Scars (163)

PSI-3

“I’m going to put you on a twelve by thirty-six canvas!” Calliope declared, sketching. “Or bigger! Like behind the bar in a saloon! I’ll put red silk wallpaper in the background… or gold. It depends what looks better with your hair. You mind if I take you to Rust’s and find an oil that looks good with your hair, Ann? Or Milo. I don’t mind. But if it’s Milo we’re gonna buy way more stuff…”

“We don’t mind at all, dear,” Ann said, smiling. “Will tomorrow afternoon be soon enough? Milo would love to go today, but we need to get ready for the party tonight. Are you just about done?”

Calliope’s pencil slowed to a halt. “Oh, yeah.” She put it and the sketchpad on the art table and sat back, blinking. She pulled off her glasses and made a weak smile. “I’m sorry, Ann. I shouldn’t have started. I kinda get tunnel vision. You guys aren’t going to be very happy with me if I’m thinking about that darn drape all night instead of meeting your nice friends.”

Ann sat up on the bed and carefully gathered the tasteful drape into her lap. They were using a bedsheet, but Calliope was trying to make it look like velvet for the painting. In true saloon-girl style, she was posing horizontally with her chest exposed. It was quite obvious she was a man made-up like a woman, but Calliope said that was the point. The drape was more of an homage to the genre than an attempt at hiding the truth. Ann thought posing nude was rather amusing, if a bit chilly. Milo would’ve been too self-conscious to make a very good model. “We’ll be thrilled just to have you there, darling,” she said. “And everyone at the club is very understanding…”

“That lady Cerise is mean,” Calliope said, frowning.

Ann’s smile faded and she sat forward, “That lady Cerise has had a hard life, Calliope. You’ve been lucky, your family love you and support you no matter what. No matter how bad it gets, you’ve got backup. She never had that. She had to grow up hiding who she was and when she finally told everyone about it she lost everything. She isn’t always kind… but she didn’t have anyone to teach her kindness, and now she doesn’t trust it. She’s doing her best.”

“Milo’s really lucky he had you,” Calliope said.

“I don’t like to call it luck,” Ann said. She shook her head. “It was work. It was a lot of hard work to be both of us. It still is. But I suppose we were lucky. Both of us.”

“I did something that might make you mad,” Calliope said. “Can I show you?”

“Oh, of course, dear, but I’m sure…”

“Don’t,” Calliope said. She picked up the sketchpad and sat next to Ann on the bed. “This is you. I did it like you wanted.”

It was a detailed sketch of a smiling gentleman done up to look like a woman, but a very good woman, with beautiful long wavy hair cascading all over the bed… and a somewhat less detailed drape with ragged lines and faint shadows keeping him compliant with public decency laws. At Ann’s request, Calliope had omitted the scars. “It’s supposed to be sort of funny, isn’t it, dear?” she’d said. “Then let’s leave them out. It detracts from the point you’re making about gender roles.” The smiling almost-a-woman had smooth, pretty arms, with just a suggestion of hair. Ann was quite pleased with them. She pictured herself much more this way, although she might ask Calliope to give her a manicure — as long as she was going to be flattering.

“It looks lovely, dear! I don’t know why you’d think I’d be…”

“I didn’t ask if I could draw this,” Calliope said. She flipped over a page.

The pose and the flowing dark hair were identical — and the drape remained a frustrated suggestion — but the smile and the makeup and the flawless arms were not.

He was wearing his glasses.

“Oh,” Ann said.

Oh, Ann. I would never…

The pose was the same, but there was a tension in it, a difference in the shape of the muscles which, when coupled with the uncertainty in the eyes above the faint smile, gave the impression that the figure was about to bolt.

…If I did, I’d look like that. With the scars.

“If you don’t like it I’ll get rid of it,” Calliope said. “If you do you can have it. For your birthday, and the other one when I’m done with it. But I won’t show that one to anyone or make a big canvas. I just wanted to see it but then I felt bad.”

“It’s…” Ann said. “It looks just like him.”

“I would’ve felt better about it if I messed up and it didn’t,” Calliope said. “Are you guys mad?”

“No,” Ann said painfully. She brushed the image with a fingertip, but she didn’t scratch or rub to smudge out the detail. She could have, she wanted to, but she didn’t. “Why did you draw the scars?”

“It’s not a statement on gender roles, it’s my friend and he looks like that.”

