What’s Mine

WHAT'S MINE

by Lulu Kadhim

(Content warnings: blood, body horror, toxic relationships)

It’s warm in our bed, but Alia isn’t next to me. Instead, it’s the heavy weight of her skin, still radiating body heat. I pull back the covers, exposing the mess to the thin, yellow light filtering in through the open door. It’s pliant under my fingers as I shift it away from me, more the texture of softened candle wax than anything else.

The hallway is dark; the light is coming from the open bathroom door. I find her crouched at the bottom of the bathtub, the shower hitting only her shins. She shakes like a nervous dog. Her knees are drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. The water is still running pink. Her hair is matted, gore still clinging in chunks. I lean forward to swish my hand under the stream and find it tepid.

“Babe,” I say softly.

She looks up at me, her chin wobbling, her lip chewed half to death. I have seen this look so many times.

I strip out of my pyjama top and get into the bathtub with her to pull her to her feet. She’s a paper doll in my arms as I manoeuvre us so she’s under the full force of the water. Her resistance is cursory, as it always is.

My fingers lace through her hair, working the sticky clots out first with shampoo, then conditioner. 

I help her rinse, but she winces and pulls away when I try to carelessly yank a knot out of her hair. I force myself to slow down, to take my time—to appreciate that I can do this for her, that she even needs me to. I didn’t check the clock when I got out of bed, but I know it’s late.

Then it’s a matter of soaping her down, and scrubbing at her mound and armpits, where the plasma has clung to the hair in gelatinous clumps.

“Please, Elaine,” she begs. “Enough.” One hand on my shoulder, her eyes empty. Like each time, her skin isn’t the only thing she’s shedding.

“I’m done,” I tell her. I kiss her on the cheek and leave her to finish washing herself off. She didn’t bring any towels with her, and I didn’t think to, so I shiver my way through the autumn-chilled flat to grab some from the cupboard. 

When I get back, she’s standing in the tub still, now with the water off. She’s trembling, her arms pulled around her. She once described it as an unnatural chill, like getting your hair shaved off and feeling the wind on your scalp for the first time. That was back when it first started, when we could still talk about it.

“Wait here,” I say, handing her the towel. The first few times, I had dried every inch of her, careful and gentle. But the clock in the hallway says three in the morning and I have a class at nine and I’m already exhausted. And my duty is not even done yet. 

I hate touching Alia’s shed skin, but there’s a part of me that is fascinated by it too, the wet weight of it as I bundle it up in the sheets. We’ve gone through so many bedclothes at this point. The mattress protector is soaked too, so I grab that, turning both into a bindle over my shoulder. Her skin is so much heavier than it should be. I remind myself it’s not her. It’s not her, it’s not her, it’s not her. It’s only skin.

The hallway of our building—a house, converted into flats—is empty and lit dark yellow by the dying automatic light. I pause at the wheelie bin outside, before I can bring myself to open it and throw the sheets in. It lands with a slop on top of the one from two nights ago. I try not to think about what the rubbish men must think of us.

When I come back in, Alia’s sitting on the corner of the bed.

“I’m sorry,” she says, looking up at me with round, wet eyes.

“It’s not your fault.” That much is true.

She nods, but it’s clear she doesn’t believe me. She looks like a wet bird, thick black hair sticking to the sides of her face. She’s always struggled not to take responsibility for things beyond her control. “It’s happening all the time now.”

It happened every few weeks at first; now, it seems like it’s every other night. Yet, the only weight she’s lost is because the stress has stopped her eating. I sit down, and wrap an arm around her. She doesn’t lean into me, remaining frigid against my shoulder, so I let go quickly.

“Go make a cup of tea. I’ll put new sheets down.”

I move efficiently, well-practiced. There’s a guilty satisfaction in this, the way she needs me, the way these movements are a well-tread pattern.

We get back into bed around three forty-five. I know even as I’m drifting off that she won’t go back to sleep. It’s something she’s always envied in me, that I could fall asleep as soon as my head hit a pillow.

