was trying to do good by me. He said a whole bunch of stuff and promised to do better this year. And then he pulled out a beer. I’d never drank before.

We drank together. My first beer, which made me a man now, I guess. It felt weird. Getting drunk ain’t like the movies say. My head got all foggy, but it felt nice. Beer tastes like shit.

It was fun, though. Maybe he won’t do it again.

June 2015

I was wrong. Thompson and I drank that nasty piss-tasting beer again. I got all drunk and wobbly. We played a video game on his TV with zombies and lots of shooting.

Since I was so fucked up, I didn’t even notice that he had gotten closer. Not until his mustache touched the side of my cheek. And then he kissed me.

He was gentler this time and I couldn’t fight back. It was weird. He’d never done that before. He said he was sorry for hurting me so much last summer. He said it could be different.

Thompson showed me how it could be different. And I fucking let him ’cus I wasn’t frozen no more. I was swimming in a pool of drunk and confused, and I still ain’t learned how to swim.

The entries continued, explaining how Thompson gained Crew’s trust back, only to shatter it once more. It wasn’t even a full month before Crew started writing about his “lessons” and the bruises on his skin.

He couldn’t wear a bathing suit anymore, just like the previous summer.

At some point, he gave up trying to fight Thompson off.

The wicked and confusing ideals Thompson spat off made zero sense half the time and kept changing, so much so that Crew mentioned it, claiming he’d given up understanding his reasoning.

He wrote how he stopped trying to understand, succumbing to whatever Thompson wanted to do.

Why didn’t matter. Crew knew he wasn’t going to say anything, and so did Thompson. Crew stopped trying to be good, claiming it didn’t matter if he was or not.

Reading the thoughts of an abused, confused, and helpless fourteen-year-old put things into perspective that I never considered. How could a child understand these things? Nonetheless, find the courage to break free of it when it seemed like the whole world was against him.

The third and final notebook was the worst by far.

There wasn’t a single entry in June, which signified the beginning of camp.

It jumped straight to July, starting abruptly.

By this time, Crew had resolved to believing everything Thompson said, no matter how incredulous it was.

He was trying to survive the only way he knew how.

He had to convince himself everything was normal to function. He had to believe he deserved and liked it, so he wouldn’t go insane. At fifteen years old, Crew had mastered the art of brainwashing himself just so he could get through it all.

July 2016

I’m old enough for harsher lessons. Thompson is rougher with me ’cus I can take it. I need it. He helps me since I can’t help myself. It hurts a bunch, but what am I gonna do? Tell someone?

HAH!

I can’t. But that’s beside the point. There’s a new boy, a couple years younger than me. Super rowdy and disruptive during activities. He’s always laughing, though. I wish I could be like that.

His name is Tobias and he lives in town. This is his first year at camp. Thompson wants me to bring him with me to my lessons. Says his dad walked out on him, too. Says Tobi needs the same guidance and lessons I do.

I believe him ’cus Thompson is always right, even if it don’t feel right. I don’t wanna bring Tobi, but I gotta. Thompson can help him and maybe I can help Tobi get used to the lessons. Show him that it’s for his own good.

We been talking about it for a while. I’m super against it, but Thompson says we just gotta try it and see how Tobi responds. Being good should be easy. If it ain’t, I’m not trying hard enough. So I’m not trying hard enough for Tobi ’cus getting Tobi is good. Right?

God, I hope I’m right.

July 2016

We took two lessons together, side-by-side. Tobi told me it was wrong. That we should tell the other adults. He cried a lot and I told him it wasn’t wrong.

If it was wrong, I had to tell someone, and I’d have to admit it was wrong and that I didn’t want it. If I admitted it was wrong, I don’t know what I’d do. Lose my shit, probably.

The first lesson was way easier since we had Tobi. He didn’t think it was easy. I told him it was okay, ’cus it got easier the more you did it. He looked at me like I was dumb. I wasn’t dumb. He hadn’t dealt with it like I had. Tobi says I shouldn’t have to deal with it.

He said it was something called abuse.

I told him it can’t be. He asked me why and I told him to shut it. He shut up after that.

The second lesson was harder. Thompson was too happy to give the lesson, so he got a little carried away. Tobi and I both took a big beating and we was bleeding a lot.

“Punishment teaches you a lesson. Bruises remind you of the lesson you learnt.”

“Bleeding is good. Makes all the evil spill out and go away.”

Thompson kept saying it, even when Tobi went all silent on us.

He wouldn’t move or speak. He barely even blinked.

I had to clean him up and put him to bed.

I think we broke him. I don’t want Tobi to be broken.

I thought we could be friends since we both had to learn lessons.

He’d be able to understand more than anyone else.

I don’t think Tobi will wanna be my friend. I hope he gets fixed. I didn’t mean to break him.

July 2016

Tobi didn’t speak no more. His eyes were always super wide and…empty-looking. I tried to make him laugh. I told him we could eat candy in Thompson’s room.

He wrote on a paper for me. Said he was leaving camp early and never coming back. He said he was gonna tell his mom about Thompson.

I told him he can’t tell them about me. Made him promise. Pinky fucking promise ’cus that meant the most.

Tobi left that day. Thompson said we ain’t taking anymore kids into our lessons. He has to focus on me. I failed the one job he had for me. I gotta be punished for it now.

August 2016

Keep my hair blond. Remember my lessons. Bleeding makes the evil go away. Bruises remind me of my lessons.

I said goodbye to Thompson today, and he gave me homework to remember until next summer and a whole tub of Dubble Bubble gum. I’m writing this in Mom’s car, right after I told her a lie about my black eye and bleeding lip.

