Skin Hunger

by Eli Lang

  She answered after three rings, and I realized how lucky I was that she’d even heard it ringing.

  “Oh good.” My voice sounded floaty. “You’re not dancing.”

  “Ava?”

  “I need some help.” My words were definitely a little mushy. I tried harder to form them, make them sharp off my tongue. I didn’t think I’d lost enough blood for that. It must have been the effect the sight and smell were having on me. “I cut myself.”

  “What?” She sounded sharper, whether I did or not. Her voice seemed closer too, like she’d pressed the phone hard against her ear. “Ava, are you okay?”

  “Bleeding pretty bad. I don’t think I should drive?” It came out like a question, even though it wasn’t one anymore. The sound of my own voice had set off a tiny alarm in the back of my mind. “Can you come get me? I can’t . . . I’m alone.”

  “Are you at home?” she asked, firm and clear. She mumbled, maybe over her shoulder to someone else in the room with her. “Ava. Answer me. Clearly.”

  I told her I was, told her I was in the kitchen. She made me promise not to move, and then she said, “I’ll be there in five minutes. I’m putting you on speakerphone. If I tell you to hang up, do it.” I thought I heard her mumble, “I’ll call 911,” but I wasn’t sure.

  I didn’t know why she’d want me to hang up, but I said okay. Whatever made her get here. I wanted to get off the floor.

  It really did only take her five minutes. She talked to me the whole time, a steady stream of assurances and a narration of exactly where she was, how far away she was. If I didn’t answer after she said something, she’d prod me until she could hear my voice. By the time she got there, I hadn’t looked at my wrist in a while, and I was feeling better. I was also feeling like an idiot, but that couldn’t really be helped at this point.

  The front door was unlocked, thank god. I probably could have gotten up and let her in—it wasn’t my legs that I’d stuck with the fork—but I really didn’t want to. She slammed open the door and dashed into the kitchen. She was sweaty, her hair sticking to her forehead, her clothes definitely the ones she’d been dancing in—not something you could really wear outside a studio. She looked flushed and salty and stressed. And beautiful. Shiny and luminous. Like some beacon that had been dropped into my kitchen, and was now calling to me.

  “Hey,” I said, because I was definitely being super smooth right now.

  “Up,” she commanded. She crouched in front of me. She stared for a second at the cloth on my arm, pulled my fingers and the corner of the towel back for a second so she could see. Then she pressed both back down and hauled on my good elbow, tugging at me. “Up. We gotta go.”

  She got an arm around me, and I let her pull me toward the door. I had the presence of mind to make a grab for my keys, sitting in the little decorative bowl, and Cara got the hint. She snatched them up and gave me another push, through the door—she’d left it open, and I was strangely smug at the idea that she’d wanted to get to me so badly that she’d allowed herself to be careless—and out onto the front step. She turned to lock the door behind us, but she didn’t let go of me. One hand stayed on my waist, steadying me, and when she was done, she turned back to me, wrapping her arm around me again, pressing her other hand down on my bloody wrist.

  “Why did you do that?” she asked as we made our way to her car. She flung the passenger door open and helped me tumble myself inside. Then she closed the door, only giving me the barest glance to make sure I was all the way in, before she dashed around to the driver’s side and flung herself into her own seat.

  “I wanted a knife,” I said after she’d started the car. “They were in the dishwasher. It was faster. Fork got in the way.” I was pleased to hear my voice sounding a little steadier. Maybe I was getting over the wooziness.

  She spared me the quickest glance as she backed out of the driveway. “What?”

  “I cut myself on a fork.” I was careful to enunciate each word.

  She blinked, and then the stiff, carefully neutral expression she’d been wearing softened and melted a little bit, so I could see the worry and the stress underneath. “Oh. I thought . . .”

  She went pink, but it still took me a minute to figure out what she’d been hinting at. I blamed the blood loss. My brain wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders. “You thought I cut myself? Like, on purpose?”

  She shrugged uncomfortably, her shoulders hitching up to her ears, and I let out a sharp laugh.

