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‘Hey Ellie?’ Jesse pipes up, cutting Dina off mid-sentence as she gushes about the excitement of learning to hunt this year at school.
‘Hey, Jesse?’ Ellie mimics him, raising her eyebrows at him as she turns to look at him. He’s draped himself across Dina’s couch, one arm slung across the top of his head while the other dangles off the side. This leaves Dina and Ellie sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of him and while Dina had whinged about this configuration for a solid ten minutes, Ellie maintains that Dina’s carpet is the comfiest carpet she’s ever sat on.
It’s also the only carpet she’s ever sat on, since her and Joel’s house is strictly hardwood flooring with the occasional rug thrown down. Dina’s carpet is fluffy, a gift given by the town last year when her sister single-handedly brought in no less than five deer from one hunting trip.
‘Can I ask you a question?’ Jesse ventures. Ellie’s spine stiffens and her jaw clenches slightly. She manages a curt nod in response, hoping the other two don’t notice how his words have put her on edge.
‘Why do you wear long sleeves in the middle of summer? Aren’t you boiling?’ he asks.
‘No.’ Yes. ‘Besides, my arms are so stunningly sexy no man can resist my charm if I ever show them. It’s for your safety, really,’
There’s silence for a moment where, judging by the look on Jesse’s face, he’s trying to figure out if she’s joking or not. And then Dina and Jesse are doubling over with roaring laughter that Ellie soon finds herself joining in on.
But even as she laughs, Jesse’s words burn in the back of Ellie’s mind. It’s not like she hasn’t considered it before, hasn’t thought about how she’ll always be different. She’ll never be able to wear short sleeves, lest someone see the horrid bite-mark marring her forearm and stick an axe between her eyes before she can even begin her defence.
She’ll never be able to take her shirt off in front of someone. Not to mention its fucking boiling and while everyone else is lounging about in loose tank tops, Ellie is sweating her tits off in her long sleeves. One elderly lady even pulled her aside and told her that she should really stop cutting herself. So now not only does everything think she’s a house-bound weirdo, but they also think that while she hides in her room, she’s also slitting up her wrists. Perfect.
In all her contemplating of this predicament, Ellie has only managed to come up with some solution: get rid of it. Find a way to get rid of the scar on her arm, or replace it with something else. Anything else. Her first thought was to take a knife and slice the skin off, but then she might bleed out before she can control the bleeding and that would be entirely counter-productive. The only other option she can think of is to burn it.
Burning it off with fire is too much of a risk, she could easily set fire to her whole arm or, worse, burn down their whole house. Joel might get a bit pissed off if Ellie did that. Which leaves finding a chemical strong enough to burn the skin clean off. Then it can heal and still look awfully mangled, but nobody will know what lies beneath the burned skin.
Of course, this means Ellie will need to acquire something strong enough to melt the skin off her arm. The best option she can think of is Phil the Gardener who she overheard talking to Tommy the other day about his new pesticide. ‘Strong enough to burn the hair off a giant’s balls’ he had called it. Ellie isn’t quite sure what the relation is between pesticide and a giant’s hairy balls, but she takes it that the chemical is strong. Strong enough for what she needs, at least.
So as Ellie sits on Dina’s soft carpet, laughing with her friends, her decision is made. Tomorrow, while Joel is at work, she’s going to sort this out once and for all. There’s no point in telling Joel, he’ll just fuss over her the whole time, Ellie can handle this and she’ll just tell Joel when it’s all over.
The most difficult part will be getting her hands on some of Phil the Gardener’s special pesticide, but she knows that he likes his pint down the bar at eight o’clock sharp every night when he finishes his work for the day. This will be her window of time. And she has a plan.
Ellie declines Dina’s offer to sleep over just as she always does, then heads home for dinner. She laughs with Joel and tells him all about her day, then listens intently as he tells her all about the new roofing he’s put on one of the neighbour’s houses. Once they’ve eaten, Joel asks Ellie what movie she’d like to watch and she tries not to think about the sad look on his face when, for the first time since they’ve moved to Jackson, Ellie tells him she’s going to go over to Dina’s again for a movie. By the way he quickly schools his features into something more neutral, Ellie can tell he’s trying not to show how hurt he is and it breaks her heart. It’s for a good reason, though. She needs to do this.
