The Finstas

It started on Instagram, as so many awful things do, with Ezra’s friend Willow posting a photo of her quad to her Finsta. Set against a black backdrop, Willow’s quad had thin horizontal slashes leading up to her hip, parallel and evenly spaced apart. The caption of the photo read: I found my scream. 

When he saw it, Ezra was mindlessly scrolling through his phone at the kitchen counter as he waited for the chicken on the stove to brown. His mom had promised to make dinner, but she’d had a bad day and couldn’t quite get it together. She usually had bad days when Ezra’s dad was in town. Ezra knew not to pester her. 

Initially, when he saw Willow’s photo, Ezra didn’t know what he was looking at. But once he figured it out, he felt nauseated. The faint drops of blood that oozed out of the cuts that’d yet to close, the paleness of the skin that surrounded the cuts. Ezra put the phone down and looked to the blank wall beside him, taking deep breaths until the nausea went away. 

Then, he picked up the phone and took another look. 

She’d found her scream. 

*          *          *

Ezra was twelve when he misplaced his scream. He had never been much of a screamer before—he was quiet, more prone to rumination than to rage—so he could usually be certain that it was where it always was: in a pocket in his cheeks. 

He’d used it only a few months before he lost it. His father had yet to move out then, but he and Ezra’s mom had stopped sharing a bedroom. Ezra noticed this right away. It frightened him. He didn’t like change, and this seemed like a big change. 

The night he discovered their new sleeping arrangement, around bedtime, he knocked on the door of what had been his parents’ room. His mom called him in, and when Ezra came in, he found her alone on the bed, reading a Danielle Steel paperback. Her body looked rigid, and she seemed irritated with Ezra’s intrusion into her private space. 

“Why is dad in the guest room?” Ezra asked. 

His mom looked at him with both concern and distaste. “Your father can tell you.” 

“Why can’t you?” 

“Just go to your father. He’ll tell you why.” 

Sullenly, Ezra slipped out of the room; he didn’t want to ask his father. His father had been getting tougher to talk to recently. He didn’t say much, and when he did, it was usually a judgment or criticism. Ezra had learned to keep out of his way, and to engage only when his father initiated. 

Ezra hesitantly knocked on the door of the guest room. On the other side, he heard the shuffling of sheets and paper. 

“Gail?” 

“It’s me,” Ezra said. 

Ezra heard his dad get out of the bed. His dad cracked the door a few inches, revealing his stubbly chin and his wide frame. “What is it?” 

“Why’re you sleeping in here?” 

“What?” 

“Why aren’t you with mom?” 

Ezra’s dad rubbed his thumb under his chin, the frustration in his face turning into bitterness. “Well,” he said, “your mother’s the one who wants me here, so the burden to tell you is on her, isn’t it?” 

“Mom said to ask you.” 

“Ez, go ask her.” 

The thought of going back to his mom scared him, as going to see his dad had. She’d been on edge a lot lately, too. “I think I’ll just go to my room,” he mumbled. “I don’t really care.” 

“Go ask her, Ezra.” 

“But I don’t—” 

“I’m not going to tell you again.” He waved Ezra away and closed the door. 

Ezra slowly walked the hall, panic filling his stomach. There was no way out. In an effort to escape, his mind slipped from his body and, independently, his scream curled out of the little pocket in his cheek and covered his teeth, like the retainer he wore at night. It lay in wait, until Ezra opened the door to his mom’s room; then it flew from his teeth like an arrow released from its bow. 

Dispensed, it left him feeling trembling and exhausted, but wholly in his body. 

The evening he lost his scream came under similar conditions. He’d burst through the door to his mom’s house—what had been his parents’ house only three months before. The front foyer that he entered was so bare that the signs of his father (his peacoat hanging from a hook, his New Balances sitting in a bin with the rest of Ezra’s and his mom’s shoes) were conspicuously absent. Ezra hated seeing these absences, and seeing the actual items on his dad—as he had just moments ago when he stepped out of his dad’s Buick, another low-energy walk around Willowbrook Mall where they spoke of anything but the divorce under their belts—did not abate his hurt. It only upset him further. 

Ezra kicked his shoes into the bin and tramped downstairs to the family room, where he expected to find his mom sitting on the couch, watching TV. His scream was sitting right there on his tongue. He could taste it, could ball it up. When he saw her, he would take the scream off his tongue and whip it at her as hard as he could. Plunk! right in the eye. 

But when he turned into the family room, he did not see her on the couch watching TV. She was on the couch, yes, sprawled out with one leg draped off its side, but instead of watching TV, she was staring intently at the ceiling, her cheeks slick with tears. She noticed Ezra standing there, but she didn’t wave him over or away. Her body was slack. 

