Next morning, I was woken up by a kick in the back. I turned around and met with Kim’s eyes; she didn’t even bother to hide the fact that she was the one who attacked me. Her leg was still up in the air. She looked unfazed and didn’t care the slightest to have kicked me.

“How many days left?” she asked.

“Good morning to you too,” I replied back, she just frowned. “Five with today.”

“Hey, I wanna swim,” she indifferently said without minding the little time that remained me.

“What?”

“Swimming,” she repeated. “Let’s go down the hill and swim.”

“You brought your swimsuit?”

“We can buy one in town. Hurry up—the weather’s good.”

I looked out from the window; its frame delimited the infinite blue of the sky. The rain really washed away all the bad things, and it left a magnificent sky too. No clouds were to be seen. The sun rays surging into the dull room were hot, like straight outta a hellish summer day; I passed my hand under them and it sure burned. There even were cicadas loudly singing and the small stripe of sand visible from my room seemed very dry. The white reverberation of the walls of my dull room blinded me a bit. And there stood Kim with her brilliant deep purple pajama because of the morning light, wanting for a swim and ready to give me another kick.

“Alright, let’s go down in town,” I announced.

She got out of the room for changing clothes and I rapidly did the same. I grabbed another wad of bills from the plastic bag and went down the stairs. The house was flooded by the sun’s bright, dazzling and hot waves; she was already waiting for me before the dining table with a full breakfast. She was probably awake since a while before me given the hot kettle of tea, the buttered and jammed slices of bread, the opened up box of corn flex, the warm bowls of milk, and the neatly arranged plate of fruit. It looked like a still-life, but under such a vibrant light, it was more alive than still. I happily sat before her and cleared everything on the table. The weather was happy, I was happy, Kim might’ve been happy since she hummed a bit for the breakfast. Because of my joy, and the temperature, I was very much looking forward to swimming.

“Let’s get going already,” I happily blurted out.

“What about brushing your teeth first?” she remarked.

Yeah, brushing my teeth. I rushed up the stairs, got in the bathroom, took the toothbrush which we agreed was mine, poured a big chunk of toothpaste out of hurry, and wildly brushed my teeth. Kim sighed by the bathroom’s doorframe as seeing my haste; she grabbed her own toothbrush and soon enough brushed her teeth at a much slower pace. Her hairs glowed golden under that one beam of sun gushing from that tiny, high, unique window. It wasn’t blinding at least. I finished before her and waited for her as usual before at the car’s bumper.

It was deathly hot outside; the air was evaporating and bent light in such a way that you could tell it was burning. My ass burned a bit as sitting on the bumper; I went to hide from the sun underneath the olive tree. And again due to the heat, the scent wasn’t as strong. It was the scent of salt that reigned supreme, coming from the vaporizing sea’s wind. The sand was definitely dry, craving for being cooled down by the invariant blue sea. In contrast, the sea was divinely calm, as though not even a single ripple was upon it. There was salty wind, sure, but the sea was definitively tranquil and composed. Just like Kim, I thought.

Lupus in fabulat, speaking of the devil, she showed up soon enough with another hoodie and her tights. Even under that lethal heat, she could casually wear such clothes.

“Aren’t you melting under that?” I said as pointing at her hoodie.

“Sparing the world from seeing my bruises comes with a cost,” she cynically replied.

“Come on, who cares about that! We definitely have to buy you a nice dress—it’s just perfect for this weather. And I wanna see your thighs too, y’know!” I joked.

“Creep,” she scornfully added. “We’re just going to town for a swimsuit, and I guess some sun cream too.”

I sighed as opening her door; instantly, a tyrannizing heatwave burst out of the car. Damn, it was an oven in there. Opening the windows just worsened things—light could enter more properly in. Kim wore a sore face for the rest of the trip; I tried convincing her to remove her hoodie three times in total, but she wouldn’t listen at all. Aloofly, she pouted at the heat by her window while I squinted too many times under the raging sun. The world outside was drying up, with only too many vain illusions of water upon the roads drying up as rapidly. At some point, she sneezed out of nowhere; maybe it was because of the dust rising in the boiling air and entering through the uselessly opened windows. It made me cough for some time too.

