The destruction of a life has the clean, satisfying click of a puzzle piece dropping into place.
I make my way to class, not caring what the topics are. History has nothing on me. Geography means nothing when I am the centre of the entire fucking universe, and maths? What good is an equation when I’m the only number that matters.
It’s evening.After a delectable day of watching my carnage unfold, I’m in my room, well, in my luxurious ensuite to be exact.
I pop up my hair with a tortoiseshell clip, the motion half muscle memory, half celebration.
My phone lights up on the counter with little bursts of attention, messages, tags, the flood of receipt-carrying DMs that feel like confetti. I don’t even have to look to know the numbers are exactly where I want them.
I hum while I cleanse, thirty counted seconds of massaging the balm over my cheekbones, over my jaw that photographs like a line drawn with a ruler. Maya, poor thing, probably hasn’t even left her house. If she had a house worth leaving. I work the product under my lashes. Nice little circles. Rinse. Pat dry withthe plushness of the towel, not rubbing, never rubbing. Every move is disciplined.
I reach for the toner and catch a flicker of something in the mirror. At first, I think it’s a shadow from the sconce or the candle flame, a trick of light. But the vanity bulbs are uncompromising; they don’t do tricks.
I adjust my stance, tipping my arm slightly as I would for a pose. There it is, high on my left upper arm, just below the deltoid - a patch of something darker than my skin tone, darker than even the faintest freckle.
Not shadow. Not a bruise either.
I lean in. The marble edge bites a cool indent into my hip. I bring my arm closer to my face, and the lights catch on it. The room falls silent, the drip, the candle, the faint hum of the fan—all of it swallowed by the little impossible thing on my arm.
It’s hair.
Not the soft, nearly invisible peach fuzz everyone has; no, this is thicker; coarse, spun dark like something from a cashmere sweater that got caught in the wash and matted, except it’s growing from me.
It’s a coin-sized patch, maybe smaller than a quarter, but dense. The strands lay together like a ringlet. Brown with a shadow of black at the roots. Mouse brown, - boring brown, a traitorous part of me thinks.
My heartbeat stutters, then slaps at my ribs for one, two, three seconds. The edges of my vision fizz like when you stand too fast.
No. Absolutely not.
I tilt my arm again, searching for the angle that undoes this, the angle that reveals lint or fluff, something to laugh at.
The overhead pendant can be cruel. Maybe the candle is brassing the tones. I lick my thumb and rub hard. It doesn’t shift. I pinch the edge of the patch and try to lift it like a pieceof fuzz, but the sensation is all wrong. It’s rooted. It’s fucking embedded.
An electric little sting races across my skin, and my stomach flips.
It has to be hormones. What else can it be? I had an extra espresso, caffeine is good for hair loss, right? That wellness girl said stress can do this, at least, I think she did. Or wasn’t there that dermatology article about post-adolescent changes. I hear my own brain arranging, alphabetizing, trying to logic my way out of whatever the fuck this is.
I roll my shoulders back, cracking my neck to bleed off the threatening tremor.
I am not weak. I do not fucking tremor or shudder, or do anything remotely close to it.
I flick my eyes at my reflection and the expression looking back, that tiny falter—is hideous. I smooth it away, replacing it with one that says ‘I’m in control.’
I open the drawer to the left without looking; I know where everything is. Silk-wrapped rollers. Linen sachets. A pack of new razors in pale pink. I peel one open; the smell of factory-clean metal sparks a metallic buzz at the back of my tongue, and I get a sudden urge to drag the metal right over it, to slice the very top layer off.
Jeez, I really am losing it.
I turn the faucet to warm, testing it on the inside of my wrist, the way my mother taught me for my baths when I was little. I pump a mound of shaving cream into my palm; eucalyptus, sharp enough to make my eyes water, and smear it over the spot, hiding it in white foam.
“It’s just hair,” I say out loud, testing the sound of my voice in this room that only knows my most polished lies. The words make the room feel normal again as the razor slides over the cream with a whisper.
One, two, three strokes, parallel, then perpendicular, the same methodical geometry I apply to everything, and the cream runs pink around the drain for one tiny second. Have I, have I cut myself? No, that’s ridiculous, it’s already going back to white, alreadyiswhite. I rinse, wipe, hold my arm up to the light and inspect. I’m smooth. A little raw maybe, a faint flush, but the offending patch is erased entirely.
No, I refuse to call it a patch. It was nothing. Lint. Lighting.
I massage a drop of serum over the area, something calming with aloe vera, and the act of tending, of being efficient, steadies me.
I shoot a glance to the doorway; across my bedroom, feeling like I’m suddenly being watched. But there’s no one here, no one in the house but me right now. My room is immaculate. Everything is in its place. Everything is as it should be – except, I narrow my eyes, seeing that doll. It was in the cupboard, it was locked away. Only, it’s not now, is it?
