The Lambda Ampersand Award for LGBTQIA+ Writing is provided in partnership by Lambda Literary and the National English Honor Society (NEHS). The award recognizes outstanding creative writing by NEHS student members representing or celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community. We’d like to congratulate Finnegan Saylor, author of “Shedding Skin” on their 3rd place honors for the 2025 award.
SHEDDING SKIN
by Finnegan Saylor, Tennessee
My feet follow each other slowly and methodically, lazily driving me forward through mottled patches of sunlight and shadow. I am walking on the path in my neighborhood that only appears in my dreams, and everything is silent. Winding behind my house and out toward all the other places where I wander in my mind, the path is framed with willow trees which droop over the trail, their long twisting branches bearing ripe plums whose scents waft through the air and find their way to my nose by some unseen breeze. I can’t taste them, but I know that they taste like summer and youth.
Beside me a girl walks, and I don’t look at her but I know she looks a little like me. Her hair is longer, though.
“It’s nice out,” she says.
“Yes,” I respond. “I think it’s beautiful here.”
“I think so too,” the girl sighs. She laughs sweetly. Her eyes light up and I know she smiles at me even though I am still staring at my feet.
There’s a moment of silence.
“Where are we going?” I finally ask. I don’t know the answer, even though I’ve been walking here for a long time.
“Nowhere.”
“That can’t be,” I say.
“It can,“ says she.
“Alright.”
More silence follows. The shade grows thicker as we move forward.
I look at her finally. She shares my long lashes and my dark hair, but her face is maybe just a little bit rounder, and her nose is maybe just a little bit smaller. She’s pretty.
“You’re pretty,” I say to her.
She beams.
“I think I want to be pretty like you.”
She looks away. We continue forward into deeper shadow.
“I want to look like you,” I repeat to her.
She glances at me for a moment, and I think I see something moving behind her eyes. “You’re so ugly though!” she says with a soft chuckle. She looks at me now fully. Her gaze is piercing, and she no longer smiles.
“…What?”
“Stupid, too. You’re stupid.”
I look at her in dull surprise. She frowns, and stops moving forward. I do the same.
“You should leave,” she says.
“Why?”
“Go.”
We stand there for a moment, and I wait for her to say something else. She doesn’t.
“Where?” I ask. I look around for a moment and see nothing but more weeping willows and dark twisting underbrush.
“Down,” She mutters solemnly. A hole opens between us, and in it I can see myself. “Go.”
I do.
I’m sitting on the floor of the bathroom again, curled up into a little ball and staring at nothing. I am frozen with fear. It occurs to me that when prey animals get scared, they freeze so they won’t be seen. I feel like prey, sitting there motionless, petrified by terror and disgust. I am waiting to be devoured, delaying the inevitable with stagnation. I too am the predator. I know I stand there, behind the shower curtain, behind the closed bathroom door, waiting to pounce at myself as soon as I so much as twitch.
My eyes are open, my eyelids pried apart from one another by terror so that they may not kiss and leave me in darkness. I hear myself breathing from in the bathtub, from under the door. I think I see my shadow shifting. My eyes are watering. They hurt. If I could see them, I would see that they are red, straining from the effort of keeping them wide. I hear my own laugh creeping out from behind the door. I know I wait there for myself until the moment when I blink, and I can be seen again, and I can be unceremoniously turned from prey to mincemeat.
I blink. Nothing. No hands reach out for me at my movement.
I listen. There is silence now.
Still, I don’t stand up, because I know that all there is above me is mirrors. And I know that there’s nothing in mirrors but monsters. So, I unfurl myself until I’m laying perfectly flush with the cool tile floor, and my arms are spread wide, and I breathe.
The ceiling is bright. I don’t like bright lights. Illuminated by such piercing white I can see myself so clearly. In such bright light I am acutely aware that coarse hair lines my legs. It scratches me when I rub my legs together. I shaved last night, I know, but fresh hair springs so willingly from my skin while I sleep. Laying in bed I feel it coiling around my legs until I am tethered to myself.
There are bright lights in makeup stores too. Walking through the endless aisles at Ulta I feel the imaginary gaze of every other individual in the store. The room is plastered with mirrors, and in everyone I see my imperfections jumping out at me, illuminated with perfect clarity. They do it on purpose, I think. They hold in their hands the remedy for imperfections, and they offer them to you at your worst. At the Sephora at Times Square in New York City there is an escalator that leads down into the store. It’s so poignant as to be almost ironic. Standing on that escalator I know that I am being carried into glorious, radiant, fluorescent hell. I am descending into pointless vanity, and I am miserable.
I’m crying, I think. It feels good. I take another breath, and my lungs fill with the stale air that permeates the room. I should go outside. (I don’t). I just lay there for another moment, until the floor folds under me like paper, and I’m falling again.
I’m in a hotel now. The walls are beige and orange, and instead of hallways and rooms there is a mess of escalators and glass walkways intertwining, forming loose grids in the silent space. All of the escalators only lead up. I’m standing on the highest floor, leaning over a banister so that I can see the lobby below. It’s empty. The girl is behind me, leaning over my shoulder so that she can whisper in my ear.
“I was dreaming,” I say to her.
“Were you?” She asks with interest.
“Yes, I think.”
“You think?”
“I know.”
“Hm.” She pauses. “What did you dream of?”
“Myself,” I respond.
“You are selfish.”
“Maybe.”
“You only care for yourself.”
I pause. “No, that’s not right.” I turn and look at her. Her face is expressionless, but her eyes swim with vague shadows. They cast no reflections.
“Was it a good dream?” She asks,
“I don’t know,” I lie. I look away.
She is silent.
“You should stay,” she says after a moment.
“Earlier you said I should leave.”
“Earlier?”
“‘Earlier?’?”
“There is only now.”
She’s right, I think. I don’t much care. I look down at the ground floor, where the lobby is no longer empty. One figure stands there staring up at me. It is myself.
“I need to go,” I whisper. I watch myself reach an arm up toward me.
“If you insist.” A hole opens between the girl and me. I don’t look at it.
“No. Not there.” My eyes stay fixed on the form below.
“Then where? You are trapped, you know.”
“I can leave.”
“You can’t. There is no way down except through me.”
“There is.” I lean further over the banister.
“Stay. It’s easier here. Look at me. Aren’t I pretty?”
I stay silent.
“You’ll die,” she says.
I climb atop the banister and stand there, looking down. “No, I won’t.”
I jump. I fall slowly, drifting gently downward. I watch myself below, arms stretched wide to catch me. I’m wearing a dress, I realize. Dandelion frills flap behind me as I fall, tracing graceful patterns in the air. My reflection below wears white. I look good in a dress, I think. And then myself and I are joining hands, and I am in my arms, and I fall no longer.
When I stand up, I leave my skin behind like a dragonfly emerging from a nymphic shell. Slowly, creakingly, painfully, I come to my feet, my eyes still fixed on the bathroom floor. My skin sits there, dropped around my ankles like fabric. It’s so light I can almost see through it. I am surprised. It felt so heavy when it lay over my shoulders. I feel different, even though I know I am the same.
When I turn my eyes to look into the mirror, nothing has changed, but I don’t feel quite so monstrous. All my imperfections are still there, I know, but I look around them. I stare at myself for a moment, reaching up to touch my face. It is smooth and soft.
Everything is silent.
I smile, I think.
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