She had a better memory than me given how she perfectly remembered that there was a small clothes store around the way we drove by to the supermarket. The car’s roof was about to roast again for all the time we’d spend in that store; I parked it with that despairing thought in mind. We both sighed out of relief as entering under the large fans cooling down the store; their sound bugged me a little though, just like hearing cicadas from too near. It sounded old, dusty, and rusty. The employee working by the counter seemed very bored and was staring mindlessly, or I guessed thinking about the burning outer lands, at the big fans. Rows of fabric were neatly arranged in that narrow space, while light could barely reach the furthest ones.

We wandered a bit in the store; unfortunately, it wasn’t Kim interested in fashion, but we were just trying to find the swimsuits. I thought the guy at the counter was the only employee around. After a few minutes, she was standing before a row of swimsuits only asking to be rummaged through; I felt a little bit embarrassed while she was picking out one, so I ended up staring at the fans too. And I got bored as well, so I ended up looking at the swimsuits again, cautiously, while trying to imagine her in the ones I liked; of course, these would remain my fantasies, but I hoped somewhere, she’d put one. Hell, her choice was awful; even only seeing a glimpse of it, it definitely was awful. Even just the color was awfully bland, just plain black.

I cursed under my breath at her pick, but whatever, I didn’t have a word anyway. I casually looked around as though I’d seen nothing of an awful choice. She made up her mind and grabbed my hand before making me keep watch before the changing booth.

“Hey, don’t let anyone see,” she muttered.

“Yeah, yeah,” I mindlessly replied.

“And that includes you,” she sharply added. “If I see you peeping, I’ll go to the nearest police station, and we both know I’m not a murderer,” that sounded terribly cold, but she wouldn’t, would she?

Let’s not wander our eyes around, I thought as she closed the curtain. I stared once more at the fans. I could hear her taking off her clothes by the sound of fabric moving and falling on the floor. I stared harder at the fans. At some point, she poked out her hand from behind the drape and pulled me in. It was proportionately as narrow as the store; the dirty mirror in there hardly fitted on the walls. Without saying, I was just dozens of inches away from her at best. And her face was closer than that, straight meeting with mine and peering at my eyes. Her breath had her same scent and filled the whole booth. She was just frailly looking straight into my eyes.

Below, it was a much less lovely view; it was like she borrowed her swimsuit from an old diver. It just covered all her skin, from the shoulders to the forearms, from the waist to the ankles. It looked even worn-out and the plain black was turning grayish. Reflecting very well in the dirty mirror, it was only awful.

“How is it?” in the tightness of the booth, her voice echoed in whispers.

“Kim, I’m gonna be honest,” I gulped a bit. “It looks awful, sorry…”

“…I don’t care anyway,” she replied as bringing down her gaze away from my eyes.

“Hey, don’t say that! There are plenty of other swimsuits out there that’ll suit you wonderfully.”

She turned back at the mirror and looked at herself again; I was hoping she was realizing that she could look good after all.

“…You pick then,” she mumbled over her shoulder.

‘Come again?’ was the next thing I wanted to reply, but I wasn’t about to spoil that chance given with both hands; she’d surely take back her offer. From the dirty mirror’s reflection, she looked at me over her shoulder as if to say ‘I won’t say it twice’. I got out of the booth and gladly ransacked through the remaining swimsuits. At last, my eyes couldn’t take off of one of them. We’ll get to that later—but for now—it wasn’t as revealing as in my dirty thoughts since she’d hate me for sure for that (even if it did reveal her thighs). Rather, I found it even more suitable to her than any other suggestive swimsuit, and I loved that.

So, I went back to the booth and handed her over the one I picked; oh boy, when she poked out her hand, the awful swimsuit’s fabric was nowhere to be seen on her skin. She was most likely naked behind that curtain. I felt uneasy as cursing my lewd mind. Maybe because of the embarrassment, her fingers touching my hand startled me a bit. I heard her changing clothes again. Soon enough, she dragged my hand inside the booth.

Coyly comforting herself as running her right hand on the other arm, she was lowering her head in her one-piece swimsuit. I think I have a taste for the 50’s aesthetic; it looked just outta one of these antic beach movies. The dirty mirror struggled to fully reflect the might of the gleaming canary yellow. There were some thin stripes on it, kissing and displaying very lovingly the curves beneath; being a bit taller than her, I could clearly see the vale between her breasts, peeking from the swimsuit’s stop around her armpits. Without saying, her soft thighs showed too. And here and there, there were her bruises.

What I’d seen was only a small portion of the atrocities that had been done to her. The bruises reflected no light, and covering most of her body, it might’ve been an integral aspect of her being. Hurt and wounded. There were other scars sprinkled across her skin, burns and wounds, some older than others. And she was still standing somehow, in that wonderful swimsuit, without even showing pain on her face or concern. She was just waiting for me to say something.

