Kaitlyn Winston
Haven had a skin picking problem.
It started out as a problem with biting her nails. It was a side effect of her anxiety as a preteen girl in a new school with people she didn’t know, but regardless, she couldn’t stop. She tried a variety of other tricks that she could find—rubber bands, bitter nail polish, trimming her nails entirely too short—all to no avail. She just chewed and chewed and chewed.
At some point, the chewing moved to her cuticles. The ripping of skin was more satisfying than the ripping of the nail, and the aftermath—the blood and exposed red, meaty layer under the epidermis—was far more satisfying than just chewing on a loose fingernail.
Around the time she’d started chewing at her cuticles, Haven befriended the new girl in her small town. Her name was Ivy, a girl from the city whose family moved to the countryside for one reason or another. She was beautiful, and kind, and passionate, and for all intents and purposes, Haven couldn’t give a shit about any of it.
The first thing she had noticed was that Ivy’s skin was unbelievably soft and smooth. While her face had been riddled with recovering acne spots, her arms and legs were unquestionably different in their soft texture. Her fingers, especially, were fascinating to Haven; Haven’s own fingers hadn’t looked so pretty and manicured in a long, long time. Haven would have given anything to have skin like that.
Over time, the obsession with Ivy’s skin became unbearable. Haven couldn’t go a day without spending time with Ivy just to have a moment—an accidental brushing of hands in the hallway, sitting next to each other at lunch, whatever excuse she could find—to touch her soft, smooth skin.
And then one day, it became too much.
Ivy was very easy to manipulate, as Haven learned when she brought Ivy to her mother’s lonely shed at the back corner of the backyard. It was easy to turn her around and explain away the sound of the shovel scraping against the wall. With a quick crack to the back of the head, Ivy was down, and Haven stood over her body, knowing what she wanted. She’d wanted it since the moment Ivy introduced herself.
She would pick at the perfect skin of her friend.
After all, Haven had a skin picking problem.
Kaitlyn Winston (she/her) is a graduate student at Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, where she is pursuing a master’s degree in English. When she isn’t writing or studying, she enjoys listening to metal music, watching horror films, and spending time with her many cats.