Chapter 22:
Horrid 18. A Collection of Scabs and Secrets
HG's horrid shorts
Under the floorboards of the nursery, I found a tin box. It didn't contain letters or jewelry. It was filled with thousands of dried, brittle flakes of skin—scabs, meticulously labeled with dates and names. As I touched one labeled June 14th, 1994, a memory that wasn't mine exploded in my brain: the feeling of a bicycle crash, the sting of gravel, and the sudden, terrifying realization that my father wasn't my father.
Every scab in the box was a physical manifestation of a trauma someone had "healed" from. But they hadn't healed; the secret had just been peeled off and stored. I looked at the bottom of the box and found a fresh, wet one. It had today's date. As I touched it, I felt a sharp pain in my own arm. I looked down and saw a patch of skin missing. The box isn't a collection; it’s a harvest. And now that I’ve opened it, it’s started peeling me leaf by leaf until there’s nothing left but the secrets I’ve been trying to forget.
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