When The Sun Rises | ✔

30 | Way To Stay

   Warning: This chapter contains references to self-harm.

Chapter 30 | Way To Stay

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        I crinkle my nose as I slip the shorts down my legs, the newly sprouted cactus-like hairs rubbing against the backs of my thumbs. Once they're off, I toss them at the back of Xo's head.

        "Don't you have anything that'll actually cover my ass? Everything you done gave me would have me looking like a woman of the night."

        For the past hour, I've acted as a live Barbie getting dressed and undressed. Forcing myself into jeans that don't come above the crack of my ass and shirts with necklines as tight and uncomfortable as wet denim. None with enough material to hang past my ribcage.

        She tugs the shorts off her neck and folds them in half. "Listen, hoe. Ain't nothing wrong with showing a little skin. Stop being so damn scary."

        Lifting the duffle bag of clothes she'd shown up with from the corner and setting it on my bed, she rolls up her sleeves to dig through it. She hums to herself as she lifts out a pair of white distressed jeans and sends them spiraling through the air over her shoulder.

        I scramble to catch them and frown at the identical holes extending from thigh to knee. "Girl, you tryin' to have me out here with damn pneumonia. You do realize it's like forty-five degrees out that door, right?"

        As she continues rummaging through the web of clothes like a clearance-crazy Black Friday shopper, I notice faded scars traveling up her forearm. Some more pink and fresh looking than others. For what feels like minutes, all I do is look. I don't want to make a wrong assumption, but the more I look the more I see.

        "What are those?"

        I drop the pants onto the bed and step closer to her, eyes zeroed in on the tattered skin. They move along her arm in a haphazard pattern, traveling up and disappearing beneath the cuff of her sleeve like they knew to hide. To remain unseen by anyone who would ask about their history, want to know where they come from.

        Without pausing to look at me, she asks, "What are you talking about? They're jeans put them on."

        "Nah, I mean on your arm. Are those cuts?"

        Her body stiffens and she immediately tugs her sleeves back down around her wrists to conceal what I've already consumed. Face flushed and eyes unfocused, she turns to face me with her mouth partly open.

        "No, just try on the pants. The white ones I just took out." With trembling hands, she grabs the pants and shoves them in my chest. "Here, see if they fit."

        Without a spare thought, I toss them aside. Too large holes and exposed stretch marks no longer my main concern. "Xo, I'm not stupid. Let me see your arm."

        "Keila, chill out and put on the pants. You really worrying about the wrong thing right now," she says with a chuckle. "I'm tryin' to get you ready for this date, chill sesh, or whatever the hell you want to call it and we still haven't settled on a fit so come on."

        Her face is calm, but her shoulders are rising and falling faster than usual and I can hear her actively trying to control her breathing – fighting to make her interior mirror her exterior mask of calm.