Like most women he�d ever known, his mother came alive at malls. Hiking through the halls and scoring bargains was an Olympic sport for her. She knew the exact location and layout of every store, and if any had changed in his absence, she made sure to tell him. As if he cared. He bought a soft pretzel and munched on it, bored, as his mother lead him through the crowds. He stared at all the people: the teenagers out with their friends, the young mothers with their litters of whining children, the fat old people waddling around, the occasional security guard. Yeah, the rest of the world was still there, still going about their lives. None of them knew he existed. None of them knew he was an abnormal fuck-up. None of them cared. That wasn�t such a terrible thing.

There was a hair salon in the mall, so they went there first. The salon was busy, and the woman at the desk took their names and told them to come back in an hour or so.

�Well, that gives us some time to shop around!� his mother declared. They approached the Gap, and his mother tugged at his arm. �Ooh, they always have cute stuff here, let�s take a look.�

He polished off the pretzel and followed her in, hands in his pockets. He couldn�t believe he was shopping with his mother. He couldn�t believe he cared that he was shopping with his mother. Maybe he was getting better.

His mother pulled some shirts off the rack and held them up to him, murmuring and mumbling happily to herself. Do you like this one? Ooh, this one�s very nice. How cute. You always looked good in red.

He muttered despondently to each question. He couldn�t remember the last time he gave a damn about what he was wearing. He had a blue T-shirt on at the moment, and blue jeans. Nothing special. It wasn�t like he was good-looking anymore, like he was trying to pick up girls. What girl would want him now, anyway?

His mother piled shirts into his arms and pushed him towards the dressing room. �Okay, you go try those on, let me know what you think.�

Robotically, he did so, stripping of his shirt and slipping on the new one as quickly as possible so as to not have to look at his disgusting, puny white chest any more than he had to. He felt strange doing this. Trying on clothes was such a normal thing to do, but it had been years since he�d done anything normal. Part of him felt like this was the first time he�d ever been in a dressing room, yet ghosts of memories from mall experiences in his other life told him what the mirror and little bench were for, what he was supposed to do, how he was supposed to feel.

This new shirt was a striped white and blue polo, short-sleeved, with a collar. He stared at himself in the mirror. He looked like a tropical fish with a trailer park haircut.

He took that one off and tried on the next, a red shirt with a navy stripe across the front. It looked familiar. Why? He stared in the mirror, perplexed, until it came to him.

Arik!

After all, no one else in the state of Massachusetts owned as many red polo shirts as that kid. He took the preppy look to the extreme, to the point where he wasn�t sure if Arik owned any normal T-shirts or any blue jeans.

He grinned. The shirt was too big, but it brought back pleasant memories. He decided to get it.

He reached to pull the shirt over his head, and happened to catch a flash of the underside of his arms in the mirror. He stopped dead and gawked, dumbstruck.

His arms were disgusting.

Thick white worm-like scars crisscrossed his wrists in every direction�in his moment of insanity he hadn�t been able to remember whether you were supposed to slit across the wrist or up it and had done both�and these were made worse by thinner, neater scars from the multitude of surgeries that had kept his fingers from being paralyzed.

The rest of his arm was mottled by thin lines of scars and Xs and missing chunks of skin that should have been there. The slits hadn�t been deep enough to scar permanently, but he�d reopened so many of them in those days and he�d done so many so close together that his arm was blotchy and off-colored, with patches of absent hair and over-taut skin. His arms would never look normal.

The legacy of a cutter.

He felt like he was going to throw up.

Oh, God, he�d known the scars were there; he had run his fingertips across the raised scars on his wrists many times, fascinated by the abnormal knolls of skin. He�d looked at them for months to prove that his nightmares had really happened, that he�d really tried to end his life, that he really was this fucked up. The scars were everywhere; his stomach and chest weren�t much prettier, and they looked especially grotesque anyway now that he�d lost so much weight and all his muscles had melted away. He�d found every scar on his body; he knew they were there.

But he�d never realized how repulsively obvious they were to the rest of the world.

His mother rapped lightly at the door. �Roger? Honey? What�s taking so long? Are you all right?�

He opened the door and pushed the pile of clothes into his arms. Tears sailing down his cheeks, and sobs rising in his throat, he ripped off the red shirt and pressed it into her arms.

He opened the door and pushed the pile of clothes into his arms. Tears sailing down his cheeks, and sobs rising in his throat, he ripped off the red shirt and pressed it into her arms.

�I-I c-can�t�� he gasped. �I-I can�t��

His mother glanced around quickly; his sobs had attracted the attention of a mother and her two middle-school daughters. She pushed him back into the dressing room and shut the door behind them. He sat down on the little bench by the mirror and cried into his hands.

