In My Skin

Trigger Warning

This book contains descriptions of depression, self-harm, sexual assault, and attempted suicide. The main character’s struggles with mental health and self-harm are based on my own experiences, and I am hoping this book will be to you what so many books have been to me over the years: a friend in the dark. Proof that someone else has felt and thought the same things I have, things I kept secret for so long.

I have included trigger warnings before particularly difficult scenes and chapters in an effort to help readers who might be struggling still find some solace in this story without worrying about stumbling across a particularly triggering scene in a moment when you’re not on solid ground.

Resources can be found at the back of this book.

You’re not alone. Take care of yourselves.

One

I’m not here.

Kara I know you’re in there. You can’t avoid me forever.

The voice is muffled through my dorm room door. I’d locked it. I must have. I always lock it now. But dragons break down doors in all the stories. I’m not safe. I don’t feel safe. Which means I should feel scared. Except I don’t.

I don’t feel anything.

I don’t feel the floor underneath me or the wall at my back. I don’t feel like I should run. I don’t feel like I should hide. Because I’m not here. It isn’t me.

That isn’t my body, still tucked inside my thick winter coat, sitting on the floor against the wall with my knees pulled up to my chest. Those aren’t my eyes, staring at my door like it’s a thousand miles away. Those aren’t my fingers, curled so tightly into fists that I⁠—

Oh.

Deliberately, I unclench my fingers. They ache, stiff, as I stretch them out. I rest them palms up on my knees. How long have I been sitting here? How long has it been since it happened?

We can’t do this anymore.

Kara? It’s me.

I don’t need to see the person talking to know who it is. I’d know that voice anywhere. Shush is a presence. A force of nature. You’d remember her physical appearance for sure with her large black curls and piercing gaze, but it’s her voice that really sets her apart. Rising above the rest of the world’s noise, making sure you hear her.

Kara come on, open the door.

There’s a slight pleading tone to her voice I recognize. She used it the last time I spoke with her. Three weeks ago. Quick passing words in a cold parking lot.

Eventually you’ll forgive me.

I stare at my palms, where my nails have carved little white open-mouths into the soft flesh. I hadn’t noticed.

Kara?

She knocks. Two soft raps. Hesitant, which isn’t like Shush at all.

When she knocks, she announces her arrival like you were not only expecting her but will be delighted to discover she’s finally appeared. She knocks and then just walks right in, confident you’ll be happy to see her.

That’s what started this whole mess.

You have to let me in.

I don’t move. If I open the door, all her loud words are going to come screaming out and they’ll be so heavy. Weights on my shoulders, wrapped around my wrists, my ankles. I lean my head back against the wall and close my eyes. None of it matters anyway. I’m not moving. Whatever happens, happens. I don’t care.

She stops knocking, stops talking, and in the silence I hear Eric.

We can’t do this anymore.

And even though it just happened, I don’t feel it. I don’t feel like it really happened. Not to me. It happened to some other girl. Some other girl with blond hair and a face that looks like mine.

It’s over.

I hadn’t seen it coming. The break-up. The end. Of us. Of our story.

We hadn’t seen each other over Winter Break. But we’d texted and talked on the phone and in three weeks I hadn’t caught the edges of anything amiss.

It’s over.

It’s like a book ending in the middle. The last half nothing but blank pages when I thought there was so much story left.

I didn’t cry when he did it. And I’m not crying now.

Because it didn’t happen. Not really. Not to me. It happened to that other girl. The one wearing my face. The one who nodded and slipped away without a fuss.

I’m fine. I mouth the words silently, focusing on the way they feel on my lips.

Call me Eric.

I’m fine.

You’re magic.

I’m fine.

It’s all going to be okay.

I’m fine I’m fine I’m fine.

When he did it I walked out like nothing happened. As if the rug of my world hadn’t just been ripped out from under me. As if I could still feel the ground beneath my feet.

You’re magic.

None of it makes any sense. I should feel devastated. I should be sobbing. I should be breaking into pieces. Which means this can’t be me. Sitting here existing and breathing like nothing has happened. It can’t be me.

I’m not here.

A month ago, I would have gone straight to Shush after Eric broke up with me. I would have asked her for answers to my questions.

What do I do now?

But I’m not speaking to her anymore.

Kara you have to tell someone.

When I first met Shush, I’d just arrived at college, ready to start my freshman year and trying to feel like I knew what I was doing, trying to feel like—what’s the expression?—a bright and shiny newly minted penny.

