They still teased me about my condition, even when I turned sixteen. I kept my head down, kept my skirts long, my school sweater on in the daytime. Kept it on until it was so soaked, I couldn’t move my arms without wincing at the touch of my own sweat. At P.E. the girls would change into their uniforms and I’d watch their bags on the side. I told them it was eczema. It might as well have been the truth – they put me aside all the same.

Once there was another girl with me. She was a runner from the other class, and fit as hell, but her knee had been put into a brace. That first week, we didn’t share a word. Then on the second week, she asked me for some water. We talked. We became friends, as people sitting on the side tend to do. I told her about a literature teacher we had in common; she told me about his girlfriend, his eccentricities, the subversive decals he kept on his desk.

She never once mentioned the marks that crossed my wrists, raintree-black: scars of a friendship bracelet that had rubbed too hard. Nor did she ask about the white smudges at my neck – one of mother’s failed attempts at medicated oils – or the smudges of care on the sides of my face. I didn’t ask her about the brace, in return.

One day we snuck off to the vending machines below the junior block. It was her idea to get a drink. Her fingertips brushed mine as I handed her the coins. At that very instant, I thought I felt a buzzing, or a burning. Later, I stared at my right hand until my eyes became sore, but there was no change to the skin. As much as I’d wanted to, the colour stayed the same.

A few weeks after that, the other girl got better. I saw her in the canteen once, at the jock table, and the brace had come off. I never spoke to her again.