BooksBarbecue
Back Thin Skin Save as PDF
Chapters (55)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Cast of Characters
  7. Part One
  8. One
  9. Two
  10. Three
  11. Four
  12. Five
  13. Six
  14. Seven
  15. Eight
  16. Nine
  17. Ten
  18. Eleven
  19. Twelve
  20. Thirteen
  21. Fourteen
  22. Fifteen
  23. Sixteen
  24. Seventeen
  25. Eighteen
  26. Nineteen
  27. Part Two
  28. Twenty
  29. Twenty-one
  30. Twenty-two
  31. Twenty-three
  32. Twenty-four
  33. Twenty-five
  34. Twenty-six
  35. Twenty-seven
  36. Twenty-eight
  37. Twenty-nine
  38. Thirty
  39. Thirty-one
  40. Thirty-two
  41. Thirty-three
  42. Thirty-four
  43. Thirty-five
  44. Thirty-six
  45. Thirty-seven
  46. Thirty-eight
  47. Thirty-nine
  48. Forty
  49. Forty-one
  50. Forty-two
  51. Forty-three
  52. Forty-four
  53. Forty-five
  54. Forty-six
  55. A note on the Author

I felt angry at myself for letting Sean down. He believed I could be a great actress and there I was repaying him in puke. Even a bad person can feel bad, even when in the process of being bad. But that doesn’t mean they can do anything about it.

“I’ve started so I’ll finish. I’ve started so I’ll finish.”

The next morning, I took my suitcase and hailed a cab. I asked the driver to wait until I was inside my building, implying fear of muggers, when really I was just fearful. Of my apartment being burned down, robbed, taken over by squatters.

“Can you just wait here, please driver, until I stop being so afraid of life.”

It had been so long since I was home, part of me was fearful it might not even be there at all. But it was there. First the entrance door. Then the hallway. Then the stairs. Then my stairs. Then my door, which I slipped open like a burglar. Then I was inside my apartment and it was all there—all the walls, all the furniture, my bed, my belongings. The lightbulb in the bathroom that had needed changing when I left still needed changing. The milk in the fridge still needed to be thrown out. I still could not bring myself to do either.

I lay on my bed and thought about Liev.

Eleven

image
Way back when

Liev stayed with us for three months. Two years after he left, I lost my mother. The year after that, I left my father, a sixteenth-birthday present to myself. They dance with each other, through each other, like ghosts in a ballroom. From my vantage point at the bar, it’s not always easy to tell who is who and which memory goes where.

Here is what I remember about Liev. Here’s what I know to be true. I gave him his nickname. No one used it but me, which begs the question, if there is no one around to hear or share a nickname, does it still exist? Like if I said, “Hey everyone, call me ‘Skip’!” would you call me that? No. No, of course not. See, that isn’t being organic. That isn’t playing fair.

Call me “the Boss.”

Call me “Aladdin Sane.”

Call me “Little Stevie Wonder.”

Call me “the It Girl.”

Call me “the Velvet Fog.”

I’m “Slim Shady.”

Liev said even if it was just me who used it and my mom and dad who heard it, the nickname was still valid. Besides, he said, it was the first nickname he had ever had. It came to me the first time I met him, but at first I just volleyed about his pet name in my own head. “The Vampire.” The logic of the nickname?