Sometimes he wishes his skin were a jacket; shrugged off when it's too suffocating to wear.
He twists in the mirror. Ugly, pink skin stretched over jutting bones. Dull and scarred and worn.
There's something different about him, he thinks. A bruise that wasn't there yesterday. Ghostly hands vibrating under his skin, like when Spectra passes through him in the hall.
He pulls on clothes. Stumbles into crumpled jeans he found lying under his bed. Stares at himself in the mirror and sighs.
Tugs on his piercings, plays with the collar of his shirt.
Mom says not to think too much.
There's talk of a new boy. A thick, tremendous buzz in the hallways. Jackson can't remember it being like that for him. The thought brings forth a strange feeling in his chest just before Manny shoves him head first into the wall.
Jackson dreams of flames swallowing him whole.
Holt thinks he drinks too much.
Must do, surely, if the blossoming bruise on his brow is anything to go by.
He presses his finger into the center of it, and the pain spawns some strange feeling in his chest. He can't remember getting it, though it's as if his body hasn't quite forgotten, fighting the fog that came with memories too thick to decipher.
He turns his music up louder. No use thinking about it.
The Patchwork girl is pretty, but she looks at him stange. Touches the bruise on his head before running her hands through his hair. Extinguished, just for her. It makes her smile.
He leans in close, a playful smirk on his lips-
Tugs on his piercings, plays with the collar of his shirt.
She's looking at him strangely again.
Holt's dreams are plagued by a newfound anxiety.
Jackson thinks he's on drugs.
He must've taken something. Eaten something. Drank something.
Back against the outside wall. He gasps for breath and it catches in his chest. Burning, itchy. There's sweat on his brow and back and-
He'd wanted to go to the party. Frankie said to try.
The music vibrates through the walls. Shakes his brain in his skull.
Frankie's there. She calls his name. He's been panicking at the wall for too long. Caught between two realities. His mind escaping, running away were it not for this pesky flesh and bone cage.
She takes his hand, pulls him up. Looks at him and then his jeans and then his forehead. Puts a cold hand on his face then pushes his bangs back-
Jackson vomits all over her.
The new boy wasn't at the party last night.
Jackson isn't at school the next day, either.
He's going crazy, he thinks.
Holt's mouth tastes of vomit. He wants to spit it out but Mom's there.
She turns the radio in his room up louder, just a smidge. Then approaches him and runs her fingers through his hair. Holt likes the attention because it's rare he deserves the positive treatment.
Her hand snakes to the back of his head and then pulls him to her chest.
Oh, Holt thinks, that's new.
She tells him everything. She tells him and then she cries . Holt doesn't quite get why she's crying. It's not her life she messed up, after all.
Holt looks in the mirror.
This way. That. Tries to imagine himself all pale and pink. The thought makes his skin feel strange, like he's suffocating in it, like it isn't his to wear.
Holt thinks it must be disappointing for a kid like Jackson to be stuck with him.