Underneath My Skin
Spring Essay Writing Contest response — renewal
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It started with a spot between her eyebrows. A patch of dry skin where the wind kissed her forehead on her morning walk. The winter had been cool and dry that year. A layer of frost, like powdered sugar, dusted the brown grass.
She picked at the little patch of skin between her eyebrows absently, constantly, with her tongue between her teeth as she wrote out a to-do list, as she folded laundry, and as she looked for a book on the shelf.
One morning, when it was warmer than it had been in weeks and the scent of spring was in the air, her fingernail caught on a flake as she worried at the spot. She had been sipping her morning earl gray by the window and caught sight of it in the reflection of her face in the glass.
She set down her teacup on its saucer and peeled it, finally, that dry spot between her eyebrows. It came away easily and rested in the palm of her hand: a flower petal.
A flower petal, white and cool, in the shape of a teardrop. She pressed her thumb to the space where it had been and felt new pink flesh, fragile and shiny, like newly healed skin under a scab that wasn’t quite ready to meet the world.
Makeup wouldn’t cover the spot. She could still see it under the foundation. She waited for the neighbours to ask what had happened to her face. She looked like she had been burned, but no one said anything to her about it.
Another spot appeared on her cheek as spring grew nearer. It started the same, an invisible rough patch. She tried not to pick at it, but one morning, when the sky was clear of clouds, she scratched.
The flower petal, delicate and white, fell to the window sill beside her teacup. She touched it curiously, cautiously, and then touched her face, where the skin was raw and new.
Still, not one of the neighbours mentioned her burns. It was as if no one else could see them.
Each day, more spots appeared. There was one on her neck on Tuesday. By Friday, three white petals had peeled away from her chest. Over the weekend, she pulled petals from her arms.
She set a jar on the windowsill and filled it with the petals. Sometimes, in a certain light, it looked as if the jar were empty.
On her morning walk that Monday, she left a trail of petals behind her on the path. She passed beneath a tree and paused in the cool shade under its branches. It was blooming early this year. She plucked an apple blossom from a low branch and held it in her palm.
It was the anniversary of the divorce. She had almost forgotten. No, not forgotten: but let it pass unmarked by an appointment with her therapist or a day spent in bed with the lights off and the blinds drawn.
She sat on the dewy grass beneath the apple tree and looked up into the dark, tangled web of branches, dotted with pale flowers. Every year, it bloomed like this. Wide white petals. She looked at her arms and examined the raw, red spots where her own petals had grown and been plucked.
It was as if the marks formed handprints around her wrists. One for each fingertip that bruised her skin, a ring of five. She ran her hands over her arms and felt the baby-smooth new skin tingle where he’d touched her all those years ago.
Every kiss. Every touch. It had all left scars. The bruises had left marks, then faded. The caresses and apologies had cut far deeper, but they had been invisible, before, the unhealing wounds he’d left behind.
She placed her thumb between her eyebrows on the place the wind kissed her on winter mornings. He had kissed her there, too, long ago. When he came home late and she pretended to be asleep, his rough, dry lips pressed there for just a moment, sweetly. His breath carried the smell of bourbon.
Sitting beneath the apple tree alone in the park, she felt the sharp twist of that knife again. The momentary belief that things would be different this time. That this kiss, this loving gesture, meant something fundamental had changed. That he had changed.
Seven years ago, she had believed it, over and over again. A soft touch or a glance or a kiss was enough to soothe the bruises, for a short while. She’d been so young and full of hope.
Bright summer days, those were. Before it started in earnest. Then fall, the darker nights. The constant smell of alcohol on his breath. The yelling. The fear. The way his eyes darkened as he leaned against the doorframe. The taste of the carpet, and blood on her teeth.
Under the apple blossoms, she touched her lower lip with trembling fingers. A petal fell away, leaving the spot raw and exposed. She licked it, expecting to taste blood, but there was no metallic tang at all. The new flesh didn’t even hurt under the probing of her curious tongue.
The sun felt warm on her exposed spots, the little patches of new skin between her eyes, on her arms, her legs, her chest, and her cheek.
“He loved me,” she sighed as she pulled another petal from her wrist. “He loved me not.” Another came free from her thigh.
Petal after petal she peeled away to expose something new and raw beneath. Some little hurts. Some bigger ones. The straw that broke the camel’s back. He loved me. He loved me not.
She reached under her dress and pulled the final petal away from her skin. She held it to her chest like something precious, lying back against the tree trunk in the shade.
“I love me,” she said.
She cupped her hands around the last little flower petal and blew gently. Caught in her breath, it soared up toward the tree branches, dancing lightly as it was caught by the spring breeze and soared out of sight.
When she returned to her apartment sometime later, she looked in the bathroom mirror and saw, to her surprise, that there was not a mark on her pale skin.
She ran her hands over her arms. She touched her face. There were no scars, no rough patches. She had been entirely made new.
After seven years, her body was a body that he had never touched.
With a lightness to her step, she walked to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. The jar on the window sill was empty.
This story was written for Ravyne Hawke’s “Spring/Autumn Essay Writing Contest” at Promptly Written. It was inspired by Prompt #2:
Write an essay based on the concepts of renewal and/or rejuvenation — for Spring and harvest and/or consequence — for Autumn, and whatever those words mean to you.
I’m not sure if it will count for the contest because it is more of a magical realism story or a metaphor than an essay, but I hope people like it nonetheless.
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