•••

When I get back from uni, Alia isn’t home. I can track her movement through the flat before she left though; there’s a cereal box on the counter, a bowl half-filled with oat milk balanced on one of the sagging sofa cushions. The shoe rack we’d rescued from someone’s front garden a few months ago is holding not just our trainers and boots now, but also several scarfs and a purple hat that she dropped there in her hurry. I pick up the bowl on my way through—and see she’s left the TV on, though it’s gone to a screensaver now. I flick it back on, reality TV stars filling the flat with the comfort of mindless chatter. I wash everything up, and put things away. In the bedroom, I take stock of the clothes strewn across the duvet. She’s always been an anxious dresser, switching between tops and trousers and skirts at least six times just to go to the supermarket. I leave them there, slinking back into the living room and flopping down on the sofa.

I never know what to do with myself when she isn’t around. Scrolling through my phone, there’s no one I can think of to text. Instead, I turn the TV down and pull up some of the essays I’m meant to be reading for my next seminar. When I get up to go to the bathroom an hour later, I play a podcast to keep me company. The quiet of the flat always reminds me of when I first moved to the city. Before I knew anyone. Before I found a life raft in Alia.

I’m just coming back to my seat when the automatic light flickers on outside. Her silhouette appears in the front door’s frosted pane. I’ve gotten into the habit of counting the seconds before she puts the key in the lock. It’s up to twenty now. Twenty seconds of waiting before she can bring herself to come in. It’s hard to swallow, the way the time keeps ticking up.

She gives me a tired smile when she comes in. “You’re home.”

“Where were you?” I say. I hate, immediately, the neediness of it. I don’t miss her flinch.

“I was just out with Priya. Her boyfriend broke up with her.”

“She’s the one with the long distance guy in Berlin, right?”

“No, that’s Meg. Priya’s boyfriend is in my class.” When we first started going out, the friends she kept making over our first year at uni sort of became my friends too. But now she has so many, it’s difficult to keep up. I make the grimace I think she wants from me. She lingers by the front door, taking her coat off like it’s made of sugar glass.

She looks on the verge of saying something, but I interrupt with, “Shall I make dinner?”

“But you’re already doing so much.”

“It’s okay, I like doing it.”

We’ve had this discussion before—calling it an argument would make it sound vicious, which it’s not. We stopped fighting a long time ago. Instead, she gives in and I busy myself in the kitchen while she showers. It’s for the best. If we really argued about it, we’d both have to admit the only thing I’m not doing is the thing she actually needs.

We eat the pasta at the wobbly table we’ve managed to shove in behind the sofa.

“Don’t you like it? We can get takeaway if you want.”

She shakes her head. “No, I love it.” She gives me a smile and shovels a forkful into her mouth. She smiles again once she’s swallowed, as if to confirm her statement. But she would swallow rat poison if she thought that would avoid hurting me.

“How’s the dissertation coming?” I ask.

“It’s okay. I need to do another thousand words before Friday.” She makes a face. “Advisor meeting with Fred.”

“Can I help in any way?”

“No, it’s okay,” she says. She sighs, turning her eyes away.

We should have posted up in front of the television, really. Something to drown out the squishing sounds of eating and the scraping of metal against the ugly porcelain plates my aunt gave me. To distract from how the lack of sleep has left her undereyes a bruised purple, or that her skin is patchy and pale, or that her eyes are glazed. Still, it’s nice to sit across from her and watch her, the delicate movements of her hands and the way she chews everything slowly. She’s got some kind of aura that makes it hard not to watch her. Everyone loves her, including me.

Alia does the washing up. With her back to me and the rush of water drowning out the intention in her words, she says, “Elaine… Are you happy here?”

I freeze midway through getting up from the table, hovering over my chair. I’m too hot, suddenly. Even my fingertips start to sweat. Her back gives me nothing to work with. I lick my lips, swallow. “In the flat?”

“No, like in general.” 

I try to slow my breathing. I will not cry. I know she means well, but she doesn’t realise what she’s asking. Could she really adapt back to loneliness after tasting the other side? Why burn down what we already have? Does she not feel the cavernous emptiness of this flat when only one of us is here? Does she not remember what it was like, back before we found each other?

She hasn’t thought it through. That’s all.

I don’t have the strength to say anything but, “Yeah, pretty much.”

I wait, I dread. But she can’t say it either.

•••

It’s barely audible above the hum of traffic outside, but Alia’s weeping wakes me up anyway.

I never mind being woken. There’s a treacherous part of me that likes her better like this, in the dark. During the day, she is always so distant. But at night, I can convince myself that she needs me.

