Normal With You

Chapter 27

She watched him as she dried her hair wondering where he had drifted off to in his mind. He had been rubbing at his arm barely realising that he had lifted up his long grey sleeves allowing her a rare glimpse of what lay beneath. His arms, like his face and neck were dotted with thousands of light brown freckles but between them- sticking out as if they had never belonged- were light red, raised bumps along all of the exposed skin.

She put down her towel, padding over softly to his mattress before she sat down beside him with her arm hovering in the air between them. She took a breath, dropping her hand to rest on his arms. "What are these?" She asked, running over the slight raised bumps with the tip of her index finger.

He blinked, having been wrenched out of a memory that he hadn't realised he had lost himself in till he looked down at her smooth brown hands touching his own. "They're..."

She looked up at him, waiting for him to reply.

"They're cigarette burns." His voice sounded hoarse as he said the words he had never uttered before.

"How many of them are there?"

"I've never counted."

"And how far up do they go?" She looked down at his arm, asking silently for permission to lift his sleeves. He stretched his arm towards her, watching as she cautiously folded the sleeve of his shirt up his thick arm mesmerised at her slow, deliberate movements.

"Right till the top." He answered highly aware of his nerves vibrating within every inch of his arm.

She looked down, tracing each bump and light white line that had scabbed and healed over years ago. "Did they never fade away?" She thought of the bruises and bites on her body that had finally faded away.

"They were too deep to fade." He looked at the little circles that had grown with him as he grew from a boy into an adult. They had been dotting his arm since his arm was thin enough to be held in his father's grasp and yet they had never seemed to want to leave him. They had stayed as sniggering parasites, reminding him of a time long ago that he would never forget no matter how far he tried to go. It would be with him for all his life as a reminder that his father was always bigger than him and that he was always too small for his father- that was how it was and how it always would be.

It would never change, nor would it transform nor surrender to a different belief.

He would always be too small...

"I'm sorry..." she breathed out, lifting his hand slowly to brush the lightest of kisses onto his knuckle.

I'm so sorry Riaz...

"What's your full name?" He asked staring up the flickering shadows on her bleak, beige ceiling. She always loved scented candles and the deep bursts of wild magnolia had somehow imbibed themselves within their skin. He always associated the scent to being with her and he associated it to their lonely nights when neither knew much else except to find comfort within the other. It spoke of slow, unhurried lovemaking and her soft chatter as they waited for the night to end and for sleep to find them.

"How do you know Leena isn't my full name?" She turned towards him, the pristine pink sheets stretching against her bare body allowing him to see every inch of what lie beneath.

"It's a nickname."

She looked at him, smiling at his perception. "Helena Marta DeWett."

"Helena Marta?" He replied, crooking her lips up at the thought of associating her name to her.

"My Ouma's the only one who actually calls me that." She turned to lay on her back losing her herself in the memories of warm days spent on their sunflower farm, running barefoot amidst the sprinklers. She remembered dashing gleefully away from the workers that had taken off to play with her as she lost herself amongst the tall flowers that surrounded her granny's property only to be found by Henry- her best friend.