“It’s not…” Ann said. She caught herself. “Milo thinks it’s not pretty.”

I think Milo is pretty and I’m not having an opinion about the drawing yet.

“I think you guys are beautiful,” Calliope said. She tilted her head, considering. “How do you mean ‘pretty,’ Ann? I don’t think it’s like normal people. They say that whenever something looks nice, you mean more.”

“Well… A pretty thing has value, dear,” Ann said. “That’s how we mean it. It doesn’t look like it does for no reason. It has a purpose. It performs a function, and does it well. You know how people say form follows function? Milo and I believe that. That makes a thing good, and that makes people want it. You don’t have to need a thing for it to be pretty, but you have to want it. Someone has to want it, anyway.” She gave a little laugh.

“You guys don’t want your scars?” Calliope said.

———

They tried to explain what they were doing and why, but they wanted him to sit still and look them in the eye and listen, and that was not a thing he did anymore. On principle. He absorbed the relevant points and then stared at the ceiling, thinking of dresses. There was a hole in the ceiling of the Mother Superior’s Office. You could see clouds and blue sky up there. It was a lot more friendly than the Mother Superior, he thought they should’ve put that in a long time ago.

They didn’t want him at the workhouse anymore because he was too old. He had to give back the uniform and pick out new clothes from the donated clothes. That was great.

There weren’t any dresses in with the clothes they gave him to pick from and that was less great. But he found a red shirt and some light brown pants that fit, nothing gray, and that was okay.

Then they walked him outside and closed the gate behind him and that wasn’t okay at all.

He kinda had this idea, from when he used to play outside, that it might be nice on the other side of the gate. You know? Birds and trees. Grass. Guys selling ice cream — rainbow sherbet. And balloons, in all the colors. Maybe they’d let him do that.

Nobody asked him if he’d like a job selling balloons or ice cream. There weren’t any balloons or ice cream. Everything was broken, some of it was on fire, and there were dead bodies in the canals — and some in the buildings and streets.

Later, it occurred to him that they must’ve thrown him out onto the street in the middle of a siege with nothing but a set of used clothing on his fifteenth birthday. He thought that was truly hilarious. He would’ve laughed until he cried, if he could’ve laughed. He couldn’t tell anyone about how funny it was, though. Even now. That was too dark. He wouldn’t laugh about that if he heard about it happening to another person. They’d think he was sick.

Ann knew. She didn’t think it was funny, but she understood.

He thought about going back to the workhouse and trying to get in. He had to admit to thinking about it. But he never tried. Not even after he hurt himself biting and he was so thirsty but he couldn’t get up and find water and he thought he might die.

He had accepted that he was going to hell a long time ago. He’d made his peace with it. Hell was not supposed to be a nice place, but, looking at it rationally, people like the sisters back at the workhouse were supposed to go to heaven — and they couldn’t do anything but crap it up and make everyone miserable. Hell was made to punish bad people, but they put the bad people in charge of it, so Milo thought they wouldn’t really be into it like the sisters and the angels in heaven. At the very least they would take a lot of coffee breaks.

There might be machines in hell. If there were, they would put him in charge of fixing them, once they figured out how great he was at it. Maybe he could get an office with a desk like the Mother Superior. Only he’d be nice to people and have a pretty dress.

But even if hell was worse than the workhouse somehow, he’d rather go there than go back. At least hell would be new, like all the awful stuff outside was new. Yeah, the outside was definitely trying to kill him, and it was scary and hard — and disappointing — but figuring it out had a dreadful fascination. Like taking apart that sewing machine, even though he knew he wasn’t supposed to. Getting in trouble with the sisters and dying and going to hell were weighted about the same, to Milo’s mind. And, again, hell was slightly more positive.

Going to hell didn’t require him to turn around and tell people he hated that they were right about how ‘mentally-deficient’ he was and he needed them.

The workhouse was safe and he got his meals on time and a real bed — and he missed that stuff so much sometimes it hurt — but it was boring. He thought it was bad for his brain, like the sisters said sugar was bad for your teeth. He had figured out the workhouse ages ago and he was all out of machines to take apart.

Outside was still a little light on the machines, honestly, but it needed constant taking apart and understanding. He learned most things, like not biting unless he could clean it and hiding in basements from shelling but not sleeping in them because of the gas, by almost dying. But he didn’t die. And every day alive and not dead in a canal was an affirmation of how brilliant he was. He was smarter and luckier than all those dead people!

