Henna // Ireth Fefalas
Summary: 'I am determined not to look back as I pass him by, but the fresh press of vivid colors steals my resolve, and I twist backwards to catch another glance of the garden on his skin.'
Warning: Romantic content.
Rating: Teen for some romantic adult content.
Notes: Written for my Creative Writing class way back when, in March or so. I'm not terribly pleased with it, but I like it all the same.

henna

His skin is his canvas, his brushes his voice.

He is unconventional, and people know it. Someone like him is new and fresh to everyone he meets, and he knows it. People gawk when he walks by, and he smiles, the ends of his lips curling upwards in a secret laugh, and it is beautiful.

henna

We attend the same public school. He's sixteen, a year younger, and his homeroom is down the hall from mine. He sings for choir, takes trigonometry, and his biology classroom is next to my physics class. I think I am in love with him.

This morning, he walks in front of me on my – our – way to homeroom. It is odd, to see him, and look at him, and know he probably does not who I am.

Everyone who he is.

I know his name.

henna

I catch another glimpse of his arms on my way to physics, when he brushes past me without a backward glance.

His hands are slender, his fingers willowy and clever. His wrist-bones are prominent and his elbows are bony, and all along his skin are twisting vines, elegantly snaking up his skin past his sleeves, flowering tiny, delicate buds. Every curl of a leaf is drawn with precision, the folds and shadows dark against his tanned skin. Every line bleeds fresh, a burning sienna.

I am determined not to look back as I pass him by, but the fresh press of vivid colors steals my resolve, and I twist backwards to catch another glance of the garden on his skin.

He turns the corner as I watch, and is gone without the chance of another look.

henna

"He's got a new henna, did you see?" Cassie asks.

I nod. "I did," I say. Cassie does not know I see him every day. I let her think otherwise. I want to keep it a secret.

"It's absolutely gorgeous," she breathes. There is adoration in her eyes, a flush on her cheeks. She thinks he is beautiful. She is not wrong.

henna

The color is a little faded the next day. It is not quite the vibrant red-sand color, a little quieter against his skin. No one notices the fading color.

I stare hard when I walk past him. I know it is not the new color of yesterday.

It is still beautiful.

I almost cry when I pass him. I wish I could stop walking and take his hand. I want to memorize every line, every petal, every thorn and knot. I want to tell him, "Give me your brush, and your skin, and I will paint you a garden to rival Eden."

He does not spare me a glance, and I keep walking.

henna

When I see him the next day, I am shocked speechless. The dye has been scrubbed from his arms, his skin raw and angry. His skin is cracked, and not the soft warm brown it was yesterday.

The vines are erased from his hands, the flowers burst and dead, ripped away in the silence of the night.

I do not try to stop myself from looking back.

His back is tense and stiff. His strides are angry and rude, and his balled fists, so achingly silent, are squalling for a fight.

There are cheerful noises around me as I slide into my desk, but I hide my head and cry.

henna

"He's washed it all off, did you see? It must have hurt; his skin is all roughed up."

Cassie is worried, I know. She does not wait for my reply.

"Why would he have done that? He loves his henna. I don't ever remember him without it." She falls silent, struggling to find words to her confusion.

"It's not right," I say.

She looks up at him, surprised at my words. "What?" she asks.

I shake my head, my lips pursed.

"It's not right," I say, "to see him empty, hollow."

Cassie is surprised, and a little angry. "He's not empty at all!" she argues heatedly. She composes herself. "It's odd," she tells me, "to see him without it, but, he's not someone different. He's … he's not empty, he's not." Her eyes are sparking vehemence and daring me to fight back.

I shake my head again. Cassie does not see how he scuffs his shoes so angrily on the ground, or how his fingers shake and pluck at the hem of his shirt. Cassie does not know.

henna

The next day his skin is still raw.

His color is better, more like his honeyed brown and less crab red. But he is still angry and upset, and his vines, his garden, they are withered and lifeless.

He looks up this time, when I pass him in the hallway. His eyes are dark like I knew they would be, richly colored like dark chocolate. They are not happy like last week when I saw him laughing. They are sharp and clouded at the same time, lost and angry.

He stares at me as we walk by. I turn to look at his face, unwilling to break contact. He is looking at me still, his mouth a hard, angry line.

We are swept up in a tide of people, and when I turn to face him again, he is gone.

henna

"Why do you watch me?" he asks me.

His eyes are the same as yesterday, and his mouth is still as unforgivingly solid. His arms are the fine now, no scrubbed rawness apparent in his skin. The garden is still missing, and I weep.

I stare at him quietly. He is the same height as me, and we are head to head, chest to chest. But he is slim like a willow tree, sloping shoulders and wisp-like waist.

I want to gather him in my arms, to kiss and touch his skin, to tell him, "Let me grow your garden, let me give you your voice."

I am silent, and the silence unnerves him.

He turns from me, unwilling to face me.

henna

"He looks much better now, doesn't he?" Cassie says. She waits for me to speak this time.

I am silent.

"Isn't he?" she persists. "His skin is all healed, it's not red anymore."

I do not speak.

She is beginning to become frustrated. Her cheeks are slowly flushing impatiently. "Why aren't you talking to me?"

I walk away.

henna

Three days later, he talks to me again.

"Do you miss it?" he asks. His eyes are a little less angry and a little more solemn, his mouth a little softer at the edges. "Is that why you stare at me?"

He is staring straight at me, his hands clasped to the straps of his backpack, fingers curled in. There is no hesitance or uncertainty written anywhere on his face. He is being bold, and I want to smile.

I do not answer his question. I hold out my hand, palm upwards, the soft flesh of my forearm facing the ceiling.

Without a word in exchange, he gives me his hand. His skin is warm against mine.

It is almost perfect.

I brush the pad of my thumb over the back of his hand. His skin is empty, bereft of gardens and vines and flourishing flowers. It made me cry once. Today it makes me is an eternity of hope in this hush, silent skin. He does not know it. His bristling anger makes that clear.

I shake my head at him.

"No?" he says. His voice cracks. "You," he clears his throat, "you haven't been looking at me?"

His boldness cracks at the face of rejection and possible humiliation. He does not want to be wrong.

Gently, I overturn his hand and touch the upturned skin of his exposed wrist. It is paler than the rest of him, and softer. This too is empty, and his forearm, the crook of his elbow, the flesh of his upper-arm, his covered shoulders and chest.

"This isn't quiet forever," I say.

He is staring at me. He does not know how to take my words. He finds them strange and odd, but he is not pulling away, only standing still.

"This is a promise of what can be," I say. And I kiss him.

henna

"He's got his henna back," Cassie tells me excitedly. "It's this design with vines and flowers, like he had last week," she says, "but with a hundred more flowers: chrysanthemums, and plumerias, and lilies of the valley."

"And, oh, he's so much happier!" She sighs and laughs in the same breath. "I saw him smile today. He wasn't angry at all."

She laughs a little. "It's like…" She struggles to find the words. "It's like spring come early."

Cassie does not need to tell me. I smile, and tell her, "I know."