s k i n

f i v e

Monday, April 7, 2014

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I was thirteen when Kelly missed school for the first time. This was unlike him. He was always so eager to get perfect attendance and receive the same shitty plaque acknowledging this every year, and he'd managed to do so thus far.

So when he missed school for the first time in our lives, I was anxious to know why. He hadn't said anything to me, and I'd seen him just a day before at church.

After school, I was riding my bike home but took a detour in his direction. I stopped at his house, noticing his mom and dad's vehicles were still in the driveway along with a black SUV I didn't recognize. I ran up to his eccentrically red front door and pounded three times, then waited and listened for Kelly's voice to call me inside.

Instead, his mother opened the door to greet me with tired eyes and a worn expression. "Hello, Isaac," she spoke in a soft voice.

"Hi, Mrs. Clancy," I replied, trying to sneak a glance past her to see if I could spot her son inside. "Is Kelly home?"

"He's not feeling well today," she answered, closing the door so slightly as to not let me see behind her. This told me she was hiding something.

I decided to keep talking. "You know there's a creeper car in your driveway?"

"I'm aware," she spoke, her tone growing agitated. "Belongs to a doctor."

"A doctor?" I echoed. "Is Kelly that sick?"

She paused before answering and let out a long, slow breath. I figured she was counting to ten to defuse her temper. She'd always had a temper, and Kelly and I were pros at setting it off.

She sighed before speaking, and I could see that she just didn't have any fight left in her to give me. "How about I have Kelly give you a call tonight when he's feeling better?"

"Sure, Mrs. Clancy."

I left after that with my curiosity sky-high. What could have been happening to Kelly? It had to be the Sickness. There was no other explanation for all the secrecy.

He never called me that night. I tried calling him, but the phone went straight to voicemail.

He wasn't in school Tuesday either. Or Wednesday, or Thursday. He never answered the phone, or tried to call me back. By Friday, I was fed up.

As soon as school was out for the weekend, I raced for his house. I marched up his porch steps and rapped on the door three times. This time, one of Kelly's younger brothers answered the door. It was Carter, the last member of the Clancy clan I wanted to see, who also happened to have a total grudge against me.

"Carter," I said before he could greet me. "I want to see Kelly."

"Trust me, you don't," he said, rolling his eyes. This kid was fifty pounds of pure sass.

I stuck my foot in the door before he could shut it. "I need to talk to him."

He smirked. "Having boyfriend withdrawals?"

I glared at him. How a six year old could have such a mouth was beyond me. "Tell him he'd better call me by tonight or I'll tell Nancy McDonald you have a crush on her."

His expression went stark. "You wouldn't."

"Try me, kid."

He looked like he wanted to ring my throat with his tiny little hands. This time, I was the one with the smirk. Nancy was the most annoying kid in his elementary school. She was a total know-it-all, and she didn't know how to stop talking. Not to mention she had the voice of a chipmunk. All it took was thirty seconds in a room with her and you'd have a killer headache the rest of the day.

I could see Carter break. I'd won this argument. "Fine," he said bitterly. "I'll tell him."

I finally extracted my foot from between the door and threshold. "Super appreciated, little guy," I said and darted off the porch.

That night, I got the call. Hearing Kelly's voice brought a sense of relief. I was so glad to know he was alright. I hadn't realized just how worried I'd been until the sound of his voice washed all the panic in me away.

"It's the Sickness," he explained. "I got it bad, man."

"How bad? I mean, you didn't spontaneously combust, so it can't be that bad."

His next words nearly made my heart stop. "It might be worse than that."

Whatever's happened to him is worse than dying? A lump formed in my throat. I couldn't imagine what could be worse than that. "So what is it? What happened?"

He let out a shaky breath, and I was afraid he might start crying. "I look different."

"Like what? You can tell me. It's not going to change anything. I'm still going to be your best friend, no matter what."

He swallowed audibly. "I'm not sure I'm even human anymore."

My throat tightened even more. I struggled to get a breath in. "What do you mean?"

He paused before speaking. "You'll see Monday. I'll be back in school."

I thought I'd spent the whole weekend preparing for the worst, but when I saw Kelly for the first time in his new skin, it was so much worse than my imagination could've ever dreamt of. My chest tightened and my mind seemed to go blank. I couldn't blink, couldn't move, couldn't breathe.

His skin was pale green and reptilian, and this new skin covered every inch of his body. Even his eyes had changed. Where they were once ocean green, they were now deep red. Somehow, he still had his scruffy red hair. His teeth were sharper too.

Most of our classmates didn't recognize him. Some were even afraid of him. But I stuck by him the whole time. I wasn't going anywhere, because I knew he'd stick by me through anything.

After the rejection of fitting into society, Kelly bought his first guitar. It was a pre-used acoustic. For a whole year, he played the instrument obsessively. When his parents realized how talented he was, they signed him up for lessons at the local music shop. He progressed faster than I'd ever heard of.

We always joked about starting a band. It was after I turned fourteen and my parents bought me a drum kit that we actually took the idea seriously.

Kelly and I met up every weekend in his garage to practice together. It started out slow, but we synced up not too long after. It took us a couple years before we agreed to start playing gigs, but we still needed a name.

Kelly and I played a handful of shows over the course of a year before the name finally came to us. It was shortly after I lost my mom, and I was having a panic attack in the bathroom at school. I missed half the class period before Kelly found me.

He told me to call him anytime, for anything. Even in the middle of class. He went so far as to change his name in my phone to "Emergency Contact" with a flame and dragon emoji.

"You were there for me, and I'll be there for you," he'd said in confident. "We're family, man."

"Brothers," I'd agreed.

That night, it was set in stone. Our band would be called Emergency Contact, and we'd go on to play concerts all over the country. We might not be there yet, and it might be a long shot, but we were determined enough to get there, someday.