skinblade

November is a story about a love spell gone terribly wrong.

I tried to imagine my life not collapsing in on me.

She was looking down at the ground, at her feet. November winds were whipping her black, silk hair behind her. Her smooth skin was beginning to perspire from nervousness. She had long fingers, a nice tuft of skin on her elbows, which I loved to chew on occasionally. She was perfect. She was everything to me, but now she wanted to be nothing but a memory.

“I don’t understand,” I let out finally. “Valerie, why?”

Valerie looked up at me with cold brown eyes. Her mouth pursed a little as if she was going to say something, but the bell rang. She was late; we were both late for our next class. She broke away suddenly and I just stood there, empty, as she walked away.

I wiped the tears from my face, and walked towards the Nurse’s Office. I was offered the Nurse’s Aid position because I was new to the school, and because I had already taken all of the electives that I needed to take at my previous school. They told me that I still needed a few extra credits, I didn’t really care.

I couldn’t look Nurse Birmingham in the eyes. I went straight to one of the waiting rooms meant for sick students to lay in until their parents came to pick them up. I shut off the lights, lay down on the futon mattress, and pressed my face into the pillow. My tears ripped into the white linen pillow cover.

“Where’s Jay?” I heard a voice say from outside.

“He’s in Room Two,” Nurse Birmingham answered. “I think something happened, Alicia,” she whispered. “Will you go in and check on him?”

“Sure,” she said, and the doorknob turned.

“Go away,” I said into the pillow as the crack of light spilled into the room.

Alicia came inside, closed the door behind her. She sat beside me, breathing slowly, and placed her hand on my back. She moved her hand up and down, slowly, trying to coax the problem out of me. I wouldn’t budge, and finally she asked, “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” I said sniffling. “Will you please just leave me alone?”

“If that’s what you want.”

She took her hand off of me, stood up.

“Wait,” I said.

I looked up from the pillow. She was looking down at me, and, at first, there was a look of surprise on her face when she saw the desperation in my face, but then the look faded into compassion. She sat back down next to me. My eyes followed her down.

“She broke up with me, Alicia.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know, she wouldn’t say. I tried to get it out of her, but she just stood there, and the bell rang, and I felt like I was going to die, and then she walked away, and I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t call out to her.”

My head slammed back down on the pillow, and I let out a guttural groan. The muffled sound seeped out. It must have scared her, must have made her think twice about touching me again, but she did anyway. It felt good to have her there, to have her rubbing my back, trying to comfort me.

“Why would she do this to you?”

I couldn’t say anything. There was a drilling sensation in my heart, a sinking in my head, and my stomach began to twist and tumble. Nausea lifted me to my hands and knees. I was drooling.

“I gotta go to the bathroom, I think I’m going to be sick,” I said.

I ran out and made my way to the restroom. The porcelain was cold and it felt good against my forehead. I suddenly began to think of all the urine and feces that had been tossed into the pool before me and the nausea came back to me. My stomach turned inside out. The bitter bile hit the top of my mouth, then forced it’s way through my lips. Some of the bile had made its way up my nose. I was trying to sneeze the bile out of my nasal passages when there was a knock on the door.

“You okay in there,” Nurse Birmingham asked.

“I’m fine.” I flushed the toilet, watched the water spin counter clockwise.

“Where’s Alicia?”

“I gave her a Nurse’s pass to go give to Valerie.”

“What?”

“She went to go get her,” Nurse Birmingham said loudly.

I flushed the toilet again and got myself up off of the ground. I rinsed my mouth out in the sink. My eyes were sunken in. My lips were dry and chapped. My skin was pale, clammy. I thought for a second that the mirror was lying to me, but I felt the wrenching in my stomach again and I knew that I really did look like hell.

I stepped out of the restroom. Nurse Birmingham was standing by the door. Behind her glasses, her green eyes poured forth sympathy. She wanted to say something, to make the pain go away, but couldn’t find the words.

“I’ll go get her,” I said.

“Alicia’s already gone, I can’t have both of you gone, I can get in trouble.”

Nurse Birmingham had always been nice to me, and I didn’t want to just burst out of class and get her in trouble.

“Okay,” I said and walked back into the waiting room. I was sitting there counting the seconds until I could see her again, my beautiful Valerie.

I had only really known her for a few weeks, but already I felt as if she were the only one for me, the only one that would ever truly understand me. I wanted us to be together forever, and that is exactly what I had told her before she had said, “I don’t think we she should see each other anymore.”

It was very strange, when I first met her. I had just moved here to San Diego from El Centro, California. It was my Senior Year and I didn’t expect much to happen, but something did. I had Valerie for Drama Class, and even though I never really took much notice of her through the first part of the year, I slowly found myself tumbling into her big brown eyes from across the classroom.