  Cara lifted her hand off the wheel, then slapped it back down. “I didn’t know! How was I supposed to know?” Her voice was as sharp and humorless as my laugh had been.

  “I don’t know.” I almost wanted to snarl at her, but I didn’t have the energy for it. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  She glanced at me again, and she looked angry. “It happens to people, you know. There isn’t any shame in it.”

  “I know there isn’t. I didn’t mean it to sound . . . I’m not in that sort of place, okay? But . . . I’m sorry.” I slumped back against the seat and rested my head on the window. The trees and houses we were passing were a gray-green blur, and I had to close my eyes to stop them from making me nauseous. “There isn’t any shame in it. But I didn’t cut myself.” I sighed, even though I hadn’t really wanted to. But this seemed like a good place for a sigh. “I mean, I did. But not on purpose. I reached into the dishwasher and managed to cut myself on a goddamn fork. I’m an idiot, okay?”

  It took her a long, tense minute to answer, but when she did, her voice was much softer. “I didn’t say you were an idiot.”

  “Just wanted to clarify,” I mumbled. I peeked at my wrist through my lashes, keeping my eyes to slits. I didn’t really want to see it.

  “You should probably keep that elevated,” Cara suggested.

  I gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I think it’s mostly stopped bleeding.” I probably could have driven myself after all. I was glad I hadn’t called an ambulance.

  There was another long silence, still tense, but maybe not quite as tense as before. I dared to open my eyes again, stare out the window. It had been raining. I hadn’t even noticed that, in my determination to get downstairs and play as much as possible. The roads were slick, rain dripping off all the trees, turning the sides of the street into giant mud puddles.

  “You scared me,” Cara said, drawing my attention back to her. Her voice was even quieter than before, a soft confession. “You sounded really bad on the phone.”

  I tilted my head so I could see her out of the corner of my eye. “I don’t like blood. It makes me dizzy.”

  “That’s why you didn’t want to drive yourself.”

  It wasn’t a question, but I answered it anyway. I wanted her to keep talking to me. “Yeah. And I figured the rental car place would make me buy the car if I bled all over it.”

  She choked out a laugh, and I was stupidly proud of myself. “Thank you,” I said after a second, “for coming. I didn’t know if you’d . . . I didn’t know.”

  “Of course I came,” she replied, very careful not to look at me again. And that was that.

  We had to wait in the emergency room, so I guessed I hadn’t done nearly as much damage as I’d thought.

  Tuck called while Cara and I were waiting. I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket, and when I pulled it out and saw his number, I hesitated.

  Cara paused beside me. “Is that something you need to answer?”

  I shook my head, because it was only Tuck. But I did want to talk to him. If I had a problem when I was home, if something wasn’t right, if I didn’t feel good, it was Tuck I called. He was everything that meant comfort and safety to me, and I hadn’t thought of it before, but now that he was calling, I wanted to talk to him, even if it was just for a second.

  “Answer it,” Cara said, a little softer. She leaned forward, into my line of sight. “You kinda look like you want to.”

  I shrugged, but I hit the button to answer, and pressed the phone to my ear.<
br />
  “Hey.”

  “Hi.”

  “You’re calling. You don’t usually call.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Are you stoned?”

  “No?” It probably wasn’t a good thing that it had come out as a question. “I’m in the emergency room.”

  “What?” He went from mildly concerned to panicky, and I could hear the whole transition in his voice. “What happened? Are you okay?”

  “Fine, fine. Cut myself. It was an accident. Blood, you know.”

  I didn’t have to explain further than that. Tuck had once snapped a guitar string on stage and bled all over the front of his guitar, and I’d had to run backstage and puke before I could keep playing.

  I saw a nurse walking toward us and tipped my head down to talk into the phone. “I gotta go. Did you need me?”

  “I just wanted to talk to you. After your text . . .” He trailed off, and I thought he sounded almost nervous. Brave, strong, showy Tuck, who always wanted to stand at the front of the stage. Nervous. It was almost unimaginable.

