Beneath the Skin Read online

  Dr. Yang writes something on a notepad. “We’re going to try something a little different. Group counseling.”

  “That sounds horrifying. What is it?”

  “You will continue to meet with me on Fridays during your free period at 10 a.m. But we’re adding a session on Tuesdays at 9:30 a.m. You and at least one other student will meet with me as part of a small group therapy session.”

  I stare at him suspiciously. This really does sound horrifying. “Who?”

  “Arianna Torrès, for one.”

  I laugh out loud. He’s got to be joking. “No effing way.”

  “Yes.”

  “What the hell do I have in common with miss Beauty Queen? Is she in grief therapy because she broke a nail?”

  “We’ll discuss things further at our next meeting. Your suspension is effective immediately. Counting today, tomorrow, and Monday, you’ll be back just in time for Tuesday’s session.”

  “Look, Doc. There’s no way. I can’t—”

  He stands up and walks around his desk. He opens the office door. “You can, and you will. I happen to have faith in you, Sidney Shaw.”

  “Damn it all to hell.” I spit the words out. Arianna Torrès is one of the most popular girls in school, a firmly entrenched member of Jasmine Cole's platinum-haired Bitch Squad. She’s on the student counsel, plays the flute, and worse, she’s one of those goody-two-shoe Christians who meet at the flagpole to pray and plaster “Good Clean Fun Bible Study” posters all over the school every month. Panic lurches through me, like Dr. Yang’s just told me I’ll be locked in a cage with a prowling tiger for an hour every week.

  “Please take care of yourself,” he says pleasantly. If there’s one thing I know about Dr. Yang, it’s that he’s solid as a rock once his mind’s made up. There’s no getting through to him.

  I grab my backpack and stomp out of his office. I tried to help Aaron and things got more than a little out of control. As usual, all I’ve done is make things worse. How much worse, I’m afraid to even think about.

  2

  All around me, students are laughing, shrieking, slamming locker doors, dropping binders and notebooks into backpacks and messenger bags, shoving each other, hugging and flirting. They move like some huge, mindless organism. I ignore them all.

  I grab King Lear, my English notebook, and my Spanish III workbook out of my locker and shove them into my backpack. At least I can get some actual homework done during this ridiculous suspension. I shut my locker and turn around, nearly slamming into Jasmine freakin’ Cole.

  “You bitch!” Jasmine’s former frizzy, mouse-brown hair is dyed ice blonde and falls sleekly down her back. I can barely see the girl I used to know through her heavy pink blush, inky eyeliner, and spiky layers of mascara. She’s wearing a white peasant shirt that skims her belly and perfectly frayed skinny jeans.

  “What the hell do you want?” I say.

  “Are you completely mental?”

  My hands curl at my sides, my muscles tensing. “Looks like someone forgot to take her happy pills this morning.”

  A small crowd forms a ring around me, with Jasmine right in the center. On her left is Margot Hunter, the ultimate Queen Bee of Brokewater High. Margot is tall and slim, perpetually tanned, with honey-blonde locks tumbling down her back in big, bombshell curls. Though she looks like a cheerleader, she’s into drama and musicals and lands the starring role in every school play. The teachers worship her. She’s charming on the surface, but nasty in an underhanded, passive, unprovable way. Tearing girls apart is as much a pastime for Margot Hunter as painting her nails.

  Jasmine steps into my personal space. “You beat the crap out of my baby brother!”

  Peyton Daugherty and Isabel Gutierrez press in around us.

  “Ugh. What a lard-ass,” Peyton says with a sniff, flipping her flaxen, chin-length hair. She has Irish-pale skin and a penchant for spouting un-ironic nonsense like “Totes Amazeballs” and random letter configurations like “BFG.”

  “If you were any bigger, you’d have moons orbiting you,” Isabel says. She’s Hispanic, with huge dark eyes and curly black hair cut into a pixie and dyed Windex-blue. She and Peyton are both cheerleaders and rally girls. They bounce into classrooms and remind everyone of this rally or that football game, don’t forget to cheer your heart out and gulp down the school spirit Kool-Aid.