Mainly smarter. He was pretty sure.

After the boy with the broom gave him a sandwich, he rediscovered human interaction as a resource instead of an obstacle, and that was a huge help. He’d sort of forgotten people could be nice sometimes, which in retrospect seemed like a silly thing to forget.

Then again, those guys did beat him up and steal his shoes, so being around people wasn’t all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows in any case. He was never going to forget that.

The boy with the broom had also taught him about trading things, and something else he didn’t used to know about himself. At least not specifically.

He still couldn’t remember the substance of the yelling, but he knew there had been yelling and he knew what it was about. That was simple cause and effect.

He was living in and around this abandoned storefront with a broken front window and a bunch of cameras at the time. It was a good location and fairly safe, with a semi-covered basement nearby, but he was there for the cameras. They didn’t have any film — it looked like some soldiers broke in earlier and used it all, they left their pictures on the floor — but it was so much fun having something to play with that wasn’t trying to kill him.

There was a big heavy dining table on the second storey which he liked to sleep under. The morning after the yelling, when it was light enough to see, he crawled out from under that table, rolled up his sleeves and took stock of himself.

Okay, so these are wrong.

He knew he was wrong, like, in general. As a person. He was a wrong person. He did wrong things which caused other people, people who were not wrong, to bang into him and yell at him. Like he was driving through life with his gears stuck in reverse. Or maybe on the wrong side of the road. He was perfectly okay tooling along by himself but if another car came up there was going to be an accident. This might range from a ding in the door to a total disaster which got him put in a straitjacket. It was better to pull off the road and hide, even if this ended with him curled up in a bombed-out block of flats with an infected bite wound and nobody to help him.

But, because of the sandwiches, now he was in accident range again. And, weirdly enough, it turned out there was a certain amount of wrong he could get away with. Not talking to people and not looking at them and even stealing stuff were okay… Not good, but within a boundary of okayness that would still allow him access to painless sandwiches. People outside had different tolerances than the sisters in the workhouse. Better tolerances, some of them.

Yet, somehow, he had jeopardized his sandwich access just by looking the way he did. The sisters already knew what he looked like and why. He made sure they never caught him actually hurting himself — because he preferred not to be in a straitjacket, thank you very much. They used to do that to make him stop. He knew liking to hurt himself was wrong. But… just existing with evidence of being hurt was enough to upset people?

He tried to apply logic: Can he tell I did it to myself and I like doing that and that’s why?

There was a bathroom downstairs. The toilet was cracked and didn’t have water anymore. The sink dispensed a slow leak which he collected in a cracked bowl and had decided after careful experimentation was okay to drink. There was a mirror over the sink with cracks and a big piece missing out of the middle. He couldn’t look at his face and his body at the same time.

He stood in front of that mirror and took off his shirt, like the boy had done, unbuttoning carefully from top to bottom. He tied it around his waist by the sleeves.

That looked a little like a skirt and it distracted him, but he had to figure out the scars before he saw the boy again. He didn’t have time for playing pretend right now. There was food on the line.

He drank the few sips of water that had collected in the bowl and examined himself in pieces.

There were cuts and bruises, but that was him all over. The boy was hurt like that too. He saw lots of people with cuts and bruises, and even big bandages or pieces missing. That must be normal. That must be okay. There was a white bandage on his left forearm with a pink stain soaking through. He had done that when it got really loud. Shelling. They said that was called ‘shelling.’ He did not like shelling. He preferred gas to shelling. Either might kill him but at least the gas was quiet about it.

Is that it? he wondered. Just that something hurt me recently and that’s scary? He’s worried I might die and go to hell and there wouldn’t be anyone to do sandwiches with anymore?

That was too cute. He discounted it. The boy had started giving him sandwiches to make him stop stealing. If he died, he wouldn’t steal anymore and the boy could have all the sandwiches and chocolate to himself. They called that kind of thing a ‘win-win.’ Besides, the boy already knew he was getting hurt and might die, that was true for everyone.

Knowing what he knew now, he did have to look back on that and wonder if the boy really was worried about him dying. But he still thought what he decided next was a lot closer to the truth.

He had some bites that were scabbed over and healing, and he touched them and investigated them, then he took a step back and spread his arms to get the whole picture. A pale, headless torso like a murder victim, with random cuts and bruises and then all these obvious, overlapping pink circles and half-circles, some healing and a new wound in the same place.