  It took me a minute to remember what text he was talking about too. Then it hit me. “Oh. I can’t . . . Not right now.”

  “I know. You’re sure you’re okay?”

  His voice was so deep and smooth, and I wanted to slip into it and forget where I was. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  “Don’t do anything crazy, baby. Be safe.”

  I nodded and hung up. The nurse had reached us and was gesturing for me to follow her. I stood, then glanced back at Cara. She was watching me with an intent expression on her face, and I wondered how much of my conversation she’d heard. I hadn’t tried to be too quiet. I wondered what my end of it had sounded like. What my voice sounded like when I talked to Tuck. But she blinked, flashed me a smile, and we followed the nurse together.

  When they did finally put the stitches in, there were only three. I hated the feel of the needle in my skin, the tugging sensation there even through the numbing agent they’d given me, but I wanted it to be ten stitches, or fifteen. At least then I’d have an excuse for making all that fuss. I was doubly glad I hadn’t called an ambulance, although Cara told me I probably shouldn’t have taken the chance of her getting there on time, since I hadn’t known how bad it was. The nurse agreed, and I felt like a little kid getting scolded by my parents. By the time the nurse applied the bandage, I wanted to get out of there as fast as possible.

  “Are you hungry?” Cara asked me when we were back out in her car. It had started to rain again, just a drizzle, and the drops plunked down on the roof of the car. It made every sound feel close, like we’d been cocooned by the damp.

  I thought mournfully about the pieces of toast I’d left on the counter. But then I looked down at my blood-spattered shirt and jeans, and held out my arm to show Cara. It wasn’t a lot. It wasn’t something I wanted to bring into a restaurant, either, though.

  “I’ll go in somewhere and we can eat in the car. If you want?”

  I hesitated, then nodded.

  We went to a little sandwich shop we’d both been to before—it had been years for me, but Cara told me they never really changed. I felt like everything on this side of the country was like that. Old buildings and businesses, plodding along like they always had, and everyone happy about it. Paint peeling and signs going cockeyed, and no one noticed because they’d been staring at it all forever. It wasn’t the same, back home. Things changed and shifted and morphed, always looking to do better, be better. I liked that. I liked the surprise. But there was a comfort in biting into the cheese and tomato sandwich Cara brought back to me, and finding the same flavors. The distant familiarity in it.

  Cara waited until I’d eaten most of it, and she’d polished off most of her own lunch, before she spoke.

  “Were you going to call me again, before you left? If this hadn’t happened?” She waved her hand at my arm, making me glance down at the thick Band-Aid the nurse had put on. It still looked pathetically small to me, too small for all the trouble I’d caused. I wanted to cover it up. I wished I were wearing long sleeves. At least I wasn’t a gory mess anymore. Or, at least, not quite so much of one.

  “Would you have wanted me to?” I didn’t want to answer her question with a question—I hated when people did that to me—but it seemed relevant to how I’d answer.

  She gazed down at her sandwich, picking a little at the bread. “I don’t know.”

  I took my last bite and found I regretted that it was gone. Who knew when I’d be back here? Maybe never, if I had my way. If I kept avoiding this place like I’d been doing for the past few years. It had been working out so well for me, ignoring all of this. Pretending it wasn’t here.

  “I wanted to,” I said. I had, too. I’d thought about calling and apologizing to her a thousand times, in all those quiet spaces while I worked at my grandmother’s house or went out for dinner with Zevi or texted with Micah. But I’d talked myself out of it every time, and it hadn’t even taken much effort. “It’s not fair to you,” I said, even though I’d said it before. “I don’t know how you could be okay with it. With any of it.”

  She did look up at me then. Her chin was still tucked, and she was letting her bangs fall in her eyes, but she was looking at me. Brave girl. I didn’t know that I could have held her eyes if she weren’t holding mine. “It’s only a start for us, Ava. That’s all I wanted. A chance to start.”

