Chapter one
Inuyasha loves me,kagome repeats to herself to push away the other words:He's in love with somebody else.He said he had to help his friend skid logs out of the woods before the ground thaws,but outside the narrow bathroom window,stapled over with plastic, she sees mud, miroku's footprints,soggy as waffles and leading to the shed.
Maybe Inuyasha dosen't notice the mud, maybe he sees only Kikyo, the girl from parties at the gravelpit, who flashes her boobs in the school library.they're going to the movies,Kagome imagines, maybe a Conan movie.
It's time to Pamper yourself,she reads in amagazine.Take extra time in the bathroom room.Love yourself. Pretend you're somebody who loves you and says,You're beatiful,smooth skin or stubble-y...
She's sitting cramped on the counter,fixing her hair and putting makeup on.she hurry's not the way somebody who loves her would but rush-rush, looking pretty is an everyday job.It's spring time and Inuyasha's with Kikyo at Conan the Destroyer.
She grabs her towel and makeup kit then opens the bathroom door.Inuyasha loved me first,kagome says on the closed side of her bedroom door.He'll love me again...Feet wide apart she sits down on her bed,slowly.She grabs her mirror and looks at herself and runs her palm down her smooth cheek.Pamper yourself.Pretend you're somebody else, who loves you.
She grabs her razor the way she holds a pencil to draw with.Skin his paper, blood is lead,pain the bright smell of marigolds.She draws two squares,one stacked on the other,the letter I.And then all the letters lace together into a necklace of red beams.
INUYASHA,her leg says.It's so beatiful it's all she can swallow, this beatiful word carved in her skin.The word glows.Sharp joy is all she feels.I love you weighs as much as a heart cut out and saved in a jewelry box, and that's next-to-nothing.