And so she makes a swift exit, grabbing her jacket despite the warm weather and with dusk fast approaching, makes her way towards Phil the Gardener’s shed, one goal in mind. The lock is fairly rudimentary, nobody really thinks to lock things around here. In fact, she and Joel seem to be one of the few people around here who even bother to lock their front door. It’s easy enough for Ellie to break into the shed and even easier to spot the five litre container of pesticide.
Ellie’s in and out in seconds, pesticide in hand as she shuts the door to the shed and makes her way back down the slowly darkening streets. By the time Phil the Gardener realises he’s missing a bottle of his concoction, it’ll all be over.
Nobody is out at this time of night, the only people not shut in their houses for the night are the few people down at the bar, so the streets are empty. Ellie doesn’t have to worry about anyone finding her as she takes the back alley to the little park Jesse showed her a few weeks ago.
There isn’t much here, just some swings, a merry-go-round and a rickety old slide. They hang out here often, it’s one of Ellie’s favourite places to go when she’s not too sure about leaving the house. Sometimes she comes on her own, sometimes with her friends. Joel’s never been here. It’s not that Ellie doesn’t want him here, it’s just nice to have somewhere that’s her own. Somewhere that Ellie can feel normal again, not a mentally addled teenager who needs someone to promise her the food on her plate didn’t come from a human.
And so Ellie sits on the swing, her canister of chemical propped against the frame next to her as she bobs back and forth. Night falls over the town, darkness licking away the last flickers of light and in the distance, Ellie can see the little old lady going lamp to lamp, lighting every light on the street. Even though Jackson has electricity, they like to keep its usage to a minimum.
The park is doused in darkness. It’s just on the outskirts of town, there’s only space for a few trees between Ellie and the wall and beyond that is nothing. All around is a crisp silence, not a single sound breaks through to Ellie’s little bubble. She likes it this way.
Silence is good. Silence is safe. She’ll be able to hear if someone tries to sneak up on her and in the meantime, the only sound to bother her is her own thoughts. Thoughts of a bite mark on her arm, of what it will look like once the scar is melted away. Thoughts of not living every day in fear that her sleeve will slip up her arm and everyone will know. Thoughts of burying her face against Joel’s chest as he carried her through that hospital, each shot ringing out in her ears like a needle through her skin. She feels every death tattooed on her body, marking her as a killer, because even if Joel was the one to pull the trigger, it was all for her.
Joel killed people for her. He’s done it before and Ellie knows he’ll do it again if he needs to. It’s not that she’s mad at him, she’s starting to understand why he did it but she can’t help but think… what if? What if he had let her do it.
There’s no point in entertaining that train of thought, though, so she ignores it. Ellie is happy here with Joel, living their life with their movie nights and family dinners with Tommy and his family. It’s good. This is good.
Ellie stays in the park for a few hours, gently tilting back and forth on the swing as she stares into the trees in front of her. Every now and then, a squirrel scuttles past and Ellie smiles. Six months ago, she’d have been jabbing Joel in the ribs, telling him to shoot it so they’d have some dinner. She doesn’t need to do that anymore.
Eventually, enough time has passed for Ellie to return home and maintain her excuse of having been over to Dina’s. It must be quite late and she knows Joel will start to worry, so she picks up her pesticide and leaves behind her bubble, heading back home. It’s late enough now that people are starting to stagger home from the pub, so Ellie has to be careful about not letting anyone catch a glimpse of what is in her hand. She walks fast, but not so fast it looks like she’s hiding something. Fast enough to skirt past the slightly inebriated citizens of Jackson without arousing suspicion.
As the front porch comes into view, Ellie briefly wonders how the hell she’s going to get her big container of chemicals that Joel cannot know about through the house. Maybe Joel will be in the living room and won’t see her sneak past. Or, even better, perhaps he’s already gone to bed.
There’s only one way for Ellie to find out, so she gingerly twists the doorknob and pokes her head around the corner. The living room and kitchen are both dark; the only light left on is the one in the front hall Joel will no doubt have left on for her. He must have gone to bed.
Even still, he’s got remarkably good hearing for a man who can only hear in one ear so Ellie is careful not to tread on the creaky floorboards, stepping over the third and ninth steps because they’re awfully loud. She makes it to her room without issue and creeps over to her bed, kneeling down on the floor. There’s a perfectly little gap between the frame and the floor into which she can slide the container and, as long as Joel doesn’t decide to lay down on her floor, he’ll never know it’s there.