It dawned on me suddenly, this feeling, this stinging in my head, that I needed her, that all I wanted was to be with her, to love her. And when I began talking to her, it was so natural, so matter-of-fact, that it kind of scared me at first. We began holding hands in between classes. It slowly evolved to snuggling at lunch. I would walk her home everyday, after school, even though her house was two miles away from the school. I didn’t really care how far the walk was as long as I got to be with her for just a second longer.

At night, we would have long conversations on the phone about whatever she wanted. I simply lay in my bed and listened to her sweet voice humming across the line. We would spend hours on the phone, and we wouldn’t hang up until her father came on the other line and told her to go to bed.

My thoughts were interrupted by voices right outside the room. Alicia came into the waiting room.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“She didn’t want to come.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“She said something about her class being very important, and being uncomfortable with seeing you again.”

“You’re her best friend, couldn’t you go back and try to convince her?”

“I tried already, Jay. And I’m not her best friend. Girls like Valerie don’t have best friends.”

I didn’t know what she meant by that. I stared down at the carpet, at the stains, and the bad pattern they had chosen for the entire school. My stomach was beginning to turn again. My eyes were blurry from the coming tears, which caused the pattern on the carpet to take on a life of its own. I saw devil’s spiraling in and out of the floor, spitting on the innocent, tearing at their limbs.

“Jay?” Alicia snapped me back into reality.

I looked up at her. My mouth was dry.

“Do you want me to do anything for you?” She placed her hand on my shoulder, and sat down next to me. She was scooting in closer, the temptress, so that her thigh was touching mine. “Is there anything I can do to make this easier on you?”

I knew that she had always had a crush on me, ever since I moved here. I had her for this Nurse’s Aid period, and she was in Drama with me and Valerie, and I also had her in my Public Speaking class. She had always given me the eyes, and I had always wanted to see where those eyes would take me, but I had always been too cowardly to say anything to her. When I started going out with Valerie I had practically forgotten all about her, about the feelings that were ‘almost’ there. I ignored her every chance I got. Not on purpose, no, it just seemed to happen. And now, here she was, practically throwing herself at me, and all I could think about was Valerie, sweet Valerie, with her knife still stuck in my heart.

“I’m okay,” I said finally, scooting away from her. “Can you please just let me alone?”

“Let you alone?” I could feel her smiling. She thought I was being cute.

Being cute? Being god damned cute at a time like this!? You wretched thing, go away!, I screamed inside my head.

“Please,” I mumbled into the pillow.

She stood up and left the room. I was left to the aching in my heart, the twisting of my stomach, the winding down of my brain, which finally led me towards a deep slumber.

* * * * *

“Jay,” someone was shaking me, whispering, “Are you hungry?”

I looked up, a clear string of drool still attached to my mouth and the pillow. It was Nurse Birmingham, and she was holding a sandwich.

“No, I’m fine,” I said. I sat up. “What time is it?”

“The lunch bell just rang.”

“I missed Drama Class?”

“Yes, but don’t worry, I sent a note with Alicia telling Mr. Thoreau you’re feeling ill.”

“But I wanted to see Valerie!” I snapped. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Birmingham, sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

“I know. I didn’t wake you up because I thought you needed some rest.”

I was already out of the room and closing the door on the restroom. “I just have to go to the bathroom, then I’ll go.”

“I’m in no hurry, Jay, you know I eat my lunch in my office anyway.”

I shut the door, turned on the lights, and when I turned around to look at myself in the mirror, I nearly let out a cry. I held my mouth shut with my hands. I brought my face closer to the mirror, examined it. My eyes were still sunken in, except now, my eyeball’s were as red as blood. My skin was still pale and clammy, except now, it seemed as if the skin was turning flaky, dead. My lips were still chapped, except now, the severity of the dryness had caused skin to crack so that I had deep valley’s of red wounds cut into my lips.

“Valerie,” I whispered to my reflection. “I’m dying without you. I need you. Oh, god, I can’t let you see me like this or else you’ll never want to get back with me.”

I tried washing my face, adding water to my dry lips. Nothing was working. The image reflected upon the mirror seemed to be degrading slowly before me. I realized that I was truly dying, or, worse, already dead and decomposing without Valerie by my side. My love ran that deep for her, and now that it was being starved.

I stepped outside with my head down, trying desperately to avoid being seen. But as I stepped towards the outer gate of the school, I found myself slowly turning towards the quad area. I had to see her. Just one last time.

I made my way towards the row of benches where the Drama kids hung out. Suddenly, I saw her. She was sitting there smiling, laughing, at something, someone, not me. And it broke my heart to see her so happy without me. She looked up. And as my eyes met hers, her face contorted into a sour grimace which sent a shock through my system. She had seen me. Valerie had seen how hideous I had become.