Having apparently made it through the heat and pressure of high school, I was supposed to arrive at college with a clear picture of a head and a date. Instead, I felt like currency from a country no one had ever heard of. I’m good enough at pretending that you think I’m the right size and weight to fit through the slot and get you that candy bar you were craving but I slip right through, clanging uselessly into the change cup for you to pick up and look at with confused disappointment.

Not like Shush. Shush is the type of person who can be a penny and also be a quarter at the exact same time and who the hell are you to tell her otherwise.

The first words she ever said to me were an interruption. It was a Friday afternoon, the day I moved to campus. I’d finally managed to usher my parents out of my new dorm room—they’d been helping me unpack. I got my own room. Which, as an only child used to having space, I was grateful for.

After my parents left, I’d debated closing the door but all the other new students had their doors open and I didn’t want everyone to think I was an antisocial loner, so I left the door open while I finished unpacking. I threw my clothes in the small wardrobe and organized my new books on the desk, tucked under the single window in the small room. Then I curled up on my bed with a book.

I was lost in the deep, dark woods of an enchanted forest when I was wrenched back to reality by a loud knock and a louder, Hi.

I looked up and was nearly blinded by a bright smile.

I’m Shush, she said, taking an uninvited step into my room. I’m your new RA and I’m in charge of our orientation activities this weekend.

Nice to meet you, I said. I didn’t move to get up from my bed. She was just introducing herself. She’d soon disappear back the way she came. I should have known better. Dragons don’t ever just disappear.

Kara, right? She was still smiling. It must hurt her face to smile that wide.

Yeah, sorry. Kara. My face flamed slightly at my misstep. There were simple rules to an introduction, stage instructions I’d known since I was a child, but still somehow I had failed to follow the lines. Give the stranger your name. Duh. I’m always making mistakes like that.

You settled in okay?

Yeah I’m good.

Great. I’m just getting our floor together for the first part of orientation.

I wasn’t sure what to say. I definitely didn’t want to go but an outright dismissal seemed rude so I settled on, Cool.

Don’t say it. My body stilled, as if she was a dragon who only sensed movement. If I didn’t move, she wouldn’t see me, she’d just leave. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say⁠—

You coming? she said.

No.

Everyone else is heading downstairs for the first meet-up.

I swallowed a sigh. Apparently she was not the type of dragon who only sensed movement. Or the type of person who took hints.

Yeah, I said, closing my book and getting up. I’m coming.

You know those quizzes you take online? Answer some questions and they’ll tell you what Hogwarts house you belong in or what character from Friends you’re most like. Everyone seems to find them so easy, fun even. Whenever I take them, I feel like they’re a test I fail. Like I answer the individual questions wrong, so I can’t trust the result.

It’s the same with the kinds of games you play at the start of every single team-building event you can think of. Get-to-know-each-other games. I’ve always hated them. They seem so simple. Tell your name and your favorite flavor of ice cream. But what if you aren’t sure what flavor is your favorite? What if you don’t know your favorite color or your favorite song? What if you find mysteries where everyone else finds simple answers? What do you say then?

There were fourteen of us there, sitting on cheap folding chairs in a semicircle. If I was in Shush’s position, I would have been terrified. Getting up in front of people makes my fingers tremble. But Shush seemed entirely at ease. She stood in front of us, spinning a beach ball in her hands, obviously in her element.

Call me Shush. You know, like ‘shush be quiet.’ My full name’s Precious but like, really, call me Shush.

She didn’t explain it then, but one night when we were up late studying, I’d finally asked her about the nickname.

It’s something my parents started to call me, she’d said. I’m not sure when but probably as soon as I could form words they started calling me that. You can probably tell I really like to talk—it’s something people notice about me right away and I’m not ashamed of it so that’s fine and if I talk too much just tell me to shut up but anyway they told me when I got older and started talking that they used to tell me to ‘shush’ like ‘Precious shush’ and eventually it just turned into a nickname and it kind of stuck.

She seemed to say it all in one breath. She always talked that way, as if the words were running away from her and she had to tackle them before they could escape. It suited me. I’m not much of a talker and I found it relaxing to listen to her. Her voice, running like a river, could drown out the words inside my own head, the ones I didn’t want to listen to.

Standing up in front of our orientation group for the first time, she smiled brightly—always brightly. "Here’s the deal, catch the ball, say hello to the person who threw it to you—say their name—and then tell us your name, your favorite TV show, and your major. I’m an English major and I’m calling The Newsroom."

When she tossed the ball to me, I did the best I could.

Kara, I said. Hi Shush. I knew that much. But the rest… I’m undecided.

And then I tossed the ball to someone else.

In the distance, a bell rings, pulling me out of the memory.

I open my eyes. Force air into and out of my lungs. Focus on my dorm room door.