With her goods stored away, Ellie rises to her feet and flicks on the switch for the light next to her bed. It’s just as she does so that there’s a knock at the door. Ellie jumps, feeling caught red handed even though there’s no way Joel can know what she’s got hidden under her bed. So she tells him to come in, quickly settling herself on her bed, kicking off her shoes.
He’s wearing his pyjamas and he’s got his reading glasses on, the ones Tommy got him despite his insistence that he doesn’t need glasses. Joel wears them every night while he reads, though, and Ellie’s noticed that his headaches don’t seem so bad anymore.
‘How was Dina’s, kiddo?’ he asks, leaning against the doorframe, arms folded and smiling gently.
‘It was good,’ Ellie responds. The best lies stay simple, no details, no elaborate stories. Joel doesn’t push Ellie, he rarely does, so she doesn’t need to give any more information.
‘Alright. You need anything? Hungry?’ Joel continues. Ellie shakes her head.
‘Think I’m just gonna turn in, I’m tired,’ she tells him and again, he doesn’t push. Joel simply walks across the room towards her and leans down to wrap her in a warm hug, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
‘Okay then. Goodnight, sweetheart, sleep well. You know where I am if you need me,’ he says into her hair, then kisses her once more and pulls away, still smiling at her.
‘I know, night Joel,’ Ellie replies as he backs out of her room, shutting the door behind himself.
Ellie does, in fact, go straight to bed, pulling on some pyjamas and pulling a blanket over herself, despite how warm it is. Tomorrow, she’ll be able to wear short sleeves. Nobody will ever know.
Joel heads off to work early in the morning, Ellie’s already up anyway so they cook breakfast together, laughing at the mess they manage to make, and then Ellie waves Joel off from the front porch with a smile on her face. He doesn’t know a thing.
But Ellie can’t wait to get this done, so as soon as she’s watched him turn the corner at the end of their street, Ellie races back up the stairs to her room. She grabs the container out from under her bed and takes it into the bathroom. She’ll have to do it over the bathtub if she wants to keep this tidy, so she kneels down next to it and pulls up her sleeve.
The bite mark looks as mangled and angry as ever, the skin raised and swollen. The veins around it are slightly blackened, like the infection is simply resting there, dormant and unable to spread. Not for much longer.
Ellie takes a deep breath, steeling her nerves for what’s to come, but the plan is simple. Pour the pesticide on her arm for as long as possible, then leave it to burn through every layer of damaged skin and once that’s done, she’ll wash it all off and spray it off with some disinfectant. It’s a fool proof plan.
So she unscrews the cap and sets that on the floor then holds her right arm over the side of the tub. It shouldn’t take too long, maybe ten or fifteen minutes to really let it work. With her left hand, Ellie lifts up the container and tilts it over her arm.
As soon as the liquid hits her skin, Ellie has to bite down on her tongue to stop from crying out. She didn’t think it would hurt this much. It burns, her whole arm feels like it’s on fire as she pours more and more on her skin. But she can’t stop, can’t let up because she’s come this far, it needs to be done right. She’s wincing and gasping in pain with every drop of it on her arm.
It’s unbearable, her arm is shaking under the strain of it, fist clenched tightly. She digs her nails into her palm hard enough to draw blood, trying desperately to distract herself from the agony exploding on her forearm. It isn’t like this is the first time she’s felt pain, but she doesn’t think anything has ever hurt like this.
She wants Joel. Joel should be here, holding her and telling her that it’s going to be okay, that this is the right thing to do. But she’s convinced herself that she doesn’t need him, that she’ll be fine on her own, but fucking hell it hurts. Joel would make it better.
Finally, after what feels like years of torture, the bottle is empty and as the last drops of the pesticide drip away from her arm, the container slips from her fingers and falls into the bathtub with a clatter. Ellie slumps forward, leaning over the tub, chest heaving as she tries to breathe through the pain, to focus on anything other than the way her arm is searing awfully.
The pain doesn’t settle though, as she thought it would, it keeps burning and Ellie chances a look at her scalded arm. It’s red and angry, blistering disgustingly and Ellie gags at the sight of it. The bathroom reeks of chemicals and burned flesh. It’s unbearable and Ellie can’t remember what she was meant to do next.