I ran. I didn’t know what else to do, so I ran out towards the football field, where I knew no one but the loners and the users hung out during lunch. I sat down near the top of the bleachers and dug my face in between my hands. I let the tears overtake me again. I couldn’t stop. I was pathetic. I was a loser.

I heard her coming, but kept my face dug into my hands. She put her hand on my shoulder. I felt a sudden surge of happiness, of pure euphoria. My heart became warm, love tossed inside of me as if I were a laundry dryer. I knew that everything would go back to what it used to be, with heated kissing, and spoonful’s of elbow skin… until I looked up.

It was Alicia. She had the same look of compassion as before. And in the back of my mind I remembered her sitting right next to Valerie when I passed by the quad earlier. I had been so blinded by my sadness that I had not even bothered to acknowledge Alicia’s existence.

“Hey,” she said to me.

“Don’t look at me,” I dug my face back into my hands.

“What are you talking about? You can cry in front of me, Jay, it’s all right, I don’t think any less of you, in fact—”

“I’m hideous.”

“No, you’re not. Jay. Jay! What is it?”

I looked up at her and screamed, “Can’t you see that I’m deteriorating without her?”

“Oh, my god,” she said.

“You see!”

“All I see is that Valerie’s an evil bitch.”

“Don’t you say that! Don’t you ever say that again, Alicia, if you want to keep being my friend, if you want to keep talking to me, because I will write you off so fast—”

“Jay, will you stop! Will you just stop and listen to me for a second.”

I was still talking, mumbling incoherent threats at her. She grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. She squeezed hard, harder, until I looked up at her eyes.

“Listen, listen to me, she did this, she did this to you. There’s nothing wrong with your face, that’s just part of the spell she put on you.”

“Spell? You’re lying, Valerie would never do anything like this, she’d never!”

“Jay,” she placed her hand on my face. “I would never lie to you. There is nothing wrong with your face.” She gently glided the back of her knuckles against my skin. It felt good to have somebody, anybody, touching me. “I was with her when she found the spell a few months ago, and when she cast it on you a few weeks ago. She was obsessed with you, she wanted to be with you so bad, and when she found a way to do it, she wasted no time. She called me over to her house, and I helped her prepare it, but I swear to god, Jay, I never thought it’d do this to you.”

“Shut up!” I found myself yelling. I tossed her hand off of my shoulder. “Get away from me. You don’t know Valerie like I do, she’d never do anything like that, you’re fucking crazy, I said, ‘Get away!’ You’re just jealous, you’re jealous that I love her and that I don’t love you, you’re fucking crazy!”

I got up and began storming away from her. She tried to grab me by the hand, but I pulled it loose.

“Jay!” she yelled after me. “I can prove it! Just come out with me tonight. Let me show you, we’ll go over to her house, knock on her door, she’ll open it because you’ll be with me and she’ll think it’s safe.”

She was right. If I were to go over to Valerie’s house alone, her father would call the police. He hated me. I stopped in mid-step, turned around slowly, and said, “I’ll meet you tonight at six, in front of her house, and if you’re not there, I’m going in alone no matter what happens.”

* * * * *

Alicia was standing in front of Valerie’s house when I came around the corner. I was fifteen minutes early, and she seemed to be standing there as if she had been there all day. Her red hair was tangled, barely moving in the wind. Her make up had worn out so that small pock marks were visible throughout her face. She was wearing a blue hooded sweater and black denim pants.

“I knew you’d get here early,” she said as I walked up to her. “How was the walk?”

“Just get her to open the door.”

“Fine, but,” Alicia looked me square in the eyes, “you’re going to have to hide, back there, by the garage, and don’t come out until I say so. And you can stop being such an asshole to me. I’m doing you a favor here, remember that.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

I walked around the corner. She motioned for me to get farther back when she saw me peeking.

I waited.

I heard the doorbell ring from the inside. Somebody answered. It was Valerie, I could hear her voice, hear them talking, and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I ran out from my hiding place and started running towards the door. Valerie saw me coming and let out a horrible scream. She went back in the house and tried to throw the door closed, but, luckily, Alicia had stuck her foot in the doorway.

I went rushing into the door. My shoulder hit the wood, and I felt the bones shift a little. I didn’t care, I was inside, and that was all that mattered.

Valerie was on the floor. I had pushed her down. I stretched my hand out to help her up.

“I just want to talk, Valerie,” I said frantically. “Just want to talk, please, will you please just let me talk to you.” But she was still screaming, “Get away, get away from me! You fucking freak.”

Alicia screamed then. She was standing next to me, but she was slowly backing away. Her face was stricken with horror, her mouth was open, trying to scream, but she didn’t have the air to do it.

I turned around, looked into the mirror that was hung behind the door. I had gotten worse.

“He wasn’t like this before,” Alicia said. “You did this, you did this to him.”

