I’m worried, if I bring my hand up to the side of my face, will I feel a seam? Will it tell me exactly how much I really love her?
Before I go on I want to say I’m still absolutely in love with Hailey. It’s just that I’m not entirely comfortable with this last TikTok challenge. I want to give all of myself to her, I really do, but I’m just worried that it’s too much too fast. I guess I’ve never felt this kind of love before so I don’t know how to handle it.
“Can I bite your arm? I want to see if I can make you bleed.”
That was the first challenge that started down the slippery slope. She’d been on TikTok for a while already and had tons of followers, but she’d gotten into a community that was all about challenges recently. Before that she was mostly into making dance videos. She’s one of those people who moves hypnotically. It’s like she’s not even trying. I still sometimes scroll back to those videos.
But she’s also a person who can’t be contained. She has to push the boundaries of society, of what art can accomplish. She’s a wild fire.
Of course I let her sink her teeth into me. It took me a minute to steel myself for it, but we did it. And since it was on camera I even let the screams out. I have a high pain tolerance, but that nearly did me in.
Half an hour later though, she was already dejected. “I hate her,” she said.
“Who?” I asked.
“****1987, she completed the challenge before we did. It was all for nothing!”
My arm was still throbbing, but I could understand her disappointment. She puts so much of herself out there for her fans, only to see someone else beat her out by a few minutes and to steal the glory. Imagine how many followers she would have gotten if she was the first to do it.
“I’m sorry I hesitated,” I said.
“Do you really love me at all?” she asked.
When I went to the minor emergency after my arm swelled up the doctor looked at me like I was a lunatic. He unwrappend the yellow towel I’d wrapped my arm with, carefully unsticking the mess from my skin. “You did this for a TikTok challenge?”
I nodded my head.
“You need to get off that app before it kills you.”
I came in for medical treatment, not life advice, I wanted to tell him. But whatever. Most people can’t understand how meaningful it is to create this kind of content — Hailey is really pushing things to their limits. I mean, I’m not the one creating the content, but being part of it — being a part of her journey — is literally the most meaningful thing I’ve ever done with my life.
Anyways, the swelling went down with the antibiotics, so I was fine.
Still, I sometimes missed the innocent pranks we’d pull, like when we ran through the big box store in green track suits and masks knocking down all the displays and merchandise we could before bolting out the back door. The security guard was so pissed he couldn’t catch us. You might have seen the clip of his face — it went viral. Yeah, that was us. I mean, that was Hailey, but I helped.
Or there was the prank where we broke into a person’s house at night and waited in their closet until they got up to go to the bathroom, then we stole all their pillows and blankets and escaped out the window. That was a masterpiece. I still wonder what they did after that happened. Like, what would you think if you got back to bed and all the bedding disappeared like that? I’d be so freaked out.
I wish we could go back to things like that.
“I want you ring finger,” she told me.
“Like, you want to get married?” I asked.
“No, not yet. It’s for a video. Like, it’s a way you can show that you truly love me. We cut your finger off, and I’ll get it preserved, and if we decide to get married some day we’ll get it reattached.”
I would have said yes. A million times I would have said yes, even though we’d only been together less than a year.
“But, I need my finger for other things. It’ll be hard to type.”
“Do you really love typing that much? Come on, you love me enough, don’t you? I need this for my channel. Think of how many subscribers I’ll get! There’s no way any of the other girls will be able to win this challenge. They don’t have anyone who loves them like you love me.”
I got used to typing with nine digits. It’s ridiculous I was worried to begin with. It’s not like I spend all day in front of a laptop. And this time I told the doctor it was a freak accident with a lawn mower. He looked skeptical, but didn’t give me any grief about social media.
When I got home though Hailey wasn’t happy to see me. Her eyes had lost their bubbly joy and had turned venomous. “She beat us again.”
“****1987?”
“Yeah, her boyfriend let her chop off his ring finger AND his index finger. He loves her more than you could ever love me.”
She was distant for the next few weeks. Some days I’d wake up and she’d be gone making videos and I wouldn’t see her until I awakened in the middle of the night to her slithering into bed. I saw her post some dancing videos and wondered if she was getting out of the challenge video scene. In one video she was doing one of those K-Pop dances on a crowded sidewalk and a guy made an obscene gesture in front of the camera.
What a main character. I couldn’t believe someone would have that gall. Can’t he see she’s making art? Bystanders had to pry her off of him, but I could tell before the video cut out that he’d regretted his choice from the bleeding scratch marks clawed into his face.
I understood the importance of the challenge videos. It was so deeply meaningful to accomplish something first before anyone else could complete it. But she looked so happy when she danced.
“Do you even love me at all?” she asked me.
I brought her hands over my still unhealed finger gap. “I would give you all my fingers if it would prove my love.”
The next morning I woke up to a new sign on our door. It was the “ducks crossing” sign from our favorite park. A momma duck crossed the road and four ducklings followed her in down coats. We had one of our first dates at that park and kissed under that sign.
I cried a little. Maybe we weren’t doomed.
I called around and found a couples therapist with openings. I’m not the sort of person who likes to talk about my problems, but I thought if Hailey wanted to I’d be willing to work out any issues with someone to help.
“I don’t need to talk about my feelings,” she said when I brought up the idea.
“Then what do you need?”
“You know, when we got together and I was totally obsessed with you, I thought ‘This is it. This is the happiness I’ve been waiting for.’ I’d see you smiling lips and I’d fill up with this big feeling until I thought I was about to burst, and I thought I wanted that to be a part of me. But it wasn’t enough. Then my channel exploded and I thought ‘This is it. This is the feeling I’ve been waiting for.’ But that wasn’t enough either. I still have this void inside me. I need more.”
She went to the kitchen and grabbed to glasses. “These are us.” She pushed them together. “If I could just push them together so hard they became one glass, if I could just push us together like that, then I would know you really love me.” As she pushed the glasses together harder one of them shattered and sliced her hand open.
A week later she came home with the scalpel.
“There’s a new challenge I want to try. If you do it then I’ll know you truly love me.”
“But what if one of the other creators does it first?”
“They won’t. Remember, their boyfriends don’t love them like you love me.”
She explained how it worked. She’d give me a sleeping drug before bed, and if I chose to complete the challenge all I had to do is leave the scalpel by the bedstand and she’d do the rest while I slept. She’d take the knife and carefully cut the skin from my face and make a mask out of it. That way she could wear me any time she wanted. I’d truly be a part of her. If I didn’t want to complete the challenge I’d set the scalpel on the floor and I’d never see her again.
My grogginess is all encompassing. I can’t remember what I chose.
“But will you think I’m ugly without my face?” I remember asking.
“Whenever I look at you I’ll only be able to see love.”
“Will it hurt?”
She brushed my stubble with the blunt end of the scalpel and left the room.
I’m so afraid to touch my face, to feel for the point when it either goes on, or doesn’t. What if I chose wrong? What if I didn’t love her enough?