  I’d been reaching for my drink, but now I let my hand drop back down to my side. “Even if . . .” I waved my other hand, then winced when the skin tugged at the fresh stitches.

  She shrugged. She started gathering up our trash and stuffing it all back into the bag it had come in. “What about what you want, Ava? You’re so worried about what’s fair to me, what’s fair to your band. I know you’re going home. I’ve known that all along. I don’t think it makes things impossible.” I should have told her, then, about Tuck, but I couldn’t make myself do it. What difference did it make? “What about you? Aren’t you ever going to be selfish?”

  I swallowed, hard. “I’ve been selfish.” I’d always been selfish. Leaving everything so I could have the life I wanted. It had been the most selfish thing I’d ever done.

  She only shook her head, though, and buckled her seat belt. I did the same, my movements mechanical, and when I was done, she started the car and drove us back to my house. And we didn’t talk any more.

  Cara got out with me when we arrived home. I didn’t exactly need help—I was more or less fine now, aside from being slightly sore—but I was glad that she didn’t just leave. I didn’t want our last conversation to be the one we’d had in that parking lot, with bits of our lunch scattered around us. I hadn’t known her for very long, and I wouldn’t know her for much longer, but I didn’t think I’d forget her. I thought, for whatever reason, that she would be something I carried with me for the rest of my life. And I wanted our ending to be decent, at least.

  I didn’t really get a chance for that, though, because when we walked through the front door, I found that my parents were home and panicking. They were standing in the kitchen, my mother in the middle of shouting at my father. She had salty white tear marks down her cheeks, and her hands were raised like she was going to hit him or throw something. My father saw us first and turned to me, and then she did. In the sudden quiet, I saw what they must have seen when they’d come home: me gone and a rather alarming amount of blood.

  I held up my wrist. “It was an accident.”

  My mother dashed forward, careless of the dried blood she was stepping in and tracking everywhere, and flung her arms around me. I struggled for a second, surprised by the touch, then surrendered into it, and let her hold me up. It felt good. Sweet and warm and caring, and not like all those distant-yet-not-distant-enough embraces we’d shared more often than not lately. She hugged me like she’d been afraid, and I held her back because she was my mom and I wanted that child comfort.

  I caught Cara from the c
orner of my eye, shifting nervously from one foot to another. I pulled a little away from my mom. “I cut myself. Three stitches. No big deal.” I gestured at Cara. “I called Cara, and she came and took me to the hospital. It was fine,” I assured her, hoping it would get through. “You could have called.”

  “I was about to.” She waved her hand, and I saw that her phone was in it. “We only got home a few minutes ago. I was about to dial.”

  She looked like she was going to start crying again, and I was feeling pretty ragged and raw myself. I really couldn’t handle that. I glanced past her, to my father. He was staring at the three of us, his gaze moving too fast between us. He looked stunned and confused and a little dazed. But then his expression cleared and he gestured us toward the living room.

  “Why don’t you all go and sit, and I’ll make some coffee.” He ran a hand through his hair and peered around at the kitchen. “Or something,” he said, almost under his breath.

  My mom nodded and started to tug me toward the living room. Then she looked over my shoulder, to Cara. For a second, I thought she might ask one of us who Cara was, why she was there. She glanced at me, and I thought I saw realization on her face, and I had a second of horrible worry that she’d say something, that she’d make a scene. But she only smiled at Cara, tentative but sincere. “Please. Come in.”

  Cara hesitated, and I felt myself holding my breath, waiting to see what she’d do. I wanted to nod, or shake my head, or maybe both. I wanted her to come with me, to follow me into the living room, to show me that she wasn’t leaving me yet. And I didn’t, because nothing was right between us and I didn’t want to make this hurt more by drawing it out.

  But in that tiny, sharp second, my phone rang again. My hand went to it automatically, and I checked the caller ID. Tuck. I glanced at Cara, and found her staring at me. My mom was too. But I couldn’t not answer, even though it was rude. He’d probably been waiting all this time, and I’d forgotten about him while I was out with Cara.