My skin had been decomposing this whole time. Pieces of skin flaked off, revealing a chewy texture of muscle and fat. My lips had completely dried up, the had shriveled into strips of flesh, and my teeth were grinning back at me. My eyes had lost all of their moisture. My eyelids were barely keeping them in their sockets. I looked down at my hands, and the nubs of my fingers had been completely torn back so that there was nothing but bone.

I screamed this time, followed by Alicia, then Valerie, who had gotten up off the ground and was running towards her room. Alicia was faster than her, and had managed to tackle her down before she made it into the room.

“We can’t just leave him like this,” she yelled into Valerie’s ear. “We have to help him.”

Alicia turned her around, grabbed at her wrists, and pulled her hands to the side. Valerie was screaming, kicking. I walked over to them, slowly. My feet were numb now, my legs had become weak, and they were stinging with pins and needles.

“I love you, Valerie,” I said looking down at her. “Why can’t you just love me back? Just love me and make this all go away. Love me like you did before, before all this, before—”

“I don’t love you, god damn it,” she spat out. “I never loved you. I just—I thought you were mysterious, and dark, and smart, and that’s why I put that spell on you. But the more I got to know you, the more I realized you weren’t mysterious, you weren’t what I thought, you were just like the others, just an ordinary piece of white trash!”

That is when my legs gave in. I fell backwards and hit my head on the hardwood floor, and I could swear that I heard a squishy noise as if a ripe melon had burst open. I heard them both cry out then, they said my name and cursed god.

Alicia ran over to see if I was all right. She bent over, looked into my eyes, and I tried looking up at her but my eyes were still locked on Valerie. That’s when I knew there was something terribly wrong. Valerie was standing by her bedroom doorway at an angle which was impossible for me to see—unless one of my eyes had popped out of its socket.

There were tears in Valerie’s eyes, not because she cared that I was hurt, but because she knew that her father would be home any minute, and she knew she would get it this time.

“Help me get him up,” Alicia screamed at Valerie.

But she was frozen in place.

“Get him out of here,” Valerie whispered. Then louder, “Get him the hell out of here, Alicia!”

And it was then that my body stood up of its own accord. First, my hands planted themselves firmly on the ground. They hoisted me up so that I was sitting up on the hardwood floor. My bony fingers pushed my left eye back into its socket, and I felt myself begin to get up. I tried to stop myself, but I couldn’t. It was happening without me wanting it to, and I was trapped inside of my body watching everything happen in slow motion. My legs bent, my hands pushed me up, and I stood up, a little shaky at first, but when my body finally regained its balance, I began walking forward with my arms extended.

“Valerie, I love you,” my throat squeaked.

I began to panic. I knew what would happen next, and I was helpless against stopping it. I paused for a brief moment, and realized that my heart had stopped pumping, that my lungs were no longer breathing in air; they would only expand to get in enough air to squeak, to say, “I love you.”

I felt something grab onto my shoulder, it was Alicia’s hand, and when it squeezed down to hold me back, the flesh simply slipped off of the bone. She screamed again, but this time it was more out of desperation.

I kept walking towards Valerie. Alicia came around me in the hallway and tried pushing me back, but I was too strong for her, and with a single blow I sent her sprawling to the floor. She stood up after I had taken a few steps. She ran past me again and pushed Valerie inside the room. They slammed the door behind them.

I began pounding on the door, over and over again, until my fists had turned into slimy pieces of beaten fruit. Their door was stained with blood, and the droplets were running down the white paint.

I tried to stop myself. I tried to yell out at them, that it wasn’t me who was doing it, that it was the curse, the spell, and if they only killed me, chopped me up, and put me in a box, then it would all be over.

I began banging against the door using my whole body, and, in between thumps, I could hear them whispering inside of Valerie’s room.

They were chanting something, calling out to someone, something. As my head would hit the door, and flop down for a brief moment, I could see, through the small slit between the door and the floor, that there were candles burning inside of the room.

My body flew forward one last time, and when it slammed against the door, I went reeling back against the wall. My body collapsed, and I went falling to the ground face first. Half of my face, where it was touching the hardwood floor, was caved in. I was bent over, and my limbs were contorted in such a way that I could feel them in places where I knew they shouldn’t be.

My left eye had fallen out of its socket once more, but it was still hanging on by a few strands of veins. It was sending electrical impulses to my brain still, and I could see the floor of the hallway being over run by dark red blood. Past the blood, past the hallway, I could see the front door. It opened, and Valerie’s father walked into the house. He came running towards me. I heard Valerie’s bedroom door creak open. Valerie’s father fell to his knees, his hand gently pushed at my back to see if I was still alive, but I didn’t respond.

I saw him look up at where Valerie and Alicia would be standing. “What the hell did you girls do?” I heard him say.

Darkness.