Ezra rushed over to his supine mother, compelled by concern—and guilt. He put his hands on the edge of the couch and knelt forward so his eyes met hers. She glanced at him, her eyes hazy and unfocused. Ezra offered her a hand, which she gently took; it felt heavy cradled in his. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. 

Ezra squeezed her hand and, without him noticing, his scream rolled off his tongue. Later that week, when he checked his cheeks for it, he couldn’t find it. 

Turns out, he had swallowed it. 

*          *          *

Ezra saw Willow in class the day after she posted to her Finsta. As always in season, Willow had her hair up in a bun, with navy and silver bows tied in it. She was on the field hockey team and, now a sophomore like Ezra, she was vying for the role of captain. On her regular Insta page, she posted photos of herself and her teammates in gear, out on the field, or in the bus after a victory, holding up their sticks, cheering in a boomerang. 

When the bell rang and his classmates started swimming toward the hallway, Ezra bolted over to Willow. She smiled when she saw him—the same kind smile she’d worn when they were kids, hiding in the stairwell of Shomrei Emunah on Saturday mornings, while their parents attended services in the sanctuary upstairs. He was thankful to have been bar mitzvahed and graduated from Hebrew School, but he now missed having all that shared time with Willow. Since they had reached high school, it’d taken a lot more effort to stay friends. 

Once close, Ezra leaned in and whispered, “You found your scream?” 

Willow didn’t say anything at first. She just grabbed Ezra’s arm and led him into the middle of the hallway, where they were shielded by the torrent of competing conversations. “Yeah, I found it.” 

“Is it still loud?” 

“Yes, but only I can hear it.” 

“How long had you lost it?” 

“Almost two years,” she said. “I didn’t know I’d even really lost it, and then I thought back and realized I had.” 

“How’d you lose it?” 

Her face darkened. She shook her head softly. 

“You don’t have to tell me,” Ezra said. “But what’s it like to have it back?” 

She was looking ahead, searching the faces of those who approached. Ezra knew she had geometry next, which meant she’d have to take a left at the end of the hall. His upcoming history class demanded a right turn. 

“It’s like getting over a really bad cold,” she said. “You can smell better, breathe better, you think clearer. You’re lighter, really, and you get this sense—like, kind of a sense of awe—and almost sadness, too—like, I could’ve been feeling this way the whole time, you know? It was right here inside of me.” 

Ezra nodded and tried to imagine what that might look like: lightness, sadness. Surprisingly, he thought of the moment when his father—who would be taking him out for dinner tonight—told him that he was moving to California. Standing in the driveway with a town car waiting at the curb, he said that he would be really sad that they wouldn’t be so close by anymore, but that he’d be back to visit often—and, hey, Ezra could come visit him, too sometime, right? He’d show him the beaches, he’d teach him how to surf—once he learned, that is. A playful wink. A coy, encouraging smile. Then a short, bracing hug. 

His father, there: lightness, sadness. 

“Did it hurt?” Ezra asked, gesturing nervously to Willow’s quad. 

She nodded. 

“I’m afraid of pain.” 

“I am, too.” 

A group of Willow’s teammates turned a corner a dozen yards in front of Willow and Ezra. She whispered to him, “I’ll see you later,” and headed for them. As she joined their pack, Ezra wondered if they knew she had found her scream or if, like Willow’s previous self, they didn’t realize it was ever gone. 

*          *          *

Later that afternoon, when Ezra was waiting for his dad to come pick him up, Willow posted another photo of her quad to her Finsta. It was of the same leg, now with more lines carved into her skin, next to small etchings that looked like letters but were not easily identifiable. This one was captioned: It’s more powerful than I remember. 

Ezra screenshotted the photo in case Willow decided to take it down, and then investigated how people were interacting with the photo. Including him, all seven of her followers liked the photo, and beneath the likes were a series of comments. I wish I was as brave as you, one said. How do you get it? said another, to which someone replied, Open your skin however you can. Cut, burn. Then the scream will come. 

Ezra searched out the profiles behind the comments, but found them all private. He sent them follow requests, and soon the profiles accepted him. Most were his classmates’ Finstas, and most of them had, too, recently posted photos of their own cuts. One boy—Amir, head of the robotics club and definitely bound for M.I.T.—had two photos of small crisscrossing cuts running up the inside of his biceps; another boy—Manny, a saxophone wiz who’d already gigged across the northeast—made rounded curves, like a switchbacking road. 

