In My Skin

CH 11 || Only A Single Regret

*Two years earlier *

A tingle ran up my arm. Reflexively, I lifted my hand, my fingers hovering just inches above the fabric when I caught myself.

No.

I tried to focus back on the lesson. All around me, students seemed completely engrossed in the professor's lecture, but to me, the speech sounded like a droning bee.

I blinked. Then I blinked again and suppressed a yawn. What was he talking about again?

Ah, supply chains, yes.

The slides swam in my vision and my eyes teared from the effort of keeping them open. How many hours did I get last night? Couldn't have been more than three.

A tingle seeped into my flesh and my muscles flexed.

No. Ignore it.

An itch started. It was subtle at first, a mere brush of a strangely, ticklish sensation. But it didn't stop. It never did.

A throbbing, twitching feeling spread over my skin. Like spider webs whose long, thin strings were pulled. Tender at the start. A little tug here and there, testing, probing, but then it became more persistent. Several strings were tugged at the same time. The vibrations, small at first, but slowly building, jumped along the intersections, spreading, intensifying until the whole net bounced back and forth—It was impossible to ignore.

I pinched my forearm as hard as I could, but the relief was short-lived. As soon as I stopped, the crawling sensation just sprang back at me in full force.

In the end, I lost the fight. Like always.

My fingers clawed into my arm, and I sank into a frenzy of sick relief as I tried to dig out my skin. Then the pain started, but I didn't stop. Not until my arm was screaming in agony.

My head fell to my chest and out of the corner of my eyes, I checked if anyone noticed something abnormal about me. The girl on my right frowned in my direction and shifted one seat over.

I swallowed and looked down, hiding behind the curtain of my long hair. Maybe she thought I had some sort of contagious disease. Or that I was just weird.

I double-checked that my sleeves covered the blue markings on my wrists. I had tied them again last night. It was the only way not to wake up surrounded by bloody sheets.

I flinched when suddenly people started packing up. Apparently, the lecture had ended. I tried to think of anything the professor had said but drew a blank. I would fail this class as well, but somehow, I couldn't even bring myself to care.

I grabbed my things and paused at the edge of my row. My friends had found me.

"Hey, Tay, you made it," Eric greeted me. As usual, his outfit was carefully coordinated from his baby blue Lacoste sweatshirt down to his ironed pants.

"Yeah," Nicole—his girlfriend—said. Her light brown hair was styled in a sleek side twist, not a single strand out of place, and her makeup was flawless. Her small nose wrinkled as she took in my large men's hoodie. "How come you grace us with your presence today?"

"Hey, guys," I said.

"It was weird seeing our campus couple without their significant other, right?" Somebody else joked and I stiffened.

"Hey. Let's go out, eh?" Lucy said with a grin at everyone, her blond locks bouncing up and down. She was my closest friend.

I hoisted my backpack up and suppressed a grimace at the feeling of fabric sticking to my arm. Shit.