I leave Jamie in the kitchen to unload the beer and aim for the bathroom. “Dylan?” she calls after me. “Little help here?”
“Be right back,” I say as I head straight for the box nailed underneath the mail slot. I pick through all the letters. Nothing but a bunch of junk mail. How long does it take to check some hormones in a blood test? Seriously. Takes forever apparently, it’s been five days. Five. I leave the mail in the box and shut myself inside the bathroom because I can’t stand my beard. I need it off my face. Time to get rid of this itchy, scratchy reminder of everything I don’t want to be. As soon as I close the door, I exhale at my reflection in the mirror.
I throw the glasses off. They hit the bathtub with a clunk and skid rattling into the drain. I turn on the water in the sink and lather up.
I’m fifteen years old. I want to be carded.
My face sheared, I breathe a little easier and pat dry with a towel. I slip off the sports coat and plunk it on an empty hook. Jamie wedges the door open with her toe, two bottles in each hand. “Oh no, your beard is gone.”
“So?”
She hands me the full bottle. It’s cold. Ice cold. Every ad I’ve seen since I was a baby has made beer in glass bottles out to be nectar of the gods. It’s amazing, the happy music and bikini girls won’t let you forget it. You will drink it and have a party. So, here we are, our plan executed to perfection, and I don’t want it. It’s unearned. I put it on the bathroom counter and leave it there.
She puts her unopened bottle next to mine.
The chill in my bones from walking through all that frigid slop makes me sink. Jamie glances about the room, but not in an “oh wow, I really like the tiles, they’re so beige” way. It’s more of a maybe-I-should-leave face. Perhaps she’s already mapping out her escape route and the mileage she’s going to put on her boots walking home.
I don’t want her to go. I never do. The thought that she might sucks.
Corroborating her observations might help. That always worked in biology lab last year. “I do know I’m hideous. I just don’t know what to do about it,” I say.
“Oh come on, Dylan, don’t make me feel worse, I know what I said was mean,” she says in a blur. “It’s a certain look and you make it work, I swear on a stack of…whatever’s not blasphemous.”
“It’s okay; I am aware.” I gesture to myself, trying to laugh and holding up my hands, furry side out. “What I want to know is what do I do with it all? My whole everything. I’m a throw rug. You might think it’s dumb, and maybe it is, but I hate being so hairy. It’s everywhere. The last time I saw my skin, it was screaming red and scaly from a bad wax. And that’s just one thing that bugs me.”
“You don’t like being hairy? That’s the big deal?”
“It’s mostly just gross. Feels like it’s endless.”
“It’s not a death sentence. If there’s something you don’t like, work it out.” She scans the room, thinking. “Let’s fix it right now.” Jamie grabs my electric razor and clicks it on with a bzzzz. “Shall we?”
My neck tightens. “I don’t want you to see my back. It’s disgusting and I hate it.”
“But this is such an easy tweak, it’s stupid.” She shakes her head. “Besides, confession time, I’m mildly curious what you’d look like without a pelt. We’re friends, right? So it’s no big deal.”
We’re friends, we’re friends. That word is starting to tick me off and it shouldn’t. Friends hang out, friends get beer when their mom is gone. Friends shave each other’s backs. Oh my god, what are we doing?
But I trust her.
I stare at the buzzing razor. “You know how to use one of those things?”
“Let’s just say the one I got for my thirteenth birthday is legs-only now.”
“Right. Okay.” I fumble with the buttons on my shirt and dump it in the hamper. Reaching behind my back, I grab my undershirt and pull it forward, folding it over the side of the tub. I look up at Jamie. This is the first time she’s seeing the full effect. Everything is thick. Dense. She flinches. I want to hide. “I told you it was bad,” I say.
“No, no. It’s all good. Friends help friends.” The razor comes down and cuts a swath from the back of my neck to my shoulder blade. “See? Going great.”
A disgusting blob of back hair falls on the floor. “Nope.” I reach for my shirt. “This is too gross, no way.”
“Don’t look.” She makes another pass. “It’ll be fine. We’ll get the Shop-Vac later.”