Crooked Smile (WINNER of the MJFA'S 2017)

Chapter 4 - Be Careful with That

The door shut, and there was silence. Michael sat very still, eyes turned down, hands in the antiseptic motionless not making the slightest sound. The boat on the dark surface seemed abandoned.

"You can take your hands out, now," Marilyn said softly, her voice cutting through the still air.

For a moment he looked at her with a disturbed expression, but when she stretched her hand out for the bowl, he nodded.

At the very last moment, he reached for the boat and fished it out.

The dyed water was dripping onto the white towel in his lap, while Michael turned the object in his hands. "This is cute."

"Yes. I loved it, when I was a child." Marilyn crouched down in front of his knees again.

"How about now?"

Surprised, she looked up at him and briefly met his gaze, then she turned her attention back to the boat between his long fingers. "Now? Truth be told, I haven't looked at it in a long while... I can still remember how it made me feel when I was little, though it was so much brighter, then. Somehow - I don't know - the paint has rubbed off, or maybe the colors just faded." Her affection for the boat grew while he toyed with it. "But yes, I still think it's cute."

He smiled and handed it to her. And when she took it, his fingers brushed against hers, soft and cool and wet from the antiseptic bath.

The unexpected touch sent sparks through Marilyn and made her chest feel tight. Her eyes shot up to see, if he had done it intentionally, but only found his friendly yet open smile. If he had, then he was pretending now, that he hadn't.

Gosh, she had washed his hands earlier - how could the touch of his fingers now suddenly do this to her? But it could. Getting up and putting the boat away, she was still aware of where he had touched her, as if that patch of her skin were dimly glowing.

Before covering the grazed areas of his palms, Marilyn took the towel from Michael's knees and thoroughly dapped his hands dry. At the moment, they were troubling him less due to the cooling and pain-relieving effect of the antiseptic, and he moved them quite freely. As she had his right hand in the towel, something caught her eye.

"What's with your fingers?"

Michael bent forward, too, and they both looked closely.

At first it seemed, as if there was something white, like a mysterious powder or cream, on his ring finger and his little finger, but when Marilyn inspected it, that wasn't the case. The tip of his ring finger had no color, none at all, and neither did the nail bed of his little finger. She had thought that it had to do with his fall off the bicycle in some way, that it was some kind of injury, but although it was as if the dark color had been peeled off, the skin itself seemed whole.

"Oh, that," Michael said lightly. "That's nothing. It's just scares. Don't worry about it."

And then he moved his hand so Marilyn couldn't see the fingers anymore.

After putting cream and bandages on his hands, Marilyn pushed the rolled-up shirtsleeve on his right arm a little higher to tend to his elbow. "Can you hold on to this?"

He nodded. This time he didn't touch her hand. Maybe it had just been accidental earlier.

As she tried to wash the caked dirt from his skinned arm, Michael watched her closely. His face was tense. Marilyn tried to be gentle, but she was still sure that she was hurting him. Water carrying blood and dirt dripped off his arm onto the towel she had laid in his lap again.

"Be careful, so you don't get your dress dirty," he said suddenly.

Marilyn looked at him, and then at her dress. She had forgotten what she was wearing.