Second Skin - Chapter 0010

Chapter 10

The shampoo was cheap and almost odorless, but it lathered. Sebastian rubbed it into his hair with both hands, eyes closed, head tilted under the stream. The water ran hot – rare in Douglass, where radiators went on strike whenever they pleased. It ran down his neck, his back, his calves, and disappeared down the drain with a gurgling sound that mingled with the dripping drops around it.

He was the last one in the shower. He’d been the last to leave the court, the last to enter the locker room, and by the time he reached the showers, most had already hurried past, merely fulfilling the ritual of “having showered.” On the other side of the tiled wall, the hallway teemed with familiar sounds: locker doors slamming, sneakers crunching on the floor, muffled giggles, a name being called in the distance. Everything dissolved in the steam. But he didn’t notice any of it. He was focused.

Focused on one’s own body.

Until that morning, he had thought the only difference was his vision. He woke up without his glasses, cycled through Harlem reading every sign, saw in his phone’s reflection that he no longer needed those glasses he had always worn. He spent two classes reminiscing about just that. But what he had noticed about his vision wasn’t what had really changed. The rest only made sense on the court, lying on his back on the cold floor, while a goatee-wearing teacher stared at the stopwatch, incredulous.

Sebastian opened his eyes for a moment—eyelashes heavy with foam—and looked down. The same body: ribs protruding beneath the pale skin, wide knees contrasting with the thin thighs, feet almost translucent against the dark tile. Arms that had never lifted anything but Frankenstein’s weights. Outwardly, no visible alteration; he himself saw nothing. He closed his eyes again.

Inside, however, it was a different story.

It wasn’t just about strength. There was an energy he’d never experienced before, a disposition like that of a newly ignited engine, muscles ready for any command. Sebastian had lived for years subjected to physical limitations: his arm trembling on the second push-up, his neck tightening on the third sit-up, his leg giving way before his lungs stopped drawing air. Thirteen years learning to avoid these limitations in public. But that day, moving up and down among his six colleagues, he searched for each limitation—and found none. The same with the push-ups. The squats, the rope, the back-and-forth between the cones. His body simply performed.

Each movement came out clean, as if his mind were drawing a precise line and his body was following it without a single smudge. He thought “go up” and he went up. He thought “hold on” and his hand held on. For the first time, his body had become a faithful extension of the command.

He had no idea what he had done to achieve this. He didn’t know if he had played a part in it. He stood there, feeling the foam trickle down his forehead, trying to fit the previous night, the morning, the rope, the improvement in his vision—all into a single explanation—but there was no explanation that encompassed it all.

Then came the itching.

A subtle twinge at the top of her head, almost mistaken for the shampoo. Soon the hairs on the nape of her neck stood on end, strand by strand, and from there a sensation ran down her spine, spreading in a snap through her arms, legs, and the soles of her feet: a tingling that felt like an electric shock. But it didn’t hurt or go away; it did the opposite: it awakened everything inside. And it brought an implicit direction, a single silent command: move.

It all happened so fast—in a split second, if that’s even possible to measure. He felt his body obey, and his head fell to the side.

The crack sounded instantly. An open palm struck the tile right where his head was—the dry sound of damp flesh against ceramic—and the arm behind the hand was thick, dark, stretched out with all its might to push. It wasn’t a slap: it was a hand made to smash his head against the wall.

The momentum lifted his feet off the ground. The soap-soaked floor betrayed Sebastian; his heel slipped forward, his hip hit the floor, and he slid backward across the shower area, naked from head to toe, until he stopped a meter away. He opened his eyes.

They burned. The shampoo ran down between his eyelids, and the world turned into a white, burning mess dotted with shapes. But he could make them out, and the first was a tall, black boy, his afro impeccably trimmed, broad shoulders, long arms hanging at his sides—he must have weighed twice as much as Sebastian. He knew him: he was the boy with the rope, the same one who had climbed eight meters with the most beautiful technique in the class and had fallen when his hands sweated. He lay on the mat, staring at the bell for a second, hearing Smith shout “Failed!” and then lowered his head.

Around them, the soccer team: eight, maybe ten boys, the same ones who had stayed with Smith in the gym, leaning against the shower area’s door frame and the tiled walls. They were all already dressed—pants, sweatshirts, sneakers tied on, backpacks on their shoulders. Only the tall boy was still wearing shorts and a white gym shirt, the fabric clinging to his sweat-soaked chest. He hadn’t showered or changed: he’d waited there.

No one pretended not to have seen. Everyone saw. A hand hitting the wall inches from a head doesn’t go unnoticed in a space that size. Sitting on the wet floor, Sebastian stared at the boy, and everyone else stared at Sebastian.

“Well, well,” the deep voice sounded, deeper than any other there. “If it isn’t the show-off.”

Sebastian remained silent. He had no answer.

“Do you think your feat today impresses anyone? What achievement is this, after all?”