Is Shush still here? Slowly, I get to my feet, careful not to make a sound. I make my way across the room and press my ear to the door, listening. It sounds like she’s gone. At least for now. Shush isn’t the type of person who gives up.

The bell rings again. Faint, but familiar. Sunday evening mass. A Catholic church sits a few blocks away from my dorm building, right on the edge of campus. My family isn’t religious but I’ve been to mass a few times with my grandparents. It fascinates me. The elaborate costume the priest wears. All the different holy items he uses and the specific way he uses them. The dance of standing up and sitting down at points that seem random to me but make sense to everyone else. The song of call outs and responses. Rituals so practiced the whole church moves in unison.

I’m not sure how I feel about god or religion, but ritual is something I understand. How it’s nice to wrap yourself up in repetition. To not have to think, to not have to work to create your reality. It’s simple, easy, to follow along in the path that’s already been made rather than forge a new one. It’s comforting to be somewhere familiar. Somewhere you know what to say, what to do. It’s like coming home.

I know all about rituals. I’ve spent years developing my own.

I’m moving before I realize I’ve decided to. I go to my desk first, grabbing a small black box hidden behind my books. Then I go into my bathroom and turn on the shower. My costume is much simpler than the robes the priest wears. Mine is just skin. Starting with my coat and boots, I remove all my clothing bit by bit, and step into the hot water. My cathedral doesn’t have stained glass windows and holy paintings. It’s decorated with a bar of soap, bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Instead of chandeliers and candles, I have a shower head.

Everything I need to make myself clean.

Two

7:36 a.m.

When I step outside the next morning, the cold air is a shock. I take deep breaths, feeling it stab the soft tissue of my lungs like ice, sharpening my senses as I walk to class. I’m only halfway there when my phone rings. Hope explodes in my chest only to die when I see the caller ID. It’s not Eric.

Hi Mom. I answer my phone with a forced smile so she’ll hear it in my voice. Last semester, my mom called me maybe once a week. I’ve been back on campus for three days and this is the fourth time she’s called. Maybe this is how it’s going to be now.

All because of Shush.

In some stories, dragons bring ill luck on the townspeople. It isn’t just them taking all your gold, eating your friends, and burning down your house. It’s trying to rebuild and finding nails no longer hold in the wood. Rains that are supposed to make your crops grow tall don’t come and when they do, they wash away all the good soil. Sometimes dragons disrupt the natural balance of your environment, throw everything off course. The world you have to survive in is different now.

Morning sweetheart, my mom says. How are you?

I’m good. I turn off the sidewalk and walk down the edge of a road. Just on my way to class.

Do you have class with Shush today?

I flinch at her name. Like saying it will summon her. Yup. Biology.

How is she? How are you two doing? I know you’ve been having some… some problems.

Problems. This is the way she’s found to say it.

My parents love Shush. They think she’s a good influence on me. I think they’re hoping some of her outspoken confidence will rub off on me, and I can’t even blame them. Once upon a time I’d hoped the same thing. I haven’t told them we’re not on speaking terms any longer. They’re already far too worried about me and I don’t want them to worry more. Their world is different now too.

She’s good. We’re good. I think we’ve worked everything out. The lies, words broken in half to release their meaning, cut my tongue on the way out of my mouth. By now the pain is as familiar as the feel of my tongue against my teeth, holding back certain words so they can’t escape, holding them until I can swallow them back down, force them back deep inside me where they belong.

Oh that’s great honey. That’s just great. I’m so glad. It’s important not to let little fights get in the way of friendships. You know she was just trying to do the right thing.

I do know. She was trying to do what she thought was the right thing. But just because she thought she was right—and she always, always, always thinks she’s right—doesn’t mean what she did was actually the right thing to do.

Kara you have to tell someone.

I bite my tongue, swallowing my protests. There’s silence coming from the other end of the line and I can almost hear her mind working, trying to figure out how to say the thing she doesn’t know how to say. I hug the edge of the road, letting faster-moving students go past me. Her hesitation is painful. I can feel the claws of her uncertainty in my chest.

What’s up? I ask.

Well… She lets out this great big sigh. We got a letter from the college.

My mind goes to Eric. To Shush. What’s she done now?

About what?

You failed a class last semester? She’s hiding it well but I can still hear the disappointment in her tone. The worry. With my good grades and tendency to stay at home and read rather than go out and party, she’s rarely had a chance to be disappointed or worry about me. Now, everything is different. Both of those have become constant undertones whenever she talks to me. It’s exhausting.

Yeah… Calculus. Didn’t I tell you? Liar. I hate lying to my parents. I hate that Shush has turned me into a liar. I’m retaking it this semester. It’ll be fine.

