Zoe Markham - Under My Skin

One of the photos in the box is of me and Tom, taken just a few days before the accident. I look so young , and so happy. My eyes are shining. I don’t think I’m quite ready to have this one up on display just yet, because it pulls at what’s left of my heart when I see it. I hardly even recognise myself. I slide it under my mattress for now. The other is of me with Mum and Dad when I was thirteen. We were on holiday in Spain, and we’re all sunburned and tired and smiling. That was the last family holiday we ever had. When we got home, things really ramped up for Dad at the Agency, and he never took more than a day here and there away from the place again. That one hurts too, but it also reminds me of a better time so strongly that I force myself to stand it up on the shelf, and take a good look. I don’t know why it seems more important to face up to it than the Tom photo. Maybe because it was taken longer ago. Maybe because Dad and I are there, and we’re both still here and in this together now, regardless of what happened before. Maybe it can somehow help me to remember who I was. Who I am.

I look for safer ground, I don’t want to start crying again for fear that I won’t be able to stop. Don’t think . I sort my clothes out next. They don’t even take up a quarter of the built-in wardrobe in here. All my old clothes got boxed up and thrown in with the charity run, and Dad’s had to do all my shopping for me since. Given that today is only the second time I’ve ever left the flat, and also that he’s probably the only person you’ll find who’s less fashion conscious than me, it’s pretty much just a small pile of jeans, t-shirts, lumberjack shirts and hoodies. Comfort clothes. It’s not like I need anything else. I’ve been losing weight steadily since it happened, and most of them are pretty baggy on me now, but I kind of like them that way. It feels like big, heavy clothes cover a multitude of sins.

Dad’s worried about the weight loss thing. The problem is that it’s hard to know anything for certain any more. Seeing as I’m such an honest-to-goodness, real life guinea pig, all we can do is wait to see what happens to my body, and hope for the best. Part of me really wishes he hadn’t quit the Agency, however dangerous he says it was; because now if anything goes wrong… well… I’m not supposed to think about it. Don’t think. I’m waiting for that reaction to become automatic, but I suppose I’m not quite there yet. Nothing good ever comes from thinking about it all. A person could go mad pretty quick that way. Anyway, he’s got this research post at the hospital down here now, something to do with stem cells, saying it’s the nearest he can get to having the same kind of resources as before, so I suppose I just have to sit tight and hope that he’ll work it all out. Somehow.

‘I do know what I’m doing Chlo,’ he’s told me, more times than I can remember, but I worry that he does it as much to convince himself as me. ‘The Royal has some of the most up-to-date equipment available, and one of the biggest research budgets in the country. I didn’t just pick this place for the views.’ He’s put so much effort into it all. All the time I was sedated he never stopped working. And he still never stops. He must be confident this job will give him everything he needs, even though he’s going to have to do all his ‘Project Chloe’ work in secret. I mean, it’s not something you’d want to have to explain to your new boss. Oh, this? I’m just trying to perfect my death vaccine! Ha. Awkward.

He’s kind of like a twisted superhero these days. Tirelessly working to save me. I feel bad sometimes that I don’t feel better towards him for it. I know why he’s doing it though, risking everything the way he is: Epic Guilt. He’s trying to make up for what he did to Mum. And I can’t stop myself from wishing that he’d put even a fraction of the effort in when she was still alive. The accident was his fault; I do think that, most of the time, but other times I convince myself it was mine. We never talk about it though. It’s like if we don’t say it out loud, it didn’t happen, and that way it can’t destroy us. It has destroyed me though. And here I am trying to hold it together because I don’t really know what else to do; I keep as much of it all on the inside as I can, trying not to let it show, but there isn’t a single day that goes by where I don’t wish that he’d brought Mum back instead of me. I don’t know if I can ever forgive him for that.

I find my diary in the last box. I never kept one before all this, but when I was first starting to get better, Dad thought it might be a good idea for me to start writing one. It was a pretty poor substitute for being able to talk to someone, but I suppose it did help, in a way. It was all the emails and texts and tweets I could never send. Flicking through the pages my stomach twists as I see how weak and spidery my handwriting was. I close it again quickly, but not before some of the words leap out at me: frightened, confused, weak, alone. They’re like ghosts. I don’t want to see them. I don’t want to remember how I felt. And most of all I don’t want to admit that really, nothing’s changed. I’m still all of those things, I’ve just got a little better at hiding it. I wear my mask, even when it’s just me and Dad. Hell, I wear it even when it’s just me. I don’t dare take it off. Act happy Chlo, take the piss Chlo, don’t think Chlo. I slide the photo of me and Tom back out from under my mattress, slip it into the diary, and shut both of them in the bottom of the wardrobe.

With the boxes all empty, I fold them down flat and fling them out of the window. It’s easier than carrying them down the stairs, and I’ll ask Dad to go out and move them later; if he falls over them in the morning I’ll never hear the end of it.

I’m starting to ache again from bending and stretching, so I treat myself to a long soak in the elaborately sunken bath in my en suite. Dad had to help me in and out of the narrow, cracked tub in the flat, it was pretty manky and he was always worrying that I’d fall, always hovering outside the door just in case. Having a bath on my own like this, well, it’s a rare treat. Dad shouts in that he’s heading down to try and sort things out in his ‘office’, which means the creepy, cobweb-filled basement. It was on his list of must-haves for the new house – not the cobwebs, I mean, but a basement. I don’t know what it is with him and them, I’d be happy to never see one again. I yell back a ‘’kay!’ and then sink my head under the water and lose myself in the heavy, salty warmth.

The salts I have to use each day feel like heaven while I’m in the water, but if I don’t use the shower to rinse off properly before I get out they scratch like crazy through the night. It’s such a bloody complicated process. Dad developed them himself, but, like everything, he’s still ‘tweaking’ them. I’m still running as ‘Chloe 1.1’ – he says there’s a long way to go yet. If I soak in them for at least thirty minutes a night, my skin looks clearer and brighter in the morning. An hour’s better, but some nights I just can’t be bothered, even though I know I should. It’ll be easier here, in a warm bathroom that isn’t crawling with mould. It’s my face that needs the salts the most, which of course is the one part of me it isn’t really easy to submerge for long. I soak my flannel in the mineral-enriched water, and lay it over my face, recharging it every few minutes as much for something to do as anything else. The heat of the water feels good on my back and legs, and after my meal and my soak combined I feel better than I have done all day as I shower off and then towel myself dry. Better than I have done in months. If I could feel like this all the time, I don’t think it would be so bad. It would be maybe a little easier to forget about things, at least. Not thinking might come a bit more naturally. I keep wondering if I should ask Dad if he can make me a pill for that.