Concealer

Clara pulled the hairbrush through the tangles in her hair. She looked at herself in the mirror and smiled. She turned her head and smiled again. She melted the smile and picked up her straightener. The Nirvana shirt with the smiley face fit tight on her body, she stuck her hip out, clenched her jaw, and let her lips fall like she didn’t care. She hated that the Nirvana shirt was supposed to be oversized but her arms and stomach pushed against the fabric like it was a medium. Her mascara was there to make her brown eyes shine- like green, blue, and hazel eyes do naturally. Clara dipped her finger into the concealer on her bathroom sink and applied it to her face, covering her patterned acne. She set the concealer and picked up four fingers more. She turned her arm over and rubbed it all over the scars she gave herself years back. They ran from her palm down her forearm. They faded away when she brushed in the concealer, smoothing it to look like her skin was untouched. She put her hands on her hips and gave a small laugh, turned her head and smiled with her teeth.

Marie was on her phone in the kitchen when Clara came down for a snack. Clara always marveled at how pretty her older sister was, how clear her skin was, how skinny her legs were.

“I see you like my shirt,” Marie said, her chin so pretty when she talked.

“I'm gonna wear it to a sleepover tonight,” Clara emphasized sleepover.

“New high school friends? She responded.

“It's just a little thing to get to know each other better I think.”

“Oh really, because I was gonna wear that tonight.”

“Well I need it.”

“Well its my shirt.”

“No.”

“You don’t even listen to Nirvana take it off.”

“No”

“Give it to me!”

“Fine. I'll take it off in a second.” Clara stood there for a moment while her sister scrolled through her Instagram.

“Do you think you could drive me later?” Clara asked firmly.

“I’m going to a party.”

“Where is it?”

“Its on the hill.”

“That’s right by where I need to go.” Marie put her phone down and glared up at Clara.

Clara watched Marie sing along to Olivia Rodrigo in her dark green parka. She sang the few parts she knew from driving with Marie in the past and filled in the rest with mumbling. Marie stopped the car. Clara looked out her window to see a big blue suburban house. She pulled the mirror flap down and looked at herself. She picked up her bag off of the floorboard.

“Don’t do anything dumb ‘cause I’m not picking you up.” Marie said. Clara stepped out of the car.

“Bye.” Clara’s tennis shoes crunched through the snow as she walked up the driveway. Her sister’s Camry sped off behind her. She looked at her breath to distract herself from her nerves. Her bag felt so weird in her hand, she moved it up to her shoulder. Does this look weird? How do you hold a bag? She looked down at the bag. It was Jansport. She was sure the other girls had Lululemon. Her sister had a Lululemon bag- she should have asked if she could borrow it. Maybe she wouldn’t have let her. She knocked on the door. The living room was inside to the right, she could tell because of the TV she could see through the windows. Her face felt hot standing in front of the door. She heard the sound of someone getting up from the couch. She held her breath as the footsteps got closer.

“Clara!” Ms. Roberts answered the door.

“Hi!”

“I’m so glad you’re here!” She led Clara inside.

“The girls are upstairs” Ms. Roberts smiled. Clara walked up the stairs and down the hall. So many doors. The one at the end was cracked open. The room was light pink with the bed so pillowed and blanketed up, a chandelier so decorative and the carpet so clean. Hannah was lying on her bed, her cheek on the pillow, her phone in front of her face. Grace and Sophia were sitting on the floor on theirs’ as well. They all glanced up at the door when Clara peaked her head in. Their eyes remained on her as she creaked open the door. Clara smiled.

“Hey.” Clara said. Grace and Sophia looked back at their phones.

“Hey.” Hannah replied.

“This is Grace and this is Sophia,” she said pointing at the girls. The girls said hi and Clara stood there. Grace was wearing a Nirvana shirt like her sister’s. She felt so much larger than all of them, so awkward standing up as they all sat or lied down. She could feel the acne on her face as if each pimple were a different feature of her face. Her bag was still in her hand. She dropped it down and sat on the couch across from the bed. She pulled out her phone and scrolled like the other girls. She watched the two girls on the floor talk to each other.

“Oh my gosh he’s so ugly now.” Grace showed Sophia her phone. She laughed. Hannah hung her head off the bed to see. She laughed as well.

“Who?” Clara asked. The girls looked at her.

“He went to our middle school.” Clara kept her eyes on her. She just remembered the other girls had all gone to school together the year before. She was the only one who didn't. “Here.” Grace flipped the phone so Hannah could see the picture.

“Oh yeah.” Clara said laughing. She couldn’t even make out the picture from that far. She looked back down at her phone. Hannah hopped off the bed and sat on the floor with the other two girls.

“Look.” Hannah said showing her phone to the girls.

“Oh my god.” Sophie said.

“She looks like a lizard.” Hannah said. The girls laughed and Clara couldn’t help chuckling from the couch.

“You remember what she did with Justin?” Grace said.

“Their kids would be disgusting” Sophie said. Clara laughed harder now. She put her hand over her mouth. Hannah turned toward her with an awkward smile.