It’s just… the letter said you could lose your scholarship.

I stop walking. What?

Because of your GPA. If it goes under a three-point-five, you lose it. Honey… we can’t afford⁠—

I know. I know Mom. I know. The only reason I can be here is because of that scholarship. People brush past me, trying to avoid the cars on the road. I step into the snow to give them space. My feet sink into the bank that’s been pushed up by snow plows. It comes up over the tops of my boots. I can feel it sliding inside at the edges. Calc was just harder than I was expecting, I say. I’ll make sure I don’t fail it this time, promise.

I’m not pressuring you or anything. I know college is hard. I know you’re a fully capable adult. I just don’t want⁠—

I know Mom. It’s okay.

There’s a beat of silence. Time to escape.

Well I’ve got to go Mom. I’ve got class.

Okay, okay. I umm… And you’re okay? You’re… you’re doing okay? With… with everything?

My throat tightens. I want the snow to keep coming up my legs, up my torso, until it swallows me whole, blocking out everything. Maybe if I sit down the next pass of the snow plow will bury me. Then all of this will go away.

Yeah Mom. I’m good. I promise.

Okay, well… I love you. We’re here if you need anything, okay?

I know. Love you too. Bye Mom.

I hang up before she can say anything else, shoving my phone back in my pocket and hurrying towards class with the rest of the students.

I don’t need the weight of losing my scholarship pushing down on me right now. Not with everything else going on. I’ve never failed anything before. I’ve never even gotten a C. I’m smart enough that I got through high school without working too hard, and I figured college would be like that too. But apparently I’m not as smart as I think I am. Something else to add to the infinite list of what I don’t know.

I want to go back to my dorm room. I want to be alone. I need a few minutes to breathe. My fingers itch to perform my ritual again. But I can’t miss class. Not when I’m apparently on the verge of losing my scholarship. I push into the science building and head not for the classroom, but for the bathroom.

7:46 a.m.

Fourteen minutes until Biology starts. Fourteen minutes until I see Shush, face to face, for the first time since she tried to tear everything in my life apart. I hide in a bathroom stall, trying to pull myself together.

I should feel claustrophobic, like the four metal walls of the bathroom stall are closing in around me. But instead it all feels far away. Like I could reach out and not touch the edges of anything. I stretch out my hand, trying to connect to something, trying to feel like I’m here. Press my palm against the stall wall, trying to feel the world around me, trying to feel my own flesh, trying to make sure I am solid and substantial and real.

I’m here.

The wall doesn’t feel cold like I expected. And it doesn’t feel solid like I want it to. It feels hollow. Like it might fall down if I push just a little harder.

Call me Eric.

Eric. Eric. Eric.

My fingers are surrounded by graffiti. Some in marker, some in pen, some carved into the paint.

Violet loves Greg

This place sux

B+D 4ever

Fuck this place

I trace over the words with my fingers, feeling my lungs expand, collapse, expand, collapse. The campus newsletter shouts at me from the back of the stall door, headlines in bold. I try to focus on the words, try to use them as a tether to keep me from slipping under.

Protest March Scheduled for January 21st.

Need help declaring a major?

It’s not too late! Find your group! Join a student club today!

I focus on taking deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out. All without a sound. Which only makes the words louder. Whispering and talking and screaming inside my head.

You’re safe with me.

I’m here.

It’s over.

Let me in.

You can’t avoid me forever.

Kara you have to tell someone.

I’m fine.

I don’t need her.

I don’t need to tell anyone anything. I dig my fingernail into a crack in the paint on the stall wall until a small sliver chips away.

I’m fine.

7:52 a.m.

I pick at the paint, chipping away at it, trying to ignore the exhaustion pulling me down. The sleepless hours of last night are catching up with me. Facing Shush with such weak, sleep-deprived armor seems like a terrible idea and for the millionth time, I remind myself why I can’t go see Eric. He would know the right thing to say to get me through class with Shush.

You’re safe with me.

But the princess waits.

Once upon a time…

I know how the stories go. I grew up learning these lines, from bedtime stories and Disney movies and romantic comedies. I’m the princess and he’s the prince. That’s our story. He has to see me in the tower, in the forest, at the ball, and come to me. I can’t go seek him out. That isn’t how it works. If I don’t keep my role as the princess-in-waiting, everything will be ruined. I just know it. But it’s okay. It’s okay. I can wait. I can do this.

7:58 a.m.

I get up and leave the bathroom. I climb the stairs to the second floor and slip into my classroom just as the professor starts talking.

Good morning class, I’m Dr. Nelson. Welcome to Intro to Biology.

