I was sitting in my fifth hour English class and was having one of those days where I wanted to dig a hole in the ground. Everyone’s voices were too loud, and my shoe (the floor?) had something on it that crinkled when I rocked my foot back and forth.
A girl started talking and I looked over. Whatever she was saying didn’t make sense to me at all, (I hadn’t read); but I was so transfixed on her because her skin was so clear. Like an oil painting.
“Annabel,” my teacher said and I looked up. “Read this slide.”
The heat of people’s eyes made me feel sort of sticky, and the room was freezing, which I was suddenly aware of. , and I had to squint my eyes to see the screen. I read as fast as I could to prove I was awake and literate, and then slumped back the second I was done.
“Abigail still wants Proctor,” a girl answered to a question I didn’t hear. “That’s why she’s accusing Elizabeth of witchcraft.”
Ohhhhhhh.
“That’s kind of brat,” my friend whispered to the left of me.
I laughed.
“How can you not be when Winona Rider plays you?” I said and pointed to Abigail Williams from the movie.
“She’s so beautiful,” she said, and turned back.
Winona Rider really was beautiful. She looked so 17, just better. Softer.
Her skin was so clear.
I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. My under eyes were dark and my skin was bumpy and red and my eyes were so green. Another girl a sink down looked in the mirror too, but her skin was all the same color.
God, must be hard, I thought and left.
***
When my brother Tommy was a sophomore in high school, he went on Accutane and I thought it was the coolest. I was seven then, and it was so grown-up to me. His skin was so controlled by the pills and healed completely a couple months later.
People always say we look really alike, which is true. We both have blond-brown hair and green eyes and pale skin; but when I started getting acne in middle school, it was not nearly as cool as his was. After two years, it wasn’t cool at all. In high school, the novelty wore off completely.
I went to the dermatologist sophomore year in hopes that a doctor could point to the problem, put it between their fingers and solve it. They couldn’t. I liked my doctor though, she was awkward and fidgety and the cross around her neck moved when she talked, and she was obviously brilliant in everything except clearing my skin.
I couldn’t go on Accutane because I always had some other situation that distracted Dr. Douglas and I from meandering problems. I got three negative skin cancer results in the span of 15 months, and on these visits my doctor would walk in, say ‘Alright, Annabel!’, ask my pain level (6?) and then skip-walk around getting flashlights and syringes. She was so happy when she could actually help.
What people won’t tell you is that by the third test, part of you is hoping it’s positive.
I’ve always had this idea that your head is lying to you constantly, and your body doesn’t know how to. Obviously skin issues are genetic, but I’ve noticed that it’s worst when I’m stressed and best after I’ve cried on it. In middle school, when I got too anxious I started getting dreams that I woke up completely covered in rashes.
So problems like staph infections and cellulitis were kind of reassuring in a way, because IVs could go into my hand and antibiotics could get swallowed with ice water and school could be excused with doctor’s notes.
In January I had a decently serious skin surgery on my back. The worst part wasn’t the missing assignments, or that I could only lay on my side, or how humiliating healing is in general. It was that I was having those rash dreams almost every night.
I started showering in the mornings.
***
“The other day in English, I was looking around and I was just like god, all of you have clear skin. When did everyone get clear skin?”
I said from the floor of Abby’s room. Me, her and Aliyah were eating Chipotle at 8 p.m..
“I don’t notice people’s acne,” Abby said. “Like, I didn’t notice yours until you mentioned it, but I wouldn’t ever look at you and think, like, ‘acne! acne! acne!’ We’re all too focused on ourselves.”
“When I was little, I only had crushes on the boys at Price Chopper with acne,” Aliyah said.
“Really?” I said, and she laughed and nodded. “Oh my god. That is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Abby said. “I wanted acne as a kid.”
“So did I,” I said. “Well, kind of. I just wanted to be Tommy.”
“Well I’m glad you’re Annabel,” Abby said as she reached into the bag of chips. “Tommy wouldn’t be allowed here.”
I tried to take a picture but it didn’t capture it right. I tried to change the lighting, the settings, but it just never came out the way I wanted.
So do you keep changing it or accept it how it is?
“Just won’t come out how it feels,” I said.
“It never does,” Aliyah said.
She was right.