  What they don’t understand, what they’ll never understand, is that I don’t care about the weight they seem to find so revolting. I wear my fat like armor. It’s my shield and my weapon, a barricade against their puny barbs and useless arrows. They can’t touch me. I’ll bulldoze them to the ground.

  “You’re batshit crazy, you know that?” Jasmine jabs her finger at me.

  I slap it away. “And your brother’s a psycho. He got what he had coming to him. If only someone would sucker punch your whole family, you’d all be better off.”

  Margot puts her hand on Jasmine’s arm. “She thinks she can hit a little kid and get away with it. Doesn’t she know we strictly enforce anti-bullying polices?” Margot’s voice is calm and silky. Her thing is talking about the unpopular girls like they aren’t even here, like they’re not even worth acknowledging. Either that, or they suddenly get disreputable reputations. They’re sluts. They hooked up with the entire football team. They’re cheaters, liars, freaks, backstabbing bitches. The rumors spread through the hallways and classrooms like poison gas. You breathe it in, and supposition, rumor, hearsay, and innuendo harden into concrete truth in your lungs. I know. She did it to me.

  “You might want to step off that pedestal,” I snap. “It’s starting to crack under your weight.”

  Jasmine’s upper lip curls. “Why am I even surprised? You’ve always been a psycho freak.”

  Pain splinters inside me. I can’t help it. Out of all of them, she’s the only one who can hurt me, whose words still slice to the bone. I pretend I don’t care. I pretend I’m invincible. I clench my teeth and push out everything but my anger. “It must be hard to use your entire vocabulary in one pathetic sentence.”

  Jasmine glances at Margot, then steps closer. “Are you even for real right now?”

  “Get out of my face. Your breath stinks so bad, I don’t know whether to offer you gum or toilet paper.”

  Someone in the group snorts. Jasmine’s eyes narrow to slits. “You think this is funny? My dad says you belong in jail.”

  “Do I look like I give a shit? Get out of my way.” I glance past the ring of faces. Behind them, Arianna Torrès stands in the hallway, staring at me, one hand pressed against her stomach. Her perfect face is closed, unreadable. Does she already know about the stupid therapy group? Is she repulsed by the thought of being stuck with a loser like me? Why should I care? I don’t. I don’t give a rat’s ass about her. I glare at her, and she ducks her head and keeps walking.

  “Jazzy, make her apologize to you.” Margot’s voice is syrupy sweet.

  “I’d rather boil myself alive in a vat of oil, Jazzy.”

  “That can be arranged.” Isabel crosses her arms over her chest.

  Eli Kusuma strolls up with Nyah Morales, a stunning black girl and a card-carrying member of Margot’s squad. She glares at me from beneath a lush cloud of caramel-colored hair.

  Eli slings his arm around Margot’s shoulders. He’s the captain of Brokewater High’s loser football team, the Wildcats. Eli is one of those human specimens of nearly perfect dimensions. He has a strong, wide jaw, gorgeous amber eyes, and his body looks like it’s been chiseled from granite.

  “Hey, ladies.” He flicks a strand of shaggy brown-black hair out of his eyes and flashes a megawatt grin. He’s shallow and vain and oh so popular, but he’s never been mean to me.

  I turn to him. “Why do you hang out with these mentally deficient Barbie dolls?”

  “Um, hello?” Nyah says, tossing her hair. “Because we’re hot.”

  Eli just grins and shrugs at me, like he can’t help himself.

  “Ja
zzy, make her apologize before she regrets it,” Margot says.

  “You aren’t pretty enough to be this stupid,” I say. “Get the hell out of my way.”

  Margot’s face hardens. Her eyes go dark and furious. She’s used to girls withering beneath her gaze. She’s not used to this, to me, and she’s royally pissed.

  She’s not the only one. My pulse pounds against my skull. I want to claw their self-satisfied, judgmental eyes out with my fingernails. I would try it, too, if EXPULSION wasn’t scrawled in red ink across my brain. “I’m warning you. Move or I’ll go nuclear on your ass.”

  Jasmine hesitates. Her gaze flicks to Margot. “Let’s go. I need a shower after being around this disease-infested slut.”

  They’re going to leave. I should shut the hell up, but I can’t help myself. “You need more than a shower to get rid of your diseases.”

