It was National Sports Day two weeks ago. He’d been chasing a pass down the field when he felt his hair starting to slip. He removed his scalp that night, cleaned it. Glued it back the next morning and that was that. Tonight, though, the roots wouldn’t stay down. He stared hard at his head in the mirror. Gently patted his hair. Pressed at his cheeks to set them in place.

He had three missed calls and a girl he wanted to see. He thought he might be forgetting something, but he was already late. Eight minutes later he was in a smothering basement, the other kids pressed together in the dark, smiling at anyone they knew. He’d layered on a baseball jersey and cap and was wondering what she’d be wearing. Probably something too little. Maybe something red. 

He didn’t find out until later in the night. He’d held so many drinks by then that his fingertips were limp and droopy. When he finally took her hand to dance, he wondered if she could feel the skin on his palms coming loose. His hands wandered over the small of her back. She kept her eyes closed. The fairy wings looped around her shoulders brushed his hands as she moved. 

The first time he saw her, his attraction to her confused him. Her face was angled and harsh, like a statue cut from stone. Thin lines of bluish purple marbled her otherwise clear skin. She’d covered them up tonight, with glitter and pink face paint blended around her cheeks. He touched the paint with the back of his hand, where the skin was still flush against the knuckle. 

“It’s pretty loud in here,” he yelled over the music. 

She looked at him. Smiled. Followed him out of the basement. 

Because the air outside was cold, or because the air in his room was warm, her cheeks were bright red. The face paint had rubbed off on his pillowcase, his skin. She tasted like liquor. He traced the apple of her cheek, the waterline of her eye. Marveled at the seamlessness of her. 

He wondered if his body felt cold when she touched him. If she could sense the disconnect under his skin. If she could tell that even with her hands on his chest and her legs between his, they weren’t really touching. As if she could hear his thoughts, she pulled away.  Narrowed her eyes at him, like she couldn’t decide if he was there or not.

He tried not to move. He thought, there are a million things that could happen in this moment, and nine-hundred-ninety-nine-thousand-nine-hundred-ninety-nine of them won’t. But possessed with a strange luck the world willed at random times to devastate him, she touched her pointer finger to the corner of his eye. Pulled at it. 

It peeled away completely. Revealed the milky white of his eye, the tendons and nerves beneath it. The skin of his eyelid hung like a jaw unhinged, so thin it was nearly translucent. She took her hand back and stared at the red of his skin. Didn’t scream, because the breath wouldn’t come. He let it all happen. Hoped she wouldn’t leave, but of course she did. When she’d run out of his bed and into the hall, and he was alone in his skin, he raised his hand to the eye she’d pulled loose. Held it together with his sagging fingertips as he walked to the mirror.

His hair was alright. His eye, though. Regret consumed him like an urge. He dropped a solution into the opening. Felt it melt the glue under his cheeks. Maybe he’d stayed out too long. He peeled the skin of his face away and continued spilling the solution down his neck, his chest, his legs. He took his skin off and changed into pajamas. Maybe there was nothing he could’ve done. 

He tried to imagine the girl’s hands on him now and couldn’t. Every part of her face, her body had been clean and even. He watched his reflection in the mirror. Saw only a sickening rippling in his arms and two eyes bulging in the dark, stuck on a red and white face. He looked away. Caught sight of the wings she’d left by the foot of his bed. 

He tried them on and felt like her. Lay under the covers. Wrapped himself so tight he crushed them, wondering if this is what skin felt like for everyone else.