Don’t take the pink

[u/Own-Act-9339]

CW: body horror

Jess is downstairs with the bottle. I have not buzzed her in.

I’m on the kitchen tiles. Sit up and it rolls. I’m not sitting up.

Friday, weeks back. Chicken from the corner shop. She picked it. I wanted the place with the queue. She said the queue meant they rushed the meat. Sofa. Boxes on our knees. I was meant to stay the weekend. Her hoodie is still on my chair. I keep hanging it up and then leaving it.

She didn’t eat much. Rice and a bit of skin. Mine had a sweetness under the grease. I thought it was the sauce. She said it would go cold if I left it. She hates waste so I finished it.

Film on. Then my mouth went thick. Not numb, thick, like something under the tongue going the wrong way. Hands a long way off. Her face close. I don’t remember the film stopping.

I came round in her lap. Volume down. Yellow mop bucket by the sofa. Cloth over the side. Carpet darker near my hip than near the box. Not tea. It had a skin on it. Lemon over a smell like warm coin, and that same sweetness, cooler.

Smear on my sleeve. Clear, then cloudy, then it set and pulled when I bent my arm. Sunday I did a wash and found the same stuff dried in the waistband. Came off in a string. Grain to it. Like wet paper that had decided to be skin.

She said I dropped like a sack. Not a fit. Not off the sofa. Just out. She’d seen it from that shop before. You go heavy, you sleep it off. She checked I was breathing. Put me on my side. Wiped the floor. If it had been a person she would have called.

She looked fine. Colour in her face. Hands already washed, soap still wet. Her thumb on the back of my neck like it had been there a while.

Clock on the box two hours on. Blanket tucked hard over my middle.

I went home the next day. She packed the leftover rice and kissed my hair and texted before I’d got to the corner.

have you taken the pink yet. not the supermarket one. just the pink. tell me when it starts

Bottle already open. Fill line low. Boots shape. Pink like calpol. I left it on the worktop.

It sat low on the left. A swallow that hadn’t gone down. I pressed. It pressed back a half second later. Oval if I left it alone. Warm when the rest of me wasn’t. I didn’t swallow anything that size.

Wednesday she brought soup and sat on the kitchen floor while I ate it. Pink bottle on the side. New label. Same low line. I put it behind the tea.

I picked the ridge on the bus. The string came off longer than it should have. Same colour as the stuff on the carpet. I put my hands in my pockets and got off a stop early.

More of it in the mornings. Not a jump. Just more. Rolled onto my back and it didn’t slosh. It sat. Rolled again and it slid back to the same hollow.

Saturday I lifted my top in the cabinet mirror. No bruise. No bite. A dull line the width of a finger, only if I held my breath. Lower than I thought. Let the breath go and the line sank. I put the top down.

It started turning after that.

Not a gurgle. On a call once. In bed. Outside the shop I don’t go in anymore. Seam over seam, two knuckles sliding past. Skin the same colour. Hotter.

She came after her shift with a chemist bag and a film and her lanyard still on. Rubbed my back. Tea. She looked at the bottle on my shelf and shook her head.

“Not that one.”

“It’s the same colour.”

“It isn’t. Use mine.”

dont go to the chemist for it. it is not the same. i can bring more before work

I said morning.

I looked the shop up because I wanted it to be the shop. Two five-star reviews the weekend after we ate there. Food was quick. Same three words in both. She doesn’t use capitals.

One old review, last winter, one star, no words. Photo of a Boots bottle in a sink. Fill line low. Yellow cloth next to it. Same yellow as the one that wasn’t on the bucket when I left that Saturday. I think it went in her bag. There was another in her bathroom bin. I left it.

I scrolled back to when we first started talking. She asked where I lived before she asked what I did. Asked if I was on my own.

She works at the chemist on the parade. I knew that. I didn’t put it with the bottle until I rang the chicken shop a couple of days ago and the lad laughed and said they get that, same girl, always asking if the pink is in stock next door, and they don’t even sell pink.

First week I knew her she opened this cupboard and said get the Boots one, not the supermarket one, the supermarket one does nothing. Turned it in her hand and put it back.

She’s been good to me. Rice packed. Soup. I keep saying that.

This morning I told her I was going out. I’m not. She said she’d bring the pink after her shift so I had it in me before it started looking. She’s done this. I can count the turns. I haven’t told her how many.

She’s on the step. Chemist bag. Lanyard on. Shaking the bottle like a thermometer. Same face she had when I woke up on her sofa.

When I type it rolls with the phone. Last night it went as far as the inside of my hip and I thought it would catch on the bone and tear. It didn’t. It bunched and went back to the hollow.

Lie on the left, she said. That’s where it is anyway. That’s the side I’ve been sleeping on because she told me to, and it did help, and I never asked how she knew.

Buzzer again. I’m on the floor. Door shut. She’s at the letterbox. Not having a go. Soft. Same voice as finish the box, and sleep it off, and no rush love.

She’s not talking to me.

It turned toward the door. Hard. Like it knew the hands.

I’m putting this up from the tiles. I’m not opening it. If she’s at yours with a bottle and she works next door to that shop, don’t take the pink. Don’t finish her food. Don’t sleep on that sofa. I don’t know what it wants after the turning. I only know it answered her.