shower by Erin Lee (16, North Carolina)*

He strips himself completely and turns the shower up as high as he dares. Closing and locking the door behind him is almost an afterthought. 

While he waits for the water to heat up, he taps his fingers on his bare thighs, looking anywhere but his body. He doesn’t notice that he’s digging his nails into his legs until it’s too late, until there are four red streaks running up and down his pale skin, and he just barely suppresses a sigh. ​

---

Then he sighs anyways. There’s no one inside of the bathroom to hear him. He steps into the shower once steam has begun to fill the room, wincing slightly as the scalding water meets his too-cold body, because he’s never quite learned how to keep himself warm despite all of the jackets that hang beside his door and the blankets piled up on his bed. Eyes flutter shut, blocking out the false, plasticy vibrancy of a world that has suddenly, quite abruptly, become too much all at once. 

There are thin, pale crescents curved over the soft skin of his palms, dug into his flesh by his own nails, and his eyes land on them when he reopens his eyes to pump shampoo into his hands. 

This is a regular occurrence. He looks away. 

He rubs shampoo into his hair, white foam falling into the tub below and onto pale feet turning much too red. His numb fingers have begun to thaw out in the sudden heat, and he wrings them out briefly to try and restore some actual accuracy to their movements, but it doesn’t really work. 

Still, the warmth is nice. The overwhelming heat, that is. Well, it’s not nice, per say, because there’s nothing particularly nice about the feeling of being trapped inside of his head, about being lost in memories and what-if’s and the constant, constant feeling of grief, but it’s something. 

He doesn’t understand the grief; never has. He hasn’t lost anything, not like the others he knows have, and he can’t help but feel that he doesn’t quite deserve to feel the way that he does, like he doesn’t deserve to feel the craving for death, hear the call for that finality that rings in his ears long after the thought occurs. He doesn’t think he deserves those things, but not for the reason that counts. 

He turns the temperature of the water up higher. Another regular occurrence. He runs soap over his body somewhat absently, ignoring how sensitive his skin has become from the heat of the water. But ignoring implies awareness, and he’s really not that aware of what he’s doing. It’s a regular enough routine that he allows his mind to slip away, go into that state of nothingness that he can only seem to do in the shower. 

Everything is only ever quiet here. 

“Oi, Yujin!” someone shouts from outside of the door, and he starts, blinking a few times. He blinks down at the soap bar in his hands, mildly confused. 

“Yeah, Alex?” he calls back, after a moment, when it becomes clear that they’re waiting for an answer. “You need something?”

“You’re taking ages in there, man,” says Alex. There’s a thud and a rattling sound, like they’ve put their hand on the door. “Hurry up. You’re not the only one who uses the shower.” “Sorry,” he says over the sound of the shower. “I’ll be out in a minute.” 

“You’d better be. I brought you dinner; there’s food on the table.” 

He doesn’t respond, Alex’s fading footsteps as good of a conclusion as any to their conversation. He frowns at the soap bar in his hand. 

Did he wash his body? Or did he grab the bar to do it? 

He rubs soap over himself, just in case, and pauses when he realizes that he’s done with his routine. He’ll have to get out now, return back to a world where his mind doesn’t seem to want to shut up, where everything is too much, too much, blue-light screens and sirens and bass-heavy music and laughter, and all he really wants to do is stand here for just a few more minutes, let the water just take him, boil him alive, and let him fall, because this is the only place that his mind slows down, silences itself, and he doesn’t want to leave yet, but he doesn’t have a choice, has so much work to do, and-- 

He turns off the shower. The water splashes against the tub. 

“Yujin,” Alex shouts again. 

“I’m coming!” 

He dries himself off with the towel hurriedly, the rough fabric scraping against his almost raw body, and pulls his change of clothes over himself. His hand finds the doorknob, cool to the touch despite the steam filling the room, almost on its own accord. He catches himself just before he turns it, pausing. 

It’s cold out of the bathroom. 

He opens the door and steps outside.