“Well, how is it now…? Awful, right…?”

“You’re beautiful,” I said at once. “…And cute too, I guess,” I added in a whisper.

“…NO, LIAR!” she shouted as recoiling. “No one to see my bruises. I’m ugly, UGLY, an UNPLEASANT girl with DISGUSTING bruises. SAY IT PLEASE! Tell me I’m SICKENING—tell me no one wants to SEE me—tell me I SHOULD disappear. I DON’T WANT THEM TO SEE HOW DISGUSTING I AM. I WANT TO DISAPPEAR, PLEASE… I JUST WANT TO DISAPPEAR WITH THESE BRUISES…”

She didn’t weep. She was curling up like a ball, cradling her face in her knees in that narrow space. And she didn’t shout further during her small outburst. Her voice was a murmur, almost mute, slowly disappearing, like she’d wanted, into nothingness. But the bruises remained. She remained. I felt like she would really disappear any moment, just spontaneously. I leaned down next to her and for some reason, I put my arms around her. She kept wishing to disappear.

“Kim, even with your bruises, I still find you beautiful. Look at the mirror—I only see a lovely and cute girl ready to swim. So you shouldn’t say things like you want to disappear, how could such a beautiful girl disappear? How could the Kim I find so beautiful disappear? There’s no more ‘them’ to tell you to disappear, there’s only me telling you you’re beautiful. There’s no more ‘them’ who don’t want to see you, there’s only me who is only waiting for you to get out of this booth so I can see you having fun at the beach, while I’ll carry on saying how beautiful you are in my mind as I’d watch you. And y’know what—if I were lying, I wouldn’t have chosen that swimsuits for you and bore with the awful one, or would’ve said that we have to buy you a nice dress, or said I wanted to see your nice thighs—your beautiful thighs.”

“…Alright, I get it,” she muttered after gazing at me throughout the entire tirade. “It’s just embarrassing now… And you sounded like a creep around the end,” she hissed as her voice livened up. “…I’ll take this swimsuit then,” she muttered again.

She tore away from my arms and got up to take a look at the mirror. Somehow, the reflection in it, even though stained by the filth on its surface, seemed to please Kim a bit more. She marveled at her image for a while, puzzled and a bit uncertain. But something in her eyes shone a bit amid the narrow dimness of the booth.

“…Would you mind picking a dress for me, please?” her voice was not only soft, but for the first time, it seemed kind (not that I found her mean anyway).

She smiled a bit with her request. Soon enough, her unusual kindness collapsed as she pushed me out; I didn’t even have the time to smile back. Where are the dresses now? I thought. I strolled a bit but they were nowhere to be seen. Desperation hit me while realizing there might be none. Atop the rows of fabric, I still could see the same cashier dumbly staring at the fans; I didn’t want to ask him where the dresses were, he seemed too lazy anyway. I carried on, not for a while, but enough to possibly make Kim worry. They were just at the front row; the cashier livened up a bit from his torpid as watching a fool picking a dress. His eyes seemed like sneering and making fun of my every choice.

The front row was the place where sunlight and the narrow dimness came into separation. They were ‘proper sun rays’, y’know, just a clear stripe which didn’t spill light but contained itself. The cloth of the dresses was already heated up from the rays, and my hands warmed a bit while delving through them. At some point, something brighter came in my sight, a blank bright, uniformly dotted with red. It seemed cheap, or rather, it was plain simple. But there was something almost dreamlike with its plainness, as though I’d already seen it in some world. Vibrant. That’s the first thing that came to my mind. Of course, the cashier disapproved my choice, but I knew it would suit her somehow. He frowned his eyes and resumed his futile, idiotic gawking.

I went back to the booth and handed over the dress. I could almost hear ‘Took you long enough,’ from the (almost-)harsh way of her grasp.

“Thank you,” I rather heard, indiscernibly, escaping from behind the curtain.

I waited a bit while staring harder and harder at the fans. She took quite a while this time; I hoped she was gaining confidence from watching her reflection. Then she tucked the bottom of my t-shirt, very feebly, without trying to tug me in. There was some hesitation in her movement, or maybe embarrassment, or more likely both. Her hand stayed tucked on my t-shirt, hanging, and secretly trying to not lose grip acted upon by an unknown force. She hid her resolve somewhere in that hold. I slipped under the curtain as soon as I understood that. And as soon as I was in, she covered both my eyes with her warm hands. Maybe I could’ve taken a glance, but I deliberately closed my eyes. She was trying to hide anyway.

