Under Her Skin

Chapter 25

Police Officer: Sunny fainted. Why was she unconscious? What happened?

Me: She didn't faint. She was drugged.

***

Sunny, still mildly bewildered, noticed a difference in her ways this morning. Instead of going straight to school, she lingered, slightly irresolute, and went over to Selena's.

When she arrived, Selena was fiddling with a shipment of new candies in her lap. The pile was impressive; a beautiful array of blues and greens and reds and yellows.

"Your pick," she said softly and radiantly. Selena's eyes were dreamily bright, her cheeks a genuine peach glow. She looked happy. It was all so inviting.

"I'll just have a lollipop," said Sunny, modestly.

"Lollipops?" Selena turned too quickly to mask the surprise on her face.

"I mean, sure," said Sunny. Selena looked sad, as if she had expected more of Sunny— expected her to act in accordance with whatever norms this situation contained. To understand that these were Selena's candies, and to allow her the honor of choice.

"They ain't as good as these," said Selena, pointing at the red strips. "You're going to have these." Sunny nodded, gave her a sturdy glance, and grabbed a handful.

"I wish they gave these out on Halloween," she said, mid-chew.

"Ha-ha-ha, if they did, the whole neighborhood would be on their backs. Literally." That threw Sunny off just slightly but didn't think twice. Sunny peeled away the packaging, barely noticing that the brand was different. And by the time she did notice, the entire twister was jammed all up into the gums of her teeth, and she could care less about any sort of difference.

"This is SO good. Where'd you get them?"

"I was hoping you'd say that, have another one," Selena said, dodging the question. Selena fed Sunny, who played the role of a little puppy begging for treats until she became jittery. At some point mid-chew, she started coming up with all sorts of wacky ideas. The two girls, tripping, did absurd things. In the minus thirty-degree weather, they walked down the street naked, to which they asked me to record. The time was two o'clock in the morning; the outlook stretch of cold, drizzling, unsociable blackness until the dawn. Fuck school, they would yell into the frozen air, and then laugh, and then laugh some more until their tears froze on their cheeks, and their bodies burned of frostbite.

They went into the house and vowed to delete those photos and never show a single soul. They ate some more. They didn't stop until the whites of their eyes turned red. For the girls, their friendship was at a pinnacle.

"Told you, candy can cure trauma."

Sometime later, Sunny felt highly relaxed. So relaxed that her words started to blur together. Her mind began wearing into blankness, and however much she wanted to come into conscience to eat another twister, she could not.

"Why do I feel like this?"

"Ha-ha," said Selena. "Feels great right."

"I feel heavy. Dangerously heavy." The reality was slowly fading away just as a burning sensation rose in her body, a hyped-up intriguing relaxation that took her up into the clouds of deep sleep. Before the curtains closed Sunny made out the last words, "Selena what were in those Twislers?"

***

Sunny woke up and glared at the digital clock on her lock screen.

"Late!" It read. Beside her, lay a red twisted candy wrapper that carefully enveloped a bitten twisler. Sunny blinked twice. Suddenly her hatred for Selena developed to great depths. Sunny was not going to let things stay this way anymore. Things were going to change for her. Soon.