She’s shaking from head to foot, trembling on the floor and her face is wet. When did Ellie start crying?
Ellie is screaming Joel’s name before she knows it. She has no idea where he even is, but perhaps if she yells loud enough, he’ll come running. He always does. So Ellie screams and shouts, bellowing his name and choking on her tears. He’ll come. Joel has to come.
Loud footsteps thunder down below and the door slams open. It sounds like Joel has simply kicked it in, skipping past the step of getting out his keys and barrelling right in.
‘Ellie! Ellie, where are you?’
It’s not Joel.
Tommy’s voice echoes up the stairs as she continues calling for Joel. The steps creak under heavy footsteps and then there’s a shadow over her as Tommy stands in the doorway. He freezes, then coughs harshly and drops down to his knees behind her.
‘Shittin’ hell, Ellie, what did you do? What the hell did you do?’ Tommy shouts, grabbing her arm and dragging it towards the tap and turning it on. ‘What were you thinkin’? Ellie, this is… shit, this is bad, El!’
Ellie can’t find a response for him, merely allowing him to manhandle her under the water and hold her there. It still burns and aches and Ellie is still shaking, but Tommy is holding her. Tommy is going to fix it.
‘Alright, it’s gonna be okay, sweetie. Gonna get you all cleaned up, then we’ll wrap it up and get you to the clinic. You’re gonna be just fine,’ Tommy tells her, though it sounds more like he’s talking to himself.
‘Joel,’ Ellie whines pitifully, leaning further into Tommy, allowing him to take the unbearable weight of her own body. ‘Joel… Joel… Joel…’
‘I know, I know, I know, we’re gonna find Joel, Els, you just hang in there,’ Tommy tells her.
The pain is beginning to ease under the steady stream of water Tommy keeps the wound under. As the last of the chemical is washed away, the burn becomes more visible and Ellie can hear Tommy cursing quietly behind her. Somehow, in Ellie’s mind this isn’t how it was supposed to go. It was supposed to melt the scar away, burn it off and then the skin could regrow. She wasn’t expecting it to look perfect but… this isn’t what she thought it would look like. It wasn’t supposed to go like this.
Ellie knows it will heal wrong, looking at it now and knows that her arm is going to look worse than ever. Still, at least she won’t have to hide it.
So she lets Tommy wrap her arm in cling film and then he insists on carrying her to the clinic, even when she assures him that she is perfectly capable of walking. And she lies on the uncomfortable bed while the doctor pokes and prods at the burn, tutting and muttering to herself as she goes. Ellie listens to Tommy argue with Joel outside her room, yelling at him to calm down before he goes in, though he doesn’t seem to succeed in this. Joel comes barging into the room barely a moment later, face fraught with worry.
‘What happened, baby, let me see,’ he demands, sitting down next to her and holding out his hand so he can see her arm. It’s been bandaged after the painful debriding of the wound, and he doesn’t seem too happy to not be able to see it, but Ellie assures him she’s fine.
He asks why she did it.
Now, sitting in this bed, surrounded by two very worried Millers, a doctor and two nurses, Ellie feels endlessly stupid. Perhaps she should have spoken to Joel, maybe there was a less painful way to do this. It’s done now, though, and nothing can change that.
‘Now I can wear short sleeves,’ Ellie points out sheepishly. There isn’t a lot she can say here with the doctor still present, but judging by the look on Joel’s face, he understands. He still doesn’t look happy.
‘Fuckin’ hell, Ellie. There were other ways to do this! You could have killed yourself pourin’ that much bleach on your arm—’
‘Wasn’t bleach,’ Ellie interjects pointedly, as if that matters.
‘I don’t care what it was, Ellie—’
‘—it was pesticide,’
‘I don’t care. You could have died, baby, do you not understand that? You could still die, that gets infected and you’re in for a world of pain,’ Joel tells her. ‘That was a mighty stupid thing to do,’
Ellie’s gaze falls down to her lap. ‘I know… I just wanted to be normal,’
Joel sighs and lowers her arm back down to rest on the bed. He leans forward and wraps her up in his arms, just as he does every night before bed, and whispers in her ear.
‘I know, sweetheart. I just wish you’d have told me you wanted to do this. We could have found a better way to do it,’
‘I don’t think there was a better way,’ Ellie responds softly, bringing her good arm up to wrap around Joel’s back.
Joel doesn’t seem to have a response for that.