Mysterious Skin: A Novel

by Scott Heim

Hi. Although I’ve known you nearly four months, a large chunk of your life remains as strange and enigmatic as one of those unidentified people the authorities found in that circus fire I recently read about, their faces burned beyond recognition. The mystery that surrounds you only makes me love you more. Oh well, what can I do?

Neil stared down at me: beautiful, exquisite, a bronze statue I wanted to worship.

I figured if I were a true death rocker—if I honestly believed in my black clothes and dyed hair, in my fascination with skulls and crosses and dilapidated cemeteries, or in the melancholy and nihilistic lyrics that littered my favorite bands’ songs—then this would be the point I’d hang myself.

“You’re probably having the time of your life,” I said aloud to the nonexistent Neil. And then, telepathically: Come back.

My father had said please to me, and it made me sick.

I thought: If this isn’t fate, what is?

Did I look good enough to kiss?

“It’s amazing what people know. They just never say anything, they deny it because they don’t want to believe.”