The bite marks were wrong and the cuts and bruises were okay because the bite marks looked like they were on purpose. And in progress.

I look abused! he told his reflection. It didn’t smile, he couldn’t do that. He looked like a doll with a porcelain face. But he thought if he tipped his head just the right way and looked into his eyes, you could tell he thought that was funny as hell.

He winked one eye shut and stuck out his tongue just to prove there was a real person in there.

Upon further examination, he decided that you could kinda tell he was doing it to himself. The bites only went up as far as he could reach. He wasn’t sure if the boy had figured that out, but he wasn’t going to get another chance. Milo shrugged back into his shirt, carefully fastened the sleeves and did up all the buttons. He spread out his arms and had another look.

Now I’m normal! Ta-da!

He was just being silly. He was never going to pass for normal. But if he was careful, he thought he could go back to being a harmless weirdo and not a victim of abuse. He checked, and you couldn’t tell he had scars from holding his hands over the lamp unless you squished your fingers into his palms and felt around, and you couldn’t see how he chewed the inside of his mouth sometimes. There was a bruise on his forehead that might’ve been there from hitting his head on the wall, but even he wasn’t sure about that.

I’ll be careful and hit the back of my head from now on! he told himself.

He didn’t have to worry about that for very long. The boy had disappeared soon after, and he didn’t have any more friends until Ann. And Ann was…

Ann was a completely different problem.

After the boy had gone, he had to figure out how to get sandwiches for himself. He couldn’t do talking and touching and he doubted he’d be able to convince anyone else to bribe him not to steal. They’d just go back to throwing things at him.

He decided he would take things from the dead people in the streets. The ones in the canals were all slimy and rotten and even he was scared of them, but the ones in the streets and bombed buildings were more okay. He knew how to fix clothes and get out the stains from doing laundry in the workhouse before. He would always clap his hands or make a loud noise somehow to make sure they were dead and not sleeping, and then he’d apologize to the Man Joshua — but not too much. He was still pretty sure he was going to hell. Maybe he’d get a promotion for the grave robbing.

Being a weirdo with mysterious clean, mended clothes to sell was worth some food, and all he had to do was point at things and nod or shake his head. The black pants for the can of spaghetti and the jar of peaches. No, and the jar of peaches. How about for the can of spaghetti and that loaf of bread? Yes? Super! Now how about this jacket?

He thought about the dress for a long time before he tried to get one. He knew a dress for a boy was wrong, and maybe that was over the line and they wouldn’t sell him food anymore. There were dead ladies sometimes with dresses and he thought about keeping one of those, but he didn’t want a dead lady’s dress, not even if he cleaned it up and made it nice. He’d know it was a dead lady’s dress. He’d know what she looked like and remember taking it off her. If he bought a dress, at least he’d be able to pretend.

It came to him one night when there was shelling and he was hiding in the basement, hoping there wouldn’t be any gas, and trying to think of anything else. He would make up a girlfriend and say the dress was for her! He almost got up and wandered off to look for a paper and pencil right then and there. A big piece of metal caromed off the haphazard shield spell he’d put together to keep off the shrapnel and brought him back to his senses, but as soon as it was safe and light out he started looking for something to write with. He found paper, and he ended up buying the pencil.

I want to buy a present for my girlfriend, he thought he would write. Do you have any dresses?

Any P-R-E-T-T-Y dresses, he amended, chewing on the crimped metal end that no longer contained an eraser. Do you have any specifically pretty dresses — because I’m not buying a crummy one.

But he found out a new thing about himself because of the dress. He hadn’t written anything except numbers and truncated magical notation for a long time — years! — and when he needed the words, when they were important and he might get in trouble for getting them wrong… They just weren’t there. He couldn’t write. He couldn’t even write.

Later, he found out that if he made himself safe and alone and he had more paper or an eraser for screwups, he could write. But he didn’t know that then. Not for a long time. He’d cried and he’d thought about dying — but even that wouldn’t have fixed him. He’d just be dead and in hell and all the demons would think he was weird. They’d throw hot coals at him and tell him to go back to hell’s laundry.

He thought that was funny. He drew hell’s laundry on the paper, just to make himself feel better. It wasn’t like it was any good for him to write on. He was giving one of the laundry demons a frilly apron when it finally clicked. He flipped over the paper and drew a dress. He put a question mark next to it. An interrogative dress. Dress?