  Jasmine’s face blooms bright red. “You’re a psycho-bitch. Just like your mother.”

  Anger mixes with the pain twisting my stomach. I blink back hot, stinging tears. I will not let them see me cry. “And you’re a festering ass-wart, just like your brother.”

  I push past her before I completely lose it. The bell rings, and the rest of the crowd falls away, letting me through.

  “Skank!” Margot mock-coughs.

  “We’re not done here!” Jasmine yells after me.

  But I’m out of there before I start throwing punches. I want nothing more than to slap the smugness right off their shiny, starved faces. My eyes burn. My heart stutters in my chest. Dark, painful emotions threaten to boil right out of my skin.

  I know what I need to do, what I have to do.

  3

  I bang open the front doors and make a hard left off the parking lot, following the rusted, run down fence that rings the school property. There’s a gutted section wide enough to scoot through just past the parking lot, hidden by a row of trees. The ground around the fence hole is littered with cigarette butts, wrappers, and other bits of trash. A thick band of trees screen smokers and dopers from any teachers peering out classroom windows. Nobody’s hanging out here today.

  Once I’m past the fence, I shove through the tangle of underbrush and maneuver around the black ash, red maple, and white cedar trees to get to the river. Officially, it’s Brokewater Creek, but it’s so wide and deep, most people just call it a river. It empties into Lake Michigan about 30 miles west of our tiny town of Brokewater, Michigan, population 3026 plus 99 cornfields.

  The river is the only thing I like about this place. There are several deep spots out by the bridge where people gather in the warmer months to get drunk, stoned, and hook up. Sometimes they dare each other to swim out to the massive rock in the center of the river. I used to show up there sometimes, back in seventh and eighth grade, before everything went to hell. Now, I just want to be left alone.

  The rushing sound of the river pulses in my ears. It feels alive, like some huge, twisting snake that might swallow me whole. Above the trees, a few clouds straggle across the sun. The heat and humidity suck energy right out of the air. I feel heavier with every step, my legs like blocks of cement.

  I make my way along the riverbank for several minutes until I come to a large rock jutting out into the river. It’s big enough for a half-dozen people to sit on, but this is my rock, my sanctuary.

  I sit down and shrug off my backpack. The heat of the stone seeps through my jeans. Insects trill in the heavy stillness. A huge red maple arches over me, shading me from the sun with its reddish, hand-shaped leaves.

  My blood buzzes, my skin hot and tingling. Anger and pain and need collide in my mind, crashing like thunder, ricocheting against my skull. I pull out the plastic baggy containing a fresh razor, several folded tissues, and a few Band-Aids. I roll up my pant leg and push down my sock. The tender spots below and above my ankle are laddered with raised white lumps and fresh cuts.

  It’s only this that can untangle the dark snarl of emotions inside me. Only this pain can sharpen my focus, drown out the roar inside my own head.

  I tilt the razor against an old scar just above my right ankle. The scar is an inch long, thick and bunched like a white worm. I press until I see the bloom of red, then slowly drag the edge over the damaged skin. I welcome the pain, seek it, search it out beneath my skin. My heartbeat slows. The noise fades away, and sweet, languid relief melts through me.

  A black, white-spotted Baltimore butterfly flutters out over the water, its wings flashing in the sunlight. Sometimes I see monarchs or the yellow-brown of a checkerspot hovering over a bush. The sight of one always makes my heart ache, my body filling with a cold, hollow emptiness.

  I make another cut, watch the tiny chasm open in my skin, and let my mind drift back. Back to the time before the world tilted off its axis, back to eighth grade when Jasmine Cole was still my best friend.

  She talked too loud and too much, and she snorted like a horse when she laughed. She had glasses and braces and was the only kid I knew with an actual microscope in her house. Back then, Jasmine was one of those rare people who seemed to know exactly how her life would turn out ahead of time. She loved bugs and science and wanted to study butterflies, to become a lepidopterist like her father, a science professor at Notre Dame who died when she was a toddler.