He blinked, and the burning in his eyes worsened. He didn’t understand “show-off”—no one had ever called him that—and he didn’t understand the anger. Yes, he had achieved something the other hadn’t. But the whole team had failed on the same rope: the huge blond had descended trembling from six meters; the bald one had stopped at five; none had gotten close to the bell, and none had that expression. Sebastian hadn’t competed with anyone; he had climbed simply because Smith had pronounced his name.

The boy furrowed his brow even more, creating three deep lines on his forehead.

“Don’t make that face.” He stepped forward. “Clearly you’ve been taking something. And you’re going to tell me what it is.”

He came in silently, his sneakers stomping carelessly on the soapy floor. Sebastian braced his hand on the floor to stand up, and the soap almost dragged it down with him.

“Dude,” his voice came out thinner than he intended, “I don’t want any trouble.”

“Shut up.”

The hand came again. It wasn’t a punch, but a claw-like slap, fingers curled and aimed at the top of his head. Even with his vision burning, Sebastian saw the movement: fingers spread just wide enough to grab hair. He ducked—not a decision, a reflex—knees buckled, and the hand cut through the air above him, striking the steam.

The boy snorted, pulled his arm back, and delivered his other fist, now closed, straight into his stomach. A punch from someone already used to hitting someone.

That wild sensation returned to take hold of Sebastian, rising from the nape of his neck and dominating his body, and he let himself go: his supporting foot slipped deliberately on the soap, his torso twisted, and his fist struck where his stomach had been—and continued until it hit the tile. The sound was deeper than the first blow, a thud of bone against wall.

The boy slowly pulled his hand away from the pottery. He didn’t scream. He curled his fingers once, twice, and his face trembled in a brief spasm before returning to its rigid state.

“Brett!” someone shouted at the door. “Everything alright?”

Brett. That was his name. He turned to the team, the anger still there, but now in order.

“What the hell are you waiting for? Hold him back.”

They pressed on as if they had been expecting exactly this. The shower area, already cramped for one boy and two jets of water, became tiny for ten. Their sneakers squealed on the soaked floor, and hands appeared from all sides. Sebastian stood up—he didn’t quite know how: one moment he was sitting, the next, standing—and the first hand that reached for his shoulder found only running water.

He dodged. Once, then again, and again. Two of the tallest men advanced together—one with a shaved head, the other with a very short haircut—long arms outstretched, like marking the court. Sebastian slipped between them, slipped underneath. One tried a punch, somewhat clumsily, and the blow landed too late. Someone grabbed his elbow, but the elbow slipped, wet with soap, as if it had never been touched. He stood in the center, away from the walls, where no one could pin him against the tile. But the center was exactly where the drain was, and the drain was the point where all the soap from the locker room went out.

There he realized how ridiculous it all was. Not the nudity amidst ten clothed boys—he’d already swallowed that in the first few seconds—but the ease. Hands always appeared in the place where he had been an instant before, always a step behind, as if they were competing with the very steam. He saw the arms coming before they rose. He felt where they would go. And his body—the same body that morning he had refused to face in the mirror—moved correctly, without consultation.

But the space was too small.

With ten bodies inside, there was almost no floor, and what remained was soapy. In one of his dodges, his foot stepped on a frictionless spot, and his legs simply ceased to exist beneath him. He fell sideways, hit the tile, tried to lift his feet, but they slipped again—and the half-second it took to regain traction was the half-second they needed.

The first one to tumble on top of him was big and heavy, and it came with all its weight. The air escaped Sebastian’s lungs with an ugly thud, and didn’t return. The boy’s sweatshirt smelled of cheap deodorant and court sweat, now soaked with water, soap, and his own sweat. Then came two by the arms, one on each side, knees pinning his elbows to the floor. And a fourth, the biggest of all, settled on his legs when he tried to kick—the legs kicked only the boy’s weight and nothing more.

Sebastian inhaled the remaining air. It was shallow. Water from one of the showers was still dripping beside him, splashing on his face.

Brett moved through the group of boys. He shook his right hand, then rubbed his knuckles slowly with the thumb of his other hand, as if anticipating pain the next day. He stopped right over Sebastian, his eyes half-closed, and leaned down to look down. One of his teammates approached from behind and whispered something in his ear—what he said shouldn’t have echoed throughout the locker room.

The place was noisy: two showers running, ten boys breathing heavily, sneakers squeaking on the wet floor, doors banging on the other side of the partition. A whisper shouldn’t stand out there. Even so, Sebastian heard every syllable, clear as if they were speaking right in his ear.

“Brett… could he be some kind of mutant?”

Brett grimaced, not responding immediately. He let his gaze wander over the body his colleagues held immobilized on the ground: ribs rising and falling, white legs, thin arms stretched across the knees of others—the naked, wet boy, the size of an eleven-year-old.

“Impossible.” Brett spoke firmly, without lowering his tone. “I think it’s just some kind of those drugs they’re selling around here.”