The next day at the starcatchers’ market, he offered a flawless white shirt that even had all its buttons and he showed around the paper with the picture of hell’s laundry on the back. On the front he had made up a pretty woman with long wavy hair, like he made up a friend for school at the workhouse. He put hearts around her blank face. He had also drawn a wrapped package with a bow on it. Girlfriend — Present — Dress?

He was scared they wouldn’t understand, but they did. They thought it was funny. There were three whole dresses in the market and they let him pick. He chose one with red, blue and green flowers on a faded yellow background. It had a black stain on it like his red shirt used to, but he could fix that! They had brown paper and string and they wrapped it up for him. They said they hoped she liked it.

He guessed he told everyone he was buying that dress for Ann before he even knew it himself.

He made Yule. It was summer. It didn’t matter. He stacked up some of the loose cobbles to make a triangle tree and drew a sun with wings on the top one. He ate dinner first, a whole can of fruit cocktail, and he had a soda. He unwrapped his present carefully, kneeling among the rubble, and he saved the paper. He had a pencil. He could draw stuff later.

He picked up the folded dress and hugged it, then he unfolded it and admired it and hugged it again. For me? Oh, so pretty! Thank you!

He had to wear his pants underneath, and regular shoes. He only had the dress. It didn’t matter. Look, he was already pretending it was Yule. He had a pretty darn good imagination. He had even imagined that tacky house dress with all the flowers was tasteful.

He’d been striding around the abandoned storefront — in and out of doorways, up and down the stairs, and a lot of spinning to look at the fabric of the skirt. He’d been thinking about getting his ‘girlfriend’ some shoes and some accessories, and about growing his hair out — you know, if he lived — and if it’d still be wavy, or just so long and heavy that it’d pull itself straight. He wasn’t paying attention.

…And he thought he saw someone walking by on the darkened street. A woman.

He scuttled behind the staircase and looked out.

No one there. No one yelled at him and told him to quit doing that and act normal.

He thought maybe he scared her. Like she thought he was a crazy person and she ran away so he wouldn’t murder her — and maybe sew himself a new friend out of her skin like Sean at the Slaughterhouse. He felt bad about that. He approached the broken front window to look for her, maybe to wave at her and try to look friendly — like that would’ve helped any.

He saw her again, but she didn’t have a head.

He spread his arms and spun around in the dress and the headless woman did too. He danced with her, just a few steps, then he folded his arm across his middle and bowed deeply. That was polite. She was a good dancer.

His dance partner’s head came up at the end of the bow and she was smiling at him.

He didn’t think he laughed. He couldn’t do that. But maybe he let out a breath that was like laughing. Anyway, he thought it was funny. He leaned nearer to the glass to confer with his beaming reflection and examine it.

Who is that? Who is that in there?

He touched a finger to the smooth glass and pressed the nose like a button.

That’s not me. I don’t smile that way. That’s not Milo. That’s someone better than Milo. Who is that?

It’s Ann! he decided, not laughing. Ann, from the workhouse! My friend! She can have all the pretty dresses she wants! Hello, Ann! Fancy meeting you here! Did they let you out too?

‘Hello, Milo!’ he thought for her. He was sure that wasn’t really Ann. It was more like a sock puppet, or the fake Yule tree he made. Not a real person. Not Ann.

‘I thought I’d come visit you for Yule!’ he thought. ‘You know, I never was in that awful workhouse. That’s how come they figured out you were lying and they wrote ‘fail’ when you drew me!’

Wow, Ann! Has it always been like this out here?

‘As long as I can remember! But I’m still very young.’

No balloons or ice cream?

‘No! But lots of dead people with clothes to steal! And sometimes a soda!’

That’s pretty good! You know, I love your pretty dress!

‘I have lots! But I love yours too! Of course I love it! I’m wearing it!’

Open-mouthed and grinning — but not laughing — he turned and collapsed against the wall beneath the window. It was jagged and uncomfortable but he couldn’t get up. He couldn’t breathe and he was making an involuntary clicking sound in his throat. He curled over, holding himself, and then he sat up with a sniffle. He wiped his nose with the heel of his palm. It had run. He left a greasy smudge.

Clean your face, Ann. You’re all messy, he told his reflection.

It was a breath, not a laugh. He danced off to examine his pretty dress in what was left of the bathroom mirror. He didn’t do ‘Ann’ again. Not that night.