  One side of her walk-in closet was stuffed with clothes, the other side was lined with shelves containing her father’s old supplies: spreading boards, glass topped specimen boxes, insect pins, envelopes, tiny forceps, glass and wood containers, a long-handled net, and the killing jars on the top shelf her mother wouldn’t let her touch.

  The walls of Jasmine’s bedroom were covered with framed displays of butterflies, their jewel-toned wings splayed and tacked to display boards with tiny metal pins. Some she’d paid for or received as gifts, others she’d caught herself.

  Sometimes I went with her on her expeditions, lugging around her supplies in a canvas tote bag while she searched for the flowers that lured her prey. I still remember their satiny, iridescent wings, their names like a whispered promise on my lips: Painted Lady, White Admiral, Mourning Cloak, Dreamy Duskywing, Fluted Swallowtail, Glass Winged Skipper.

  She collected caterpillars in mason jars filled with sticks and leaves. She studied them as they attached to branches and formed their mummy-like shell, the chrysalis. She called them larvae, which always made me think of maggots.

  I would sit on her bed and draw while she worked. I could never kill the butterflies like she could. I drew them instead. I filled up notebook after notebook with wood nymphs and monarchs, admirals and hairstreaks, swallowtails and sulphurs, and my favorites, the blues.

  “Do you know how the caterpillar makes its transformation?” she asked me once. She leaned over her desk, intent as she thrust a pin through the butterfly’s thorax, then used butter paper strips to hold open the fragile orange wings without tearing the membranes.

  I sat on her bed with my legs crossed, lightly sketching the shape of a large Morpho Blue, its huge, iridescent wings spread in midflight. I shaded in the midtones with my charcoal stick, slowly bringing out the depth of shadow and light. “Not really,” I said, because I knew she was dying to tell me.

  “It has to eat its own body. Gross, right? It releases these enzymes that digest itself and dissolve nearly all of its tissue. Look, I’ll show you.”

  She pulled a chrysalis attached to a small stick out of one of her jars and grabbed a knife. I watched as she carefully sliced open the filmy skin, revealing an oozing caterpillar soup. “That’s disgusting.”

  “I know, right? But check this out. There are still groups of organized cells in all that goo. They contain everything the butterfly needs to develop the wings, antennae, legs, eyes, and anything else she needs to survive. She basically annihilates herself and then rebuilds herself into something completely new.”

  I listened to Jasmine talk, her words spinning their own cocoon around us. I used my paper stumps to blend and blend until the individual pencil
strokes were indistinguishable, until the butterfly looked poised to lift off the page.

  “There’s this study,” Jasmine said excitedly. “The researchers discovered the butterflies retain memories from their experiences as a caterpillar, in spite of almost complete cellular disintegration during the metamorphosis. How cool is that?”

  But that was shortly before Jasmine underwent her own metamorphosis. During the summer between eighth and ninth grade, she traded the glasses for contacts and the braces for a blazing white smile. Her mother took her to a salon and bought her a straightening iron, and her mouse-brown frizz transformed into silky white-blonde tresses cascading down her back like a Pantene commercial.

  But it was the popular girls who made her transformation complete. Margot Hunter adopted Jasmine into her Bitch Squad. Plus, Jasmine’s step-dad has one of the only in-ground pools in the whole town, sealing her fate. Jasmine shucked her science nerd persona like a caterpillar’s collapsing flesh. And unlike her butterflies, she didn’t seem to retain any memories of her former life, or former friends.

  I make another cut, sucking in my breath from the sharp sting. I wipe the blood away with a tissue and watch the red bloom again. My heart aches. My whole body aches. I take a deep breath, blinking back the tears.

  Jasmine knew I did this. She knew the things that happened at home. Some of them. In a moment of idiotic weakness, I told her. I don’t know why. It’s only the cutting that brings relief. Only this that calms the frenetic flutter-flap of my heart.

  I thought telling her might change something. It did, but not in any way that mattered.

  I can still hear the words ringing in my ears from the day I put my tray down next to hers at the lunch table. Margot and the others were already sitting, but there was an empty space on the end next to Jasmine. Jasmine wore clothes I’d never seen before: a tight, sparkly tank top that hugged her chest, frayed short-shorts, and wedge heels. She glared at me. “You don’t belong here, you emo, self-mutilating freak.”