She says I ain’t going to camp next summer.

I wonder what happened to Tobi.

Notebook number three—the final notebook—ended just like that. It was never written in again and I finally understood. I understood why Tobias was so quiet and shy. I got why he looked petrified the first time he saw Crew.

I knew why Crew ran. I knew why Crew looked haunted by the ghosts of a million years.

Fire simmered in the pit of my gut, rumbling and searching for something to kindle it. My tears ran down my neck, leaking onto my shirt. I hadn’t stopped crying since the first notebook.

The only thing left was the folded paper.

December 2024

Price,

You have now learned the ugliest parts of me in the only way I can explain it.

I never did tell anyone, convincing myself it was for the best. After my final stay at Tiger Claw Camp, I went off the deep end.

I was so hurt and twisted by the things Thompson said and did that I began to find comfort in the things he showed me.

It doesn’t make sense in my head even now. I wish I could say teenage me simply had flawed, traumatized thinking, but I still have those thoughts as an adult. I have created my own Hell. For years, I have thought there was no escape.

My mom couldn’t afford to send me to camp anymore, and she thought it was a bad influence since I came home beaten and bloody. She had no idea how true that was.

One day, I broke. That’s the only way I can explain it. I spiraled and I broke, and Thompson’s voice in my head was the only thing keeping me afloat. When I was sixteen, I started selling my body in an attempt to find whatever it was I thought I could find.

The pain was familiar. It absolved me of anything bad in my life. Or in my mind. And trust me, my mind was a fucking mess. I started to cut myself, do stupid shit no teenager should do .

Willow watched me decay over time without understanding why. Getting drunk, having reckless sex with men twice or three times my age. It was the only thing that made me feel calm. It settled something deep inside of me that I can’t understand even to this day.

I’ve been doing sex work ever since in an attempt to calm whatever it is that screams at me constantly. I’m broken, Price. My mind craves violence, and I truly believe that I deserve it.

Thompson broke me, just like I thought I broke Tobi.

The thought of giving up and coping in some other way terrifies me.

I knew I was heading for a path that only ended in death or destruction.

I was at peace with that, because in my fucked-up mind, I was doing the only thing that made sense. The only thing I was good at.

But then you came along and fucked it all up. From the moment I saw the amber flames of your eyes, I knew I was screwed. And when you touched me?

Fuck, Prince Charming. You went and made me start to think I could do something different. That maybe, I deserved some peace for once in my life.

I wasn’t willing to fight Thompson’s voice in my mind or the demons that have followed me for years. All I knew was that I wanted you, no matter how reluctantly. I knew you were going to destroy me in a totally new way I couldn’t understand.

You, Price Iverson, were my catalyst. The ice that has encased me since I was thirteen has shattered, and all I can see is you.

A friend of mine told me once that I needed to stop taking shit for granted.

That soon, I would be past the point of no return.

All I could think of was you. How much I wanted you.

How much I desperately wanted to face my demons and squash them to pieces because I know you could be the answer to whatever the fuck I’ve been searching for.

Price, I don’t want just a few more months with you. I’m ready to try. I’m ready to heal. I want to face what Thompson did to me and what he turned my mind into, because you are worth it.

You’re worth living for. And I don’t mean just breathing. When I’m with you, I can feel what happiness is like. I want more of it. I want to fall in love without pain.

I want to be with you because when you hold my face with your soft, gentle hands and kiss my lips, I swear I can taste Heaven.

You’re worth drowning for. You’re worth learning how to wade through arctic waters.

I think I’m falling for you and it’s the scariest fucking thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. I don’t know how to swim. It’ll be up to you to be my lifeguard, so if you think you can handle this, knowing how broken I truly am, then please.

Will you accept the single icicle that is my heart and hold it tenderly until I can become a beautiful glacier again?

(AKA, will you please fucking date me even though I’m a goddamn mess and will fuck up time and time again?)

Darkness enveloped the room as I turned the lamp off and rose from the couch. My head pounded each time the bottom of my foot hit the hardwood floor beneath me. I followed the hallway to my bedroom, opening the door wide and not bothering to close it behind me.

As I approached my bed, I felt each tear fall from my face onto the raw, scratched parts of my arms. The curtains were parted, and a winter wonderland was showcased through the window.

Moonlight lit up my bed, captivating me. Crew was underneath the blankets with one of my hoodies underneath his head. He looked peaceful. Bruised on his face, but peaceful. Like he was at home, dreaming of secret waterfalls and gorgeous lakes.

I reached the bed, pulling the blankets away to sneak in behind Crew’s sleeping form. His skin was frozen to the touch, always cold enough to soothe the burning fire within me.

As the snow blocked us in, I pulled Crew’s back against my chest and nestled my nose into the top of his hair. I inhaled, basking in the scent of my shampoo on him. It echoed through the room, most of the air getting stuck in my chest as I suppressed a cry.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to hold him against me forever. I wanted to punch Thompson in the face and not stop until he went limp. I needed to comfort Crew in the only way I knew how.

So I kept him close, warming his skin as I silently sobbed into his hair. The only reason the fire in my body hadn’t extinguished yet was because I had to take care of him. He needed me. He needed someone who would love him, past and all.

Crew believed he was broken. I didn’t see a single damn thing about him that was broken. He was strong and haunted but never broken.

When the tears stopped, I took advantage of the moment. Pushing my lips as close to his ear as possible, I whispered to him, the moon, and whatever god could hear us.

“Yes, Pretty Boy. The answer was always yes.”