“You like laughing, huh?” Hannah remarked. Clara looked at her. Her smile remained. Hannah opened her door and looked both ways down the hall. She came back in and pulled a cardboard box half the size of her body out from the bathroom.

“In about two hours when my mom falls asleep,” she pulled out a boxcutter from her drawer and cut through the tape on the top of the box. Clara watched.

“We can get drunk.” She opens the box and pulls out two wine bottles one in each hand. The girls smiled.

“So, in the meantime what do we do?” The girls pulled out the bottles and rolled them under the bed.

The room was dark now and the girls were staring at Hannah’s TV. Clara’s attention was not fixed on the story of the show like the other girls’, but on the melodramatic acting on the screen. It was somewhere in season three, the others had finished the show, Grace had finished it multiple times, but Clara had never seen an episode. She always preferred cartoons or movies because she didn’t quite understand the drama of teen shows. Clara had had her arms across her stomach gripping her sides for some time now. She felt awkward in any position that let her limbs loose. It probably looked weird. She glanced at her legs stretching down the bed next to Hannah’s. They were so much thicker than hers, how could legs get so skinny? She was sure even her bones weren’t that small. Clara noticed a slight wetness on her stomach. She moved her arms and noticed she was sweating. Hannah looked over to Clara. Clara turned over her arms to see the concealer had been fading. She bolted out of the bed and went to the bathroom. Hannah watched her walk to her bathroom. She turned back around to see Grace and Sophie gazing at her. The bathroom door closed. Hannah leaned over to Grace and put her lips by her ear.

“She cuts.” Clara poured water on some paper towels and rubbed them on her shirt to get rid of the concealer stain from her arms. It was coming off but her shirt was getting wet. She looked at her arms. Pink stripes everywhere. She opened one of the sink drawers as slowly and quietly as possible. Q tips. She tried the next one. Makeup removers. She tried the next one. Makeup. She dug felt around slowly. She felt a circular plastic object and pulled it. Some blush fell over. It sounded like glass shattering. She winced. She took a deep breath and pulled out the concealer.

The girls were just finishing the episode when the bathroom door opened behind them. They turned to see Clara coming back to watch. They turned back to the show.

Later, Hannah put her ear up to her mother’s bedroom door. She heard long breaths and some snoring.

“Let’s go.” She pulled out the wine case and opened her desk drawer. She felt through the boxcutter and pencils until she found a corkscrew. She pulled cups out from behind the clothes in her closet. Clara watched it all from the bed. She had no reason to say no. She knew that if she didn't partake there was no chance at being liked, much less friendship. Even then, she wanted to feel good in this moment, she wanted to rid this weight of awkwardness she had felt all night. On her third cup her wish was granted. She had never heard her voice sound so confident before.

“Do you listen to Nirvana?” Clara asked Grace, pointing at her Nirvana shirt. Grace smiled.

“I love them. You?”

“Yeah.” Clara’s words came before her thoughts.

“What’s your favorite song?” Clara stared at Grace’s eyes for a moment.

“Heart-Shaped Box,” she was so unsure and so afraid that this was the wrong answer. Grace’s stare back made it worse. But then,

“That’s mine too.” Grace replied. Clara smiled.

“Hannah, play Heart-Shaped Box” Grace said. Hannah had been listening to their conversation the whole time, sipping wine after every sentence. She played the song. Clara swung her head left and right and so did Grace. She sang the parts she knew loudly as Grace would sing them too. This felt so good. Maybe all parents were wrong and alcohol is great and maybe she was wrong earlier and these girls are really nice people and maybe this will be how it is for her all of high school. Maybe this will be Clara’s friend group that she gets to eat lunch with or study with like she would always see in middle school. She couldn’t conceal her excitement so she went to the bathroom again. She looked in the mirror and clenched her jaw and let her lips fall. This time she was a badass. She wasn’t afraid of anything, people probably will look at her differently in school, she denies boys now. She looked at her laugh and showed all of her teeth.

In the bedroom, Grace, Sophia and Hannah couldn’t contain their laughter anymore. Under the loud rock music, Sophia whispered,

“She’s so weird.” Hannah and Grace fell back laughing.

“She’ll just do whatever we say” Grace said through her smile.

“She just agrees with anything.” Hannah remarked. The laughter turned down to smiles.

“Watch this. She’ll do anything. Just go with it.” Hannah grabbed the wine bottles and put them back in the box. When Clara came out of the bathroom all the wine was put up and Hannah was digging through the drawer.

“Clara, sit on the floor we’re gonna play truth or dare.” Clara sat down next to Grace and Sophie on the carpet. Hannah sat in front of the three girls. The rock music still played.

“Grace, truth or dare?” Hannah said.

“Truth” “How many guys have you fucked?” Hannah asked Grace. Clara stared at Hannah.

“One, you know that.”

“Just making sure. Sophie truth or dare?” Hannah turned to Sophie. Clara did too.

“How many guys have you fucked?”

“You can’t ask the same question twice.”

“Fine how many guys have you hooked up with?”

