The Boy with Words for Skin

Chapter 12: Reason to Forget

The Headless Dog barked even more desperately when I opened the door. The noise hit me in the face, pulled a sick taste up my throat and into my mouth. I couldn't think. I was dizzy. I wanted to puke. When I took a quick look around and didn't see my brother, but saw the shower curtain pulled shut, The Headless Dog pawing at the tub, all of that got even worse.

"He's not dead," I said to myself. "He's not dead."

All our sister had to do was pull the plug and let the water empty out, just lay there and wait for her skin to dry and crack open, wait as she bled and bled and bled until all she wanted to do was go to sleep. But how would Boy have done it? He could drown himself or cut open his wrists or stuff something into his open throat so he'd suffocate—but I couldn't see him doing anything like that. The Girl with Porous Skin had it easy, but he wouldn't have.

I caught myself. Easy? She had it easy?

My stomach twisted. Of course it hadn't been easy. It had to have been lonely and scary, and when her skin started splitting open, when she saw the blood, there must have been second thoughts, even more fear and loneliness.

I shook the thoughts from my mind. "Boy?" My voice barely came out. "Boy?" There was no way he heard me over the barking.

It took every ounce of energy I had to cross the bathroom without collapsing. My hand shook so hard that I could barely grab the shower curtain. My mind was a tornado of terrible images—my dead brother, my dead sister, blood, blood, bodies being dumped into holes, my hands covered in blood, my brother's face, my brother's open neck, blood dripping off my hands.

The curtain was thick and stiff. The feel of it made my stomach clench even worse. I swallowed hard and yanked it aside. The metal rings screeched against the rod.

I was sucked back to the moment when I found The Girl with Porous Skin. She was on her back, head tilted to the left, mouth open just a little bit, eyes closed. She was in the swimsuit she'd been wearing since the Transformation, white with purple flowers—only the white was now red with her blood. A trail of red faded into the drain.

I grabbed her arms and shook her, screamed her old name—Beth! Beth! I let go when her body crunched like dead leaves and chunks of skin broke off around my fingers.

I gasped and was thrown out of the memory. Boy was inside the tub, curled into a ball. There was no blood. He was breathing.

It felt like someone punched me in the stomach, but the pain was somehow a relief. "Boy!"

He started crying so hard that his entire body shook. He didn't turn to me.

"Come on. Let's get out of here," I said. I reached down and grabbed his arm, but he jerked it away.

"Leave me alone." He could barely speak through the sobs.

"Let's go."

"No!"

Any relief I'd felt turned to anger. The Headless Dog's barks became even more excruciating. His constant jumping suddenly annoyed me more than I could describe. Something inside of me, something I didn't even know I'd been holding onto, slipped. I kicked The Headless Dog, sent him tumbling across the bathroom floor with a yelp. When he came to a stop, he let out a vicious growl and lunged at me.

"Go ahead! Bark—bark—bark! All bark but no bite!" I reached down into the tub and grabbed my brother under his arms. I yanked him up and out of the tub as he kicked and screamed. "What do you think you're doing in here?" I screamed. "You know you're not supposed to be in here!"

The Headless Dog clawed at my legs, but I was wearing pants so it was more annoying than anything else. I kicked at him again, but he jumped out of the way. He backed away to a safe distance, growling, hunched down like he was ready to lunge and attack.

"Don't hurt Heady! Don't!" My brother tried to thrash away from me. "Just go away!"

I hauled my brother out of the bathroom and slammed the door shut before The Headless Dog could follow. It barked wildly and threw itself at the door over and over again.

"Heady!" Boy screamed. "Let him out!"

I let my brother squirm out of my arms, but I stood between him and the bathroom door. "What is wrong with you?" I asked. "You know what happened in there! Why would you go in there? Why?"

"Leave me alone!" He tried to get around me, but I held him back at arm's length.

Nothing made sense. Why would he want to go in there? Why would he want to be in that bathtub? Our sister killed herself in there! In that bathtub!

Boy struggled against me for a few seconds but then collapsed. He didn't get back up. He just sobbed.

I looked down at him, furious—and then as quickly as it came, the anger was gone. The shame set in instantly. There was a terrified boy who felt a pain he couldn't understand laying at my feet, and a large part of that was my fault. What was wrong with me? Why was I acting like that?

"Boy . . ." I sank to my knees next to him. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what—I didn't mean to . . ."

I turned and opened the bathroom door. The Headless Dog rushed out. It moved to my brother, stood over him, growled at me. I tried to reach down to comfort my brother, but it barked and lunged forward. I pulled back, more from shame than fear.

"I'm sorry, Boy. I just . . . I didn't . . ." My brain felt tired. My chest hurt. I couldn't speak. I could barely breathe.

"You're just like them!"

I looked at his finger.

"You're just like Mom and Dad!" He screamed. "They forgot Beth and you want me to forget her, too!"

My mouth fell open. "Boy, don't say her old name!"

"You want me to forget Beth! But I won't! I won't!"

I tried to grab him, just to make him stop saying her old name, to protect him from The Voice's punishment, but he scrambled away from me.

"She's not like us! She was never her new name! She was always just Beth!"

"Stop! Please! The House Rules—"

"I don't care! I'm not forgetting Beth! You can't make me!"

Make him forget our sister? That wasn't what I was trying to do. Was it? My first reaction was, no, of course not! But then I realized that, yes, it was. I did want to forget her. I needed to. It kept me from wondering what would've happened if I'd spent more time with her. What if I'd noticed how sad and quiet she'd gotten? What If I'd tried harder to cheer her up? What if I'd realized that the newest House Rule that appeared on my skin when I shed two days before she killed herself—

HOUSE RULE

All deceased occupants of 407 West Marshall Street

must be buried in the basement.

—had been a warning?

I had tried to forget. I never realized that before. But who could blame me when remembering made it almost impossible to even breathe?

"Please, don't make me forget her. Please. Please don't make me. Please."

His voice was so pathetic that it made me ache. All I could do was nod.

Boy stood up and went around me. He and The Headless Dog went back into the bathroom and shut the door.

That was when I noticed the others. Evry peeked out of her bedroom door. Kit stood at the top of the stairs. The twins stared through the banister.

I had pants and my hoodie on, the words on my skin were covered, but I realized something then. The others didn't need to read my skin to judge me. They could read everything they needed to know about how I acted.

I forced myself to get up and stumble to my room. I shut the door and then collapsed on my bed. I laid there for a long time. Just before I fell asleep, I realized Boy was right. I was the same as our parents. And in that moment, it all made sense. Our parents and everyone else in Oak Knoll weren't trying to forget us because they hated us. They were trying to forget us because it was too painful to remember what they'd lost.