I have to get out of here. I have to run, to flee, to escape this building before anyone sees me. As I think those thoughts, my reflection peers back at me, patient as a doll.
But what are you without an audience, Briar?
The fact that I make it home unseen is nothing short of a miracle. I didn’t have time to call for the car and had to flee on foot like an actual peasant.
I shave again in the bright white of our upstairs bathroom, the mirror fogging from the shower I took three minutes ago. I turn the water hotter and let steam hide me, pretending it’s mist over a lake where a tragic heroine might drift, and not a suburban bathroom with a rust stain under the faucet and a hairline crack in the porcelain sink shaped like a lightning bolt.
The disposable razor chirrs over my forearm, and black-brown fur comes off in wet clumps that clog the drain more and more.
I press harder until my skin pinks through, until the white foam is gray with hair, until I nick myself and little beads of blood stand up like punctuation marks.
When my forearms are back to pale, I preen with victory.
I rip the shower curtain aside and check the mirror, swiping a hand down my smooth cheek. A few hours ago, there were obscene patches under my jaw and along my hairline; now it’s just me.
I was overreacting.
Hormones. Stress.
Some freak growth spurt.
I’ve always been able to cut a problem into shape when it won’t behave. I press my tongue to my teeth like always and pause - a soreness, like something soft pushed from underneath, is bruising the root. I open wider. The left incisor looks a hair wider, brighter, but that’s ridiculous.
I angle my face and scoff at myself. It’s white bathroom light. It lies.
The scratching is back. It skitters under the window frame, a dry, urgent sound. The same noise from last night, from the night before.
It’s part mouse, part something too regular to be an animal. A phrase, a rhythm. A call that isn’t an invitation so much as an assumption, like I already agreed to it.
“Go away,” I tell the wall. “I’m busy.”
But the sound is nothing if not patient.
I step into my robe and wrap the belt around twice. My thighs itch under cotton; prickling madness, waiting to get out.
I drag my nails across the itch, and the relief is so powerful I moan under my breath. The second I stop scratching, it’s worse. My robe belt bites into a shape above my tailbone that wasn’t there last week; a slight knot, a swollen bruise of wrongness.
My phone is already in the robe pocket. I take it out and go to the only church anyone believes in now. Dear, delightful google. I type with perfect quickness that feels like safety. “Sudden body hair teenage girl not normal shaving makes worse”
Enter. The top result is a teen magazine with an article about embarrassing body hair and girl-power reassurance that everyone has it, we’re all beautiful, laser hair removal pros and cons, talk to your mom. I roll my eyes and scroll faster.
Hypertrichosis pops up—werewolf syndrome—with little thumbnails of faces buried in hair.
Electric blue text on serious medical sites; Congenital vs acquired hypertrichosis. I click hypertrichosis because words are a fence. If I can put something into a paragraph, I can master it.
I read the bullet points; excessive hair growth on any part of the body, not limited to areas with androgens, can be congenital or acquired, causes: medications (phenytoin, minoxidil), malnutrition, hypothyroidism, cancer - I roll my eyes at that. Doesn’t every little ache mean you have cancer according to the internet?
On my forearm where I shaved, it’s already… I look down, and my stomach pitches. Dark dots are visible under the skin, follicle heads, like a pixelated rash. I rake the razor against them again, dry, shave off nothing, and leave tiny shiny scrapes.
I type “hypertrichosis whiskers mouse whiskers?” and hate myself for the last word. The results laugh at me. Pictures of mice, costumes for Halloween, fake whiskers. There’s a journal article about whisker-like sensory hairs in mammals. Humans don’t have them, I know that - but when I sit still in the bathroom and hold my breath, I can feel a fan of sensitivity at my upper lip pulsing out, every breeze a sound. The vent over the shower hums air, and I feel it as fingers splaying out.
I turn off the fan.
The scratch at the wall continues with more insistence, like a pen crossing out my search results. The sound makes my jaw tighten. I want to answer it with my nails. I picture my hand against the drywall, making noise back, and my body leans into the mirror.
I catch my own eyes and I freeze.
They look too dark. Not the iris, but the eyes themselves.