Sebastian frowned. What drugs? Sold where? Who were “they”? The question almost formed in his head, but before it could appear, Brett stepped forward and kicked his side, under the arm that was holding him, with all the force that a leg that size could generate in such a short space.

Sebastian closed his eyes.

When he reopened them, Brett was already kneeling beside him, one knee resting on the soaked ground, his face so close that his heat mingled with the steam.

“What do you have?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Brett’s hand came down in a punch, from top to bottom, striking the side of Sebastian’s face, near his ear. Sebastian’s head spun with the impact, the tile coming within inches of his eye. Then Brett’s fingers sank into the hair, still full of foam, and pulled it up forcefully.

From so close, Sebastian saw the veins in Brett’s eyes, the white streaked with tiny red veins—like someone who had spent too much time under hot water, or someone who hadn’t slept, or something Sebastian couldn’t name. He understood it, but he didn’t have time to react.

“There’s no way.” Brett growled through his teeth, separating each word. “It’s impossible for a skinny guy like you to do all that. You used something. Tell me what it is.”

He raised his other arm. Sebastian saw his fist rise, his elbow bend, his shoulder prepare for the strike—and then the signal sounded.

The same old electronic beep—trying to imitate a brass bell and sounding more like a tired microwave—came from the locker room speaker and filled the shower area from above. The second signal. The one that warned: there were only a few minutes left until the next class, and anyone not in the room when the beep stopped would have to explain why.
Brett froze, her arm raised. She stayed like that for a moment, staring at Sebastian’s face, her fist still raised. Then she let his hair escape. She straightened up—her wet knee making a dark stain on his shorts—and gave him one last look from above.

“You’re lucky,” he murmured, wiping his hand on his shirt. “But you’d better answer me next time.”

One by one, the other boys moved away from Sebastian’s body: first they removed their legs, then their arms, then the weight of his chest. Then the air returned all at once—so forcefully it felt like a throatache. No one said anything. They crossed the shower area, their sneakers squeaking on the slippery floor, and headed for the lockers. Brett went with them. Sebastian heard everything from the floor: metal doors opening, the zipper of a backpack, a sneaker hitting the bench, a laugh from something that wasn’t him—or maybe it was. Then, the locker room door, which never closed properly, slamming shut. Then, footsteps in the hallway, fading. Then, nothing.
He lay there.

Not everyone had left. About three meters ahead, outside the shower area, approximately ten boys were still getting dressed—or pretending to get dressed—and just watching. The chubby one in the group, with his t-shirt in his hand. The boy with braces, one shoe on and the other on the ground. The one with round glasses, from the weak group, the same one who had rummaged through his shorts pocket for his inhaler. None of them approached, none of them asked anything. They stayed where they were, watching, and their gaze said: “We saw everything, but we pretended we didn’t.” Sebastian understood and didn’t blame them. Approaching him now would be inviting that group to attack him in the next class—or the one after that. And nobody there had a group to protect themselves from. He wouldn’t have done differently either. He never had.

He stood up slowly: one hand on the wall, then the other, feeling the still-soapy floor. The shower was still running. Sebastian stepped under the stream again, letting the water wash away the remaining foam from his hair, and the burning sensation in his eyes lessened until it was just a slight discomfort.

There was an enormous rage in his chest, too hot to contain it. He had already changed schools—neighborhoods, lockers, classes. The idea was always the same: a new place where nobody knew him, where he could enter through the back door and not exist. But the outcome was always the same: one day of physical education and that was it, he had a name on the lips of a group, and the group had his face. It would be like always—only worse, because this time the reason wasn’t his size, but something he had done. A crazy guy with red eyes decided it was drugs and that Sebastian didn’t want to say which one. What drug? What proof did they have? Was Brett going to go out there every Friday waiting for an answer behind the lockers?

But the anger couldn’t be sustained. It sank, not because it disappeared, but because questions began to pile up on top of it—and the questions weighed more.

When Brett kicked, Sebastian closed his eyes. He knew the pain: he knew the exact shape of the suffering that comes when a leg hits a rib from the side, the way it tears first and then burns. He closed his eyes expecting that pain. But what came was something else: a sensation of something being thrown from the inside out, under the skin, meeting his foot even before his foot arrived. He felt the impact, the weight, his body crushed against the ground. But he felt no pain.

None. It was as if someone had placed a pillow on his chest and hit him with it.

The punch was the same. The fist hit his face, his head swayed from the force of the blow, the tile almost grazed his eye. Sebastian knew he had taken the hit. But it was as if he were wearing an invisible helmet, and the fist had hit the helmet, not him. He felt everything, of course. He just didn’t feel pain.

He ran his hand along the side of his face, where the punch had landed. Nothing—no swelling, not that heat that signals a bruise. He slid his hand along his ribcage. Nothing.

He stared at his own hands under the water: small, white, thin fingers that barely closed around the sisal shower cord. The same hands as always. The water trickled down them and fell into the drain. Then the question he had been silently repeating since the cafeteria finally escaped his lips, low, just for the tiles:

What’s happening to me?