“…I’m gonna remove my hands, okay?... Tell me how it is then…”

But she didn’t immediately remove her hands. She was somehow reluctant, not by her own will, but because of the same unknown force. I raised my own hands towards her wrists before patting her soft skin. She gradually let loose and then her hands dropped at once, while my owns slid from her wrists to her palms in the fall. She held my fingers for some reason. It felt warm and got warmer and warmer. And she seemed straight outta a blurry dream with that surreal dress. The latter was very aerial, not something weightless or light, but as if it belonged to the sky, as radiant as the sky; the red dots on it, however, were very alien, shapeless and yet visibly round, confined unto circles and yet leaking god knows where. Her bruises were invisible compared to the dots

Meanwhile, the mirror behind her reverberated a fuzzy-like, awfully brilliant glow. Her eyes dived into mines, hoping to find some untold comforting words. And I just kept quiet. Dunno why, I couldn’t bring myself to say something. She violently took back her hands and brought them to her breast; she wanted to hide, to disappear again. Something faded away in her sudden drive, something warm, and not only my fingers. Her mouth ruthlessly arched down from contempt. That disdainful inverted U might’ve been the only thing on her face with her frowning brows.

“GET OUT! GET OUT!” she repeated as pushing me.

Well, she barely pushed me but her fists couldn’t stop beating my chest. But she not even meant to hurt, it was just like how you’d chase away a stray dog, without the ‘Shoo, shoo!’ though. She carried on and the ritardando beatings slowly came to stop. After the last fist into my torso, she thrust her face into my chest and hid. I brought my hands to her shoulder.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” she hissed. “…No, I’m very sorry, please… Could you hug me?” she whispered after a while.

So I hugged her while she still hid her face. But she didn’t weep.

“…Why didn’t you say something, dummy?” her voice was almost mute.

“I dunno. I’m very sorry too, Kim. I guess I didn’t know what to say… You are very beautiful in that dress. And cute—and pretty…” I stumbled.

“Really? How beautiful?” she asked back.

“The most beautiful woman in town,” I slightly joked. “You’re more beautiful than you were already, fine?”

“Liar,” she lightly replied while finally pulling away from my chest. “But I’d like you to lie again like that sometime,” she softly added.

“Any time. So, you like the dress?”

“Kinda. You think I could go out in this? I don’t wanna cause you trouble too.”

“It won’t, don’t worry ‘bout that. I want everyone to see how beautiful you are anyway.”

Kim looked back at the mirror again, uncertain like earlier. Again, she looked at me over her shoulder. So she closed her eyes, exhaled once to purge her being, took her other clothes in one hand, my hand with the other, and landed a foot outside of the booth. She struggled to bring one foot after the other, but with each step, she seemed more and more self-assured. I obediently followed her while she tugged my hand. Without saying, the cashier looked very surprised as seeing Kim’s arms and legs, but he said nothing and just carried on his job like always. He threw too many glances at Kim to be called rude, but she tried to not care. Maybe he was just trying to help a beaten woman. I took out some money to pay for the swimsuit and the dress, and the cashier tucked them in a bag.

Then she remembered to buy some sun cream and left me alone with the cashier for finding a bottle. He stared at me like some shit who beat women.

“Fuck, I’m gonna call the police on you,” he threatened.

“Hey, I did nothing. If it’s her bruises, it’s her parents who did that. Call the police on them if you want,” I shouldn’t probably have said that.

“No shit,” he replied.

“Seriously, do I look like an asshole?”

“The worsts don’t need to look like an asshole,” he replied.

“Ask her then,” I defiantly retorted.

He hissed and we both waited for ‘her’. She came back with a small bottle of sun cream in her hand and handed it over to the cashier. I gave him some money for it and he tucked the bottle in the same bag. At last, when I took the bag, he whispered something into Kim’s ear. She looked a bit surprised at first and frowned a bit around the end. Then, she slapped the cashier; the sole clapping sound laughably resonated well in the narrow store. He patted his wounded cheek with some surprise.

“HE’D NEVER DO THAT,” Kim said in her usual sharp tone.

Without even waiting for me, she got out of the store like an offended, aloof queen with the bag.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” I told the cashier as going out.