But the next morning, he thought about it.

He’d fallen asleep in a pile on the bathroom floor, which was not safe because of the gas, and he didn’t have any more food. He sat up and scolded his frozen-face reflection, and then he thought about it.

He couldn’t smile. He tried and couldn’t. He pushed up the corners of his mouth with his fingers, but he couldn’t make his eyes smile. His eyes were too worried about being hungry and not having any food. Even the pretty dress didn’t fix that.

I can’t smile, he thought. I can, but I can’t. Not when I want to. My smile is broken.

Milo’s smile is broken.

He examined the pretty dress and picked up the skirt in his hands. He hugged it and looked at his face in the mirror. No smile, but the eyes were happy.

Can I fix my smile?

Probably. He could fix just about anything. But Milo with a smile would still be driving backwards on the road and in the wrong lane. He’d never been able to fix that. All he could do was crash into people and try not to screw up that specific way again. Then he’d screw up a different way.

He had all these spare parts lying around. They weren’t very good, but he could work with them. He could fix up Milo. The smile. The human interaction. Maybe even the voice. But a ‘Milo’ was a really weird machine and no matter how much he fixed it, it’d still be a weird machine. That was its nature.

On the other hand, if he built something new…

If he made an ‘Ann,’ he could make it work however he wanted. Not like Milo. Better than Milo.

It wasn’t that hard a decision. It was big but not hard. He already knew he was way better at making things than at being a person.

A friend…

My best friend.

He leaned down and regarded his reflection in the mirror. Hi, Ann.

He tried to make her smile.

But having done that, starting to make not just a friend but his best friend who was so close to him they were almost the same person, he had to give up a few things. She didn’t want to wear his glasses. And later she wanted the dress. And all the colors.

Privacy and personal space went out the window almost as fast as the glasses.

It was only a matter of time before he was rocking himself and trying to feel better during some shelling… and a little voice that wasn’t him piped up at the back of his head.

And she didn’t understand.

What are you doing?

He didn’t answer. He was busy. It was really scary and loud.

Stop it! That hurts!

…Stop it! You’re hurting me! Stop it! Stop!

He thought she was crying but he wasn’t sure. There were tears running from his eyes. He should’ve stopped right away, but he couldn’t right away.

He didn’t want to.

He could’ve crushed her to death right then and there. He could’ve told that weak little voice to shut up, that it wasn’t real, that now was not a good time. She was so delicate at the beginning, that would’ve done it. He could’ve built another one, but it would have been another person. Not Ann. Not his best friend from the workhouse.

So he stopped and he hugged himself, shivering. I’m not hurting you, I’m hurting me. I’m not hurting me. It hurts but I like it. It’s my hurt. It’s not scary like what’s happening to me, it’s mine. It feels better because it’s mine.

You’re bleeding! You’re going to die and then I will too!

No, no, no no…

She was scared. He scared her. She felt trapped like he was, trapped in an abandoned building that might collapse and kill her. Under attack from bigger things outside that she couldn’t control. But she wasn’t used to it like he was. He’d been doing this for months. She was new and he tried to protect her.

He ended up on his hands and knees, leaning over the hand mirror from the suitcase while the whole world shuddered and fell apart around them, telling her over and over, pleading with her to understand that it was going to be okay.

She thought he was going to hurt her. She saw the scars and she knew he made them and she thought he would keep making them and hurt her. Before, she had accepted that he looked like that. She didn’t question it or think it was bad. He’d told her about it in the worst possible way and he scared the hell out of her.

Maybe even worse than when he wouldn’t be in the mirror and she thought he’d killed himself. He wasn’t sure. Making her think he was dead was a way worse thing to do to her, but she was older and stronger by then. When she found out about the scars she’d been like a child, maybe not even a child. He felt like Little Red Riding Hood had just figured out she was in bed with the Big Bad Wolf, and he was the wolf. He had to convince her he was one of those nice wolves you never hear about, the kind that don’t eat little girls and just like dressing up.

I won’t hurt you, Ann. I will never hurt you. You’re my best friend…

You hurt my arm!

I hurt my arm. I only hurt me. I’m sorry you feel what I do to me. I’m so sorry, but I can’t…

It’s my arm too, Milo! You did that to my arms! You hurt them all over! What else of me have you hurt?

