He traces my wrists with his hands like he doesn’t know I’m afraid of wrists. I’ve told him. They feel sensitive while his hands hover there before I’m able to move them down to mine. Wrists are just a thin layer of skin and then vein.
I had accidentally cut my wrist on a metal fence when I was little, not deep, but my friend told me I was lucky it wasn’t deeper. Wrists are just a thin layer of skin that cover up vessels to all that blood. He just traced two access points where I can be drained. If there’s much to drain of me.
He looks into my eyes like he is searching for something. Maybe he was searching my wrists for a heartbeat. It’s just a thin little layer or disguise we put on for other people in pretending to be happy. He spreads himself so wide that even his smile is thin. I hold his hands at bay.
~
Elizabeth Schmidt is a fiction writer from Helena, Montana. A graduate of The University of Montana, she is currently pursuing her MFA at Sarah Lawrence College. Her first print publication will appear in Issue No. 17 of Cleaver Magazine.