“Fuck you, four.” She laughed.

“Okay, um, Clara, truth or dare?” Hannah asked. Clara didn’t want to play this game at all. She only had one option.

“Dare.” She spit out. A long pause. Hannah pulled the box cutter out from behind her and dropped it in the middle of the group.

“I dare you to try to make yourself bleed with this.” She looked at Clara in the eyes and Clara looked at her. The other girls’ complete surprise faded into chuckles. Clara looked at Hannah and laughed.

“What, you don’t cut?” Hannah asked Clara. It had been a year since that point in her life. So dark and achingly painful she promised herself she could and would never return.

“It’s not that big of a deal, we all do it.” Hannah said. Clara looked around the group. Grace and Sophie gave nodded to her and each other. These girls have done that? Clara picked up the box cutter. The almost rusty gray razor only came out about half an inch. All of the faces were on her. This was the first time she had even seen the full front of the girls’ faces all night. She put the tip of the blade to her wrist and scratched her arm. The girls winced and then leaned in. Just a white line not breaking skin.

“You don’t have to do it we could just move on. Grace truth or-“

“No I want to.” The faces once again turned to her. She looked down at her wrist. Her fingers shook so she clenched her fist. She pushed the point of the blade into the right side of her wrist until it was set into her skin. She gripped the blade and ripped through her arm. The girls gasped. The cut was empty of blood.

“Oh my god.” Hannah said. Clara looked up. The girls looked at each other in awe. Blood came. She gripped her wrist tightly and pursed her lips.

“Fuck.” Grace said. Sophia started laughing, then Grace and then Hannah. Clara held her arm down on her leg and looked at the laughing girls. She smiled as if it were an accidental injury. She was laughing hard at herself like she had just taken a fall and the people around her had seen. The girls dared to look at her arm. Blood was flooding between her fingers and streaming down her hand, pooling in her fingernails.

“Oh shit.” Hannah said. The laughter turned to revulsion.

“Oh fuck it’s bad.” Sophie said. Clara looked down at her hand. It was completely red, the lights from the chandelier shining perfectly off of all of the blood. Her fingers started dripping.

“Get your mom,” Grace said.

“Its getting on my floor!” Hannah yelled. Clara raised her arm up to stop the dripping.

“I’m sorry.” Clara rushed to the bathroom but couldn’t open the door without using her bloody hand or the hand holding her arm.

“Mom!” Hannah screamed. Clara turned to Hannah.

“What are you doing?” Clara’s voice cracked.

“Ms. Roberts!” The other two girls called.

“Mom!” Hannah yelled.

“Stop!” Clara was screaming.

“Mom!”

“Stop!” Tears filled her eyes. The bedroom door shot open.

“What the hell!? Ms. Robert’s grabbed Clara’s arm and led her out of the room.

“What happened?”

“She was cutting herself!” Hannah remarked.

“No!” Clara yelled. She could barely see the stairs through the tears streaming down her face. Her mom led her down, holding most of her weight. Her blood gushed all over the floor.

“It’s getting everywhere!” Ms. Roberts grunted. Clara couldn’t stop her heavy breathing Ms. Roberts struggled to find paper towels. She opened the front door and brought her out of the house.

“Stay here.” Ms. Roberts rushed inside for paper towels. Clara held her arm, her feet burning from the snow, her breaths leading to hyperventilation and her tears mixing with her blood. She pulled her hand off of her arm and grabbed her phone from her shorts pocket. She dialed a number putting blood all over the screen. The phone rang. She was freezing. It rang again. Her arm throbbed.

“What?” Her sister said on the line. There were people talking and music playing loud in the background. Clara looked up at the house. Through the glass door, she saw the three girls standing in the warm light watching her dispersed through her tears.

The car was silent. Marie was driving very properly, with both hands on the wheel, back straight, and eyes on the road. Clara was staring at the dash leaning her head against the door. Her arm was now clean of blood with a folded paper towel on her wrist held by a rubber band. Her face was sticky from the dried tears and her the burning pain on her feet was going away.

“Fuck. Those. Girls.” Marie said. Clara looked up at her sister. She was a silhouette, with lights passing slowly along her firm eyes. Marie helped Clara clean the cut. She slowly took the pressure of the rubber band off and pulled it up off of her arm. She peeled back the paper towel. Clara breathed in.

“It’s not too bad.” Marie said. She pulled out gauze from a children’s first aid kit and pressed some Neosporin onto it.

“Hold this here,” she told Clara. She held the gauze to her arm. Marie slowly wrapped some medical tape around her it, cut it and finished. Clara looked at her sister.

“If you need a long sleeve you can borrow some of mine.” Marie said. Clara smiled.

Clara and Marie laid down in Clara’s bed. Marie took her glasses off and put them on the side table. She turned off the lights. Clara laid her head on Marie's shoulder.

“I love you,” Marie said.

“Love you too,” Clara replied. Clara laid there in the dark blue room. She had no chance of sleeping but the warm clutch of her sister made her feel that maybe she would survive.