He almost got mad at her. He was so scared and it was so loud, but he almost got mad at her and started yelling. She was hurting him. He didn’t make a friend so she’d hurt him.

But she didn’t want to be alive to be hurt and she was just as scared as he was.

They were too close. He couldn’t be mad at her without being mad at himself.

I’m sorry, Ann. I didn’t know this was going to be both of us. I’m sorry I made it ugly and wrong, but that happened before you were here and… I can’t fix it. I can’t fix me. I made you instead, but I didn’t think how much it would hurt you to be stuck with me. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I think I can keep it from hurting you when I do that. If I pay attention and I’m careful. I don’t want to hurt you. But I don’t think I can stop hurting me.

…How are we ugly and wrong? We’re not ugly! I’m not ugly! …Am I?

She was more upset about maybe being ugly than about him hurting himself. People were dropping bombs on them trying to kill them and she needed to hear she was pretty. She’d been really vain back at the beginning. Well, he was always telling her she was pretty. She knew it was important.

He slid his hands under his sleeves and he rubbed his arms. The light was orange and flickering. It was hard to see, but they could feel. You’re not ugly, Ann. You’re pretty. My scars are ugly, but they’re not yours, they’re mine. People see them and they know I hurt myself, or they just think someone’s been hurting me and I let them. Either way it’s wrong and they’re disgusted by me. They get mad and don’t like me. They might think that about you if they see my scars when it’s you. That’s my fault. I’m really sorry.

She turned up her nose. He saw it in the mirror. Then they’re not ugly. The thoughts people think about them are ugly. If I catch them thinking that I’ll tell them they’re wrong and stupid and I’m really pretty so they can fuck off.

…Ann, if we tell people to fuck off, they’ll punch us in our nose and we won’t be as pretty. I just hide them under my sleeves, see? Then they don’t know.

I want to have a sleeveless dress like that pretty woman in the magazine! With the spaghetti straps and the open back!

… We’ll talk about it, but I want to have a functioning nose, Ann. Are you okay? Are we okay?

I’m never going to hurt myself that way, Milo. You can, but I won’t. I’m not you.

That’s good, Ann.

He curled up with the mirror and put both hands over his ears. He shut his eyes, but he knew he couldn’t sleep.

That’s good.

She’d been a lot better at not hurting herself than he’d been at not hurting her. But she was a really good friend.

———

And she understood how he felt about the scars.

“Do you think they’re pretty, Calliope?” Ann asked instead. “Or at least not ugly? What do you think?”

Calliope put both hands on Ann’s arm and traced a small circle. Milo fell over dead.

That’s me, okay? She did that to me.

No she didn’t. I’m not you. That’s not fair to her. Now straighten yourself out, I’m not wearing a dress.

“I wouldn’t miss them if you never had them,” Calliope said. “But I like them and I wouldn’t want them to go away. Not if they don’t hurt you.” She drew back. “Milo said they don’t. They don’t, right?”

Ann smiled at her. She rubbed her arm where Calliope had touched. “No, dear. They don’t hurt. But sometimes we worry what people think. That can hurt.”

“I think you guys look like a human leopard and it’s super cool,” Calliope said gravely. “I’d go around wearing A-shirts in the middle of winter if I looked like you guys.”

Ann took Calliope gently by the shoulders, “That’s very sweet, darling. But we like how you look and we wouldn’t want you to catch cold.”

Calliope winced. “Ooh, Ann. Let’s put your dress back on and get ready for the party. Nude modeling is cold too.”

Ann picked up her dress and paused. “Er, Calliope… If you know that from personal experience…” She wavered for a moment with her hand over her mouth. “Please don’t tell Milo about it. He, er… He worries about you, dear.”

“Is he mad I drew him that way?”

“No,” Ann said firmly. “We both think the drawing is pretty, and you’re pretty too.”

Calliope smiled.

Ann, I think… I think I’m not okay going to hell anymore. Even if they have machines. I think Calliope is going to heaven, because she’s a perfect human being. And now I have to figure out how to get there too. Even if the sisters from the workhouse are there. I won’t notice them if Calliope is.

You don’t have to worry about going to heaven, Milo. I’ll talk to them and they’ll have to let us in.

He felt warm, even if he couldn’t smile. Do you promise I won’t have to go to heaven or hell or wherever Calliope wants all by myself?

Of course, Milo. She slipped into the dress and began to fasten the buttons in the back. I’m your best friend!