“Alia?” I whisper. She stops abruptly. I turn over, touching her arm. My hand comes away sticky. I sit up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and concentrating until I can see her: lit by the glow of streetlights filtering in through our thin curtains.

She hasn’t shed yet. She’s like a patchwork doll: I can see all her seams as the skin starts to come away, even if she hasn’t shucked it yet. The first time this happened, we’d tried to tuck her back into herself, pinching the folds of skin together like pie crust. I didn’t suspect then, what it might mean. I don’t think she had either, or it probably wouldn’t have started in the first place.

Reaching down to touch her now, she blocks my hand.

“But I can help,” I say. She shakes her head. Her eyes shine in the dim light.

I can’t help myself, and I push her hand out of the way so I can hold her. I need that closeness. I need that sanctuary. She’s stiff under me, but that’s okay. I contain enough love for the both of us. I whisper my affection into the sharp corner of her collar bone.

“Elaine…”

I look up. Her gaze is locked on the ceiling. I can see it, bubbling up inside her. But there are too many holes in this dam for my fingers to plug up. “Please, Alia,” I tell her, “I’m just so scared.” 

There’s the silence while I wait to see if she’ll shatter our life together. She must be able to feel the tension in my body, my fingers too tight around her arm. She must know what it’s doing to me, the same way I know what I’m doing to her.

“You can’t be happy with this,” she says slowly.

“I am.” My voice is strained, the words trembling in the dark room. I don’t know why it’s so hard to say it with conviction. “Of course I am.” 

I pull her close into me, the whole dead weight of her. Some of her skin peels back under my hands, and blood slicks my palms. A wet sob bursts from her, but then she settles herself again to a low blubbering cry.

“I can’t stay in this,” she chokes out.

I nod, sitting up. It must be uncomfortable, skin sloughing off of her while she lies there. “Here, I’ll help.”

I begin to push the skin back from around her right arm, trying my best to be gentle with her and ignoring just how warm it is when it’s this freshly shed. But she only looks at me, bewildered.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“We’ll get you into the shower.” My heart is thudding.

“I—Elaine,” she says. “I don’t want this. Stop!”

But I don’t stop. I hook my fingers into the moist folds, peeling it back and revealing her fresh skin beneath. She tries to wriggle away from me, and it’s only when she cries out that I relent. I draw back. I’m breathing hard, and so is she, I see.

There are tears in her eyes. Fresh ones. The blood is sticky and syrupy up to my wrists. I wipe it off against the sheets. They’ll have to go into the rubbish anyway.

“What if I’m not?” she says, finally. “Happy, I mean.” 

The answer to that is so terrifyingly huge that I can’t risk thinking about it. All I want to do is bury myself into her shoulder, but I know she would only push me away.

When it’s clear she won’t let us move on without an answer, I say, “You used to be happy.” It feels desperate. There’s so much shame welling up that if I tried to face it, I’d drown.

“I love you so much, Alia.” Before I can stop them, the words tumble out: “Are you really going to give up on us?”

Her shoulders drop. She’s quiet. Nausea squirms in my bowels. I know what the words do to her, but this is the only way to convince her.

“I think if we just work at things, and make some changes, you’ll be happy again, I promise. I know—I know I’m too much of a homebody, and I have to change that. We’ll go on more dates. I’ll—I’ll make more friends so you can have the flat to yourself sometimes. Does that sound okay?”

She brings a hand up to wipe tears away, and takes some of the loose skin with her when she does. She nods, but the tension in her jaw is still there.

“We’ll work at things, okay?” I repeat. “I promise. Will you come shower now? So I can clean all this up?”

She gulps some air in. Then lets me help her up. I go through the routine, bagging up the skin in the sheets and changing the covers. This time I go into the bathroom so I can dry her when she gets out, and she lets me, though she’s still stiff. That’s okay, she’ll thaw after a while, I know it.

Daylight is creeping in by the time we get back to bed. Her heartbeat flutters like a bird’s beneath the flat of my palm as I curl around her. She lets me do it. I know, like I always know, that I’ll be the only one sleeping tonight. I wish I could stay up with her, but I’m exhausted and heavy.

I have to do it. That’s all I try to remind myself as I’m falling asleep. My nose is in her hair, and she smells of rose and coconut, like home. I have to do it. I just love her too much to let her go—or, I suppose, not enough. But I can’t think about that. Instead I just focus on the moment, holding tight to her body as it trembles beside me.