His mother bent over him, gently seizing his shoulders. �Roger, shhh,� she whispered. �Calm down and tell me what�s wrong.�

He wiped his eyes. �I can�t show my arms! I can�t let anyone see my arms! I can�t let anyone see my arms!�

�Why? Because of the scars?�

�They�re so fucking ugly!� he sobbed. �I�m so fucking ugly!�

�Shhh, please, don�t swear, we�re in public��

He sniffled. �I can�t wear anything that shows my arms. I-I don�t want anyone to see, I can�t let anyone see�I don�t want them to know�oh God, it�s so fucking obvious!�

�Okay, so we�ll get some long-sleeved shirts instead,� his mother said quickly, trying to quiet him. �It�s okay.�

�My arms�!�

�Shh, honey, please, they�ll heal��

�No,� he wailed, clawing at the sides of his head. �It�s been over two years and they�re still there�everyone can see them�everyone can see how fucking ugly they are!�

�Honey, please, stop it. Let�s get out of here; we�ll walk around a little until you feel better.�

�I c-can�t! Everyone will see! They�ll all stare!�

�It�s not that bad, really. You�ve had your arms bare all week and it hasn�t bothered you, and no one has noticed yet.�

He shook his head, breathing hard.

His mother sighed. �Okay, what if I get you a long-sleeved shirt, and you can change into it after we get out of here? Will you feel less self-conscious then?�

He scraped his eyes with the back of his hand and nodded. It was the best she could offer.

�Get dressed again while I put these back, and meet me in the store, okay?� she said, gathering the useless short-sleeved shirts. �Are you okay now?�

He nodded again, beginning to feel incredibly stupid for throwing a fit in the middle of the Gap dressing room. He hoped no one had noticed, but as his mother left the dressing room, he heard a worker approach her and softly inquire if everything was okay. Fuck, he thought, glancing sidelong at the reflection of his bare chest in the mirror. He�d tugged some more strands loose from his ponytail, and they hung messily in his eyes. He breathed deeply a few times to calm himself and tried to blink the redness from his eyes.

He slipped his shirt over his head and emerged from the dressing room, eyes on the floor to avoid looking at anyone, arms crossed tightly across his chest. The brunt of the damage was on the inside of his arms, so he hoped that if he hugged them tight to his body, maybe no one would notice.

He met up with his mother and picked out a long-sleeved maroon shirt on the bargain rack. They bought it without bothering to try it on.

The voice of the cashier snapped him from his intense musings on the tile pattern of the floor. The girl at the register was a very attractive Italian girl. She was tall and long-legged, with flawless golden skin, long, shiny dark brown hair, and beautiful doe brown eyes.

The floor fell out from underneath him.

It was his ex-girlfriend.

Oh, God, it was Marisa.

He felt faint, his head was spinning�oh God, this girl had wrapped his heart around her fingers and then torn it out, ripped it into bleeding shreds, and thrown it in the garbage disposal�oh God, this girl was part of the reason for the hideous mess he was trying to hide now. She was the most two-faced, backstabbing viper East of the Appalachians, though if there were any worse further west, he hoped he would never meet them.

He wanted to cry. He wanted to run. He wanted to scream. He wanted to kill her. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to talk to her. He wanted her to die a horrible death while he watched.

�Oh, God, so long as she didn�t look at him!

She rang up the shirt and tapped at the register with long manicured fingernails, bored out of her mind and completely oblivious to the boy choking to death three feet in front of her.

If she looked at him, what would she say? This girl had single-handedly torn his social life and reputation apart in the middle of the third floor hallway, had made him start cutting again, had inspired one of his worst episodes in years�oh, God, she was the first person from his past life that he�d encountered since returning home. She knew he�d tried to kill himself, that he�d gone crazy�what would she say to him?!

He let out a strangled noise by accident, and she looked up�his heart stopped�she met his eyes with her lovely, long-lashed ones�

�and she rolled her eyes and looked back to the register.

He gawked.

Did she�did she not recognize him?

Granted, this girl had never cared much about him�she�d only dated him because he was attractive/popular/got drunk a lot/was supposed to be a pimp�but didn�t she at least remember him? Or did he really look that different now?

He looked closely at her, eyeing her from her high-heeled leather boots to the clip she had in her hair. Yes, he had no doubt whatsoever: this was Marisa Lucciano, his beautiful ex-girlfriend. There was no one else like her in the world. Thank God.

However, her waist looked a lot thicker than he remembered it. In fact, she looked like she�d gained twenty pounds, but she�d put the weight on in an unusual sort of way�

He nearly choked as realization struck him like a baseball bat.

Was she pregnant?

It was entirely possible, considering the promiscuous way this girl had conducted herself when he had known her. Arik, always able to see girls in a way he�d never been able to, had been fond of referring to her as a harlot. In fact, this girl had asked him to sleep with her, and he�d refused, which was eventually why they�d broken up.

Wow. He wasn�t sure if he felt bad for her, even young and hopeless as she was, considering that it was probably her own bad decision that had lead her here. He pitied the unborn kid. He hoped she would put it up for adoption. She would make a horrible mother.

�Holy cow, was he ever glad he wasn�t the father.

His mother finished the transaction and took the bag from Marisa. Oblivious to the earth-shattering realization he had just made, she tapped his arm and gestured for him to follow her out of the store. He stood, staring, for a minute longer, and his mother softly called, �Roger, come on.�

At the sound of his name, Marisa looked up in surprise, and he turned and ran from the store.

continue...