After about a month, the hugs from the other moms stopped and no one else touched Willow. No one tickled her arm before bed, or let her sit in their lap. No one ran their fingers through her hair or held her hand when she crossed the street. No one hugged her or kissed her. No one even grazed by her in the hallways at school.
It left an insatiable hunger on the surface of Willow’s skin.
And without any deliberate thought about it, Willow began to feed that hunger herself. She started sucking vigorously on her arms while her teachers scribbled on the chalkboard. She would fold her arm at her elbow, nuzzle her face into the crease, press her lips into her skin and then suck, suck, suck, like a nursing infant. And Willow sucked her skin so quickly, so rhythmically, so regularly, that her arms were left spotted with raw red hickeys.
And then there was the braiding and unbraiding her hair. All day. Every day. Incessantly. Until now, Willow’s curls had been springy and excited. But now, the constant self-touching had caused them to take on an entire life of their own. Each ribbed strand now thrust itself from Willow’s scalp in every imaginable direction as if it were trying to escape. And each coil developed its own protective web of frizz. All of the braiding and unbraiding, twisting and untwisting, left a wild knot atop Willow’s head.
And then there were the scratches on her left shoulder blade. Rex noticed these even before Willow had. He noticed how his daughter had been nervously hanging her right wrist over her left shoulder and running her nails up and down her back. Up and down, up and down, until her shoulder bled so slightly from those three thin red lines. And even when scabs formed on those scrapes, Willow would scratch and scratch until they fell off and bled so lightly again.
Between the collateral damage of the skin sucking, hairpulling, shoulder scratching, the red eyes from sleepless nights and the faint smell of urine that now followed her around, Willow Thorpe had turned into some kind of barely recognizable monster.
When Willow walked by her classmates, her teachers, even some strangers, she would catch them wince when they saw her skinny body bouncing and scratching and sucking beyond her control.
* * *
Walking down the driveway after another spring day at Robert Kansas Elementary School, Willow noticed that her brother’s pockets were unreasonably full. It was not uncommon for Asher to keep things tucked away in the depth of his jacket. Asher was always finding things he wanted to carry around with him. Things he was sure he would play with later even though he seldom did. Funny-shaped sticks. A flattened penny. Strange flowers. Packets of ketchup.
But today, Asher’s pockets bulged more aggressively than usual. As they walked through the front door, Willow opened her mouth to ask about the pockets, but quickly decided to keep silent. She didn’t feel like talking. So she followed her typical path through the foyer, up the back stairs and into her room. Her bones naturally carried her up there onto her bed with her new book of word searches her father had bought her. And then her eyes naturally started scanning the grid like she did every afternoon. She sank into her big lacy blue pillow waiting to find reprieve in the monotony of circling those groups of letters.
But then there was a knock on the door. And Asher’s voice behind it.
“Willow, awe you in thewe?”
“Yeah, Ash. Come in.”
Asher pushed his sister’s door open and stood there in his green hooded jacket with the bulging pockets.
Willow laughed a little bit. He looked so small, so silly, with those little hands and those big pockets.
“Asher, we’re not outside anymore. You can take your jacket off, you know.”
Asher thrust his tiny hands into his pockets and started to fidget.
“Well, I had to go to the nuwse in school today because I huwt my toe on wecess. And I saw that she had so many Band-Aids. And when she wasn’t looking I took a lot for you and I put thum in my pockets.”
“Band-Aids?”
“Yeah. Because your awms. All those things on thum. It looks like they huwt and maybe you wanted some Band-Aids.”
Willow felt her eyes filling up with tears. They were tears of embarrassment. Embarrassment that she couldn’t contain how much she was hurting.
They were tears of love. Love for her little brother who wanted to take care of her.
They were tears of relief. Relief that somebody was looking out for her.
Willow was quiet while she looked at her brother in the doorway and tried to swallow the lump in her throat.
Asher was standing there fidgeting. And then he continued talking. “Well, I just didn’t know if we had any in the house ow not.”
Willow’s mind went blank and her whole body relaxed. She looked straight into her brother’s clear, warm, loving blue eyes. And he looked right back at her. Into her sad, desperate, writhing brown eyes.
“Hewe you go, Willow,” Asher said so simply as he pulled one Band-Aid, and then another, and then another, and then another Band-Aid out of his pocket. He created a big pile of them on the floor. And then took the final one from his pocket and unpeeled the waxy paper.
Willow slowly and silently extended her arm out to Asher. Her thin arm covered in raw red sores. Her thin and needy arm. And she let her brother place one, and then another, and then another, and then another Band-Aid on her.
She watched without a word as Asher was so gentle. So kind. So calm. So sweet.
Willow silently wondered what kind of Band-Aids her brother needed. She wondered what was hurting him.
It must be something.
But when every Band-Aid was stuck on Willow’s arms, and their wax paper shells were scattered all over Willow’s bedroom floor, Asher smiled and skipped out of his sister’s room with his green hooded jacket in hand. His light-up shoes blinked as he made his way down the hallway.
Willow went into the bathroom to look at her new Band-Aid armor in the mirror. She looked ridiculous all covered up in those sticky beige strips that didn’t quite match the color of her skin. Those sticky beige strips that Asher applied at random angles all over her arms. And she laughed. She laughed and laughed until she cried big and full tears. Big tears full of sadness and also full of happiness. Big tears full of anguish but also full of hope.
This was the first time she had allowed someone that wasn’t Mom to love her so directly. This was the first time she had allowed someone else to care for her. Soothe her. Console her.
And it felt good.
Because for so long Willow had pushed everyone out if they didn’t love her, play with her, talk to her, love her in just the way she liked. She wouldn’t bend for anyone. But it was a tragic mistake. A mistake so many of the people around her made, as well.
But some of that was starting to wash away. And it was exposing something beautiful and pure.