I take in the large lecture hall, a big amphitheater type room with sloping floors and stairs on either side. I come in at the top, at the back, because down near the front—where I knew she would be because she always wants to be front and center—is Shush.

You can’t avoid me forever.

Shush is a junior, a year ahead of me, but she’d talked me into signing up for this class with her. She’s an English major and I’m undecided, but everyone needs a GenEd science credit. So here I am.

Alright, let’s get started with attendance. Dr. Nelson starts calling out names and I focus on taking out my textbook, my notebook, my pen. Just breathe, I tell myself. Just breathe. I’d forgotten about attendance. When I’d have to announce my presence and exact location to the whole class.

Sandra Lee.

Here.

Nicholas—Nick?—Howard.

Nick. Right here.

An inane but necessary scripted ritual for the first day of classes. I hate it. It makes it seem so easy. Identify yourself with your name. A few syllables given to you at birth before anyone knew anything about you. As if it’s that easy. As if a title is all there is to a story. As if it means anything at all.

Kara Winterson.

She’s going to see me now. She’s already turning in her seat, scanning the faces of the other students, looking for me.

I slip my hand silently into the air.

Shush locks eyes with me. Dr. Nelson keeps going down her list but all I can see is Shush, staring at me. I drop my raised hand and clench it into a fist in my lap. I can’t look away from her. My fingers itch to find the edges of my skin, to force themselves underneath and peel it from my body. I want to slip into a different one, find one that fits better, that feels better, that feels more like mine. It’s her expression, the way she’s looking at me. Her brow furrowed, her eyes slightly wider than usual, her mouth pulled down at the corners. She’s looking at me like I’m someone else. Someone I don’t want to be. Someone I refuse to be.

She’s wrong.

She’s wrong she’s wrong she’s wrong.

I’m not that person.

It’s pulling me in, forcing the air from my lungs, a black hole at the center of her dark eyes.

Pity.

I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t⁠—

Shush turns back to face the front and I slouch in my seat, even more exhausted than I already was. I close my eyes, just for a second. I can do this. I just have to make it to tomorrow afternoon. Through this class and the writing class I have after it. Through math class in the morning, work after that, and then I’ll see Eric. And it will all be fine.

It’s all going to be okay.

I open my eyes just in time to reach over the row in front of me, down to where another student is stretching back with a stack of papers. I take one packet off the stack and pass the rest down my row to another student. The syllabus. I give it a quick glance, looking through the chapters we’ll be studying, noting the big assignments: the midterm, the final, and a final project we’ll need to complete with a partner. Oh great. Dr. Nelson is starting up a presentation for her lecture and I take out my notebook, glad for something else to concentrate on.

Class goes much faster than I’d anticipated and soon it’s over. I’m out in the hallway as soon as Dr. Nelson dismisses the class, and still somehow Shush is behind me, shouting my name.

Kara wait!

Ignoring her, I pick up my pace, weaving in and out of students, mumbling apologies as I go. A hard grip on my arm stops me. I spin around and somehow there she is, a dragon waiting to consume me alive.

Three

I’ve been awake for ages. I’m waiting for the sun to rise. I stopped waiting to fall asleep a while ago.

I’m intimately familiar with the never-ending series of insomnia. I know the feeling of exhaustion in my bones, how it writes the story of the sleepless, not in bold black letters but in thin invasive lines of cursive. They have a life of their own; I have no control. They sneak in one letter, one moment, at a time, until the clock reads four in the morning and it’s too late.

I can’t make it stop. At first I tried to distract myself with TV and books, with other people’s stories. But now I’m too tired to fight my brain. Too tired to try and make it stop. Shush ambushing me after Biology plays over and over in my head.

My fight or flight response has always been faulty. Instead of taking some sort of action, I freeze. No fight. No flight. I can’t do anything. My brain starts going a million miles a minute but I can’t hang on to any one thought long enough to get it to tell my body to do something.

When she grabbed my arm after Biology, I couldn’t move. I just stared at her hand on my arm, unable to say anything, unable to do anything.

I’m sorry, she said, letting me go.

I flinched away as if she’d burned me.

She held her hands up, palms out, trying not to spook me.

Kara, she said, keeping her voice low as she closed the distance between us. Kara please you have to listen to me.

I needed to say something. To tell her I didn’t have to listen to anything she said, not ever again. I needed to tell her to leave me alone. To get out of my way. Something.

I’m sorry, she said. I’m really, really sorry.

Eventually you’ll forgive me.

I wanted to ask her what she was apologizing for exactly. For some individual thing she had done—and there were many—or for all of it? For trying to ruin my life. I wanted to ask her why she was apologizing if she wasn’t really sorry. Because she