Ezra shut off his phone, again nauseated from looking at cuts, albeit less so than his first time. He looked down at his hands, flipping them over and back. What lay beneath? he wondered. He prodded at the skin, feeling for the softest, fleshiest patches. On his left calf, un-flexed, he found a tender spot. He pinched it as a warmup, and then, once he grew confident in his ability to tolerate pain, he stabbed a fingernail into it. Digging, he barely broke the skin by the time the pain became too great—but when he pulled the nail out, a breathy wisp of his scream came with it. It was barely there, but he was sure he saw it. 

*          *          *

Ezra’s dad pulled up to the house minutes later, in a Chevy he’d rented for the week. He was here to see Ezra, of course, but he also had some business in New York. Two birds, one stone, as always. 

He stepped out of the car and gave Ezra a hug on the house’s front steps. His touch felt alien, warm, nice. Ezra’s father was a big guy. He had a beard that he kept neatly trimmed across his jaw, and he always wore his thick Rolex that, when Ezra was a boy, felt like it weighed twenty pounds. 

For the first few turns, the drive to the restaurant was quiet. They passed familiar haunts: Ezra’s old elementary school, a cigar store where Ezra’s dad used to spend his Sunday afternoons. With their windows down, the car felt peaceful. 

“So,” Ezra’s dad said, “how’s your mother these days? Is she all right?” 

Since the divorce, Ezra’s dad rarely mentioned Ezra’s mother in conversation. It was as if he believed that not mentioning her made it so that she didn’t exist. The question took Ezra off guard. 

“Fine, I guess.” 

“I hear she’s working again?” 

“She got a job sorting books at the library.” 

“Good for her,” Ezra’s dad said. “I always thought she needed work. Something to ground her, to give her some discipline. Raising a boy just ain’t enough to give that to you.” 

Ezra shrugged. 

“How’s her cooking? I gotta tell you, one of the things I miss most about her is her chicken parm. Before you were born, she used to make it all the time. I don’t know why she stopped.” 

“Mom doesn’t do much cooking anymore.” 

His dad turned to Ezra, looking confused. “Do you order takeout?” 

“Some days.” 

“And on the other days?” 

“Other days, I usually cook." 

Ezra’s dad took this in quietly, solemnly. “Is that so?” he murmured. 

They got to the restaurant a few moments later. Dinner went well enough. Fittingly, they each ordered chicken parm, and afterward, they went to a gelato shop around the corner. They ate on the sidewalk of a cobblestoned street, offering each other bites every few minutes, which the other routinely declined. 

It was time, then, for Ezra to be dropped off. He was ready to make his goodbye when they pulled up outside the house, but Ezra’s dad unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car. 

“I’ll be coming in with you,” he said. 

Ezra knew this probably wasn’t a good idea, but he didn’t know how to say no to his dad, so he led him up the walkway and used his shiny new key to let them into the house. Kicking off his shoes, he thought of his mom: where was she? Had she just heard the two sets of feet coming in, instead of just the one? 

“Where’s your mother?” Ezra’s dad asked. 

“I don’t know.” 

“Where is she usually?” 

“Downstairs,” Ezra said. “She likes to watch her shows at night.” 

Ezra’s dad nodded and made his way downstairs. Ezra followed, albeit at a distance, choosing to stand at the top of the staircase instead of going down with him. Once his dad rounded a corner into the den, his dad’s footsteps petered out. 

“Our son is cooking for you now?” Ezra heard his father ask, his voice echoing up the staircase. 

Ezra couldn’t make out his mother’s response, but he could catch her tone: soft, despondent. 

“He should be eating home-cooked meals. He shouldn’t be the one making the home-cooked meals.” 

“Then why don’t you cook for him?” his mom answered, her voice raised now. “Why don’t you take care of him?” 

“I don’t live here, Gail.” 

“So I guess that means you’re not responsible for him anymore.” 

Her words hung in the air, as a tense silence fell across the house. Ezra didn’t like it. He feared that they’d start yelling, that something bad might happen—and he feared the guilt that’d envelop him if something bad did happen. This was all his fault, after all. He was the one who had riled his father up. He should’ve just kept his mouth shut. 

Before either of them could say anything, Ezra sneaked upstairs and into his room. In there, he could hide. Jumping onto his bed, he put on his headphones, turned on some music, and cranked it up loud enough to block out any other noise. Then, to occupy his nervous hands, he opened up Instagram and flicked through it. Soon, he landed on the photo Willow had posted. Her cuts, so thin and neat. He went to his classmates’ Finstas. More cuts, some burns. The thought of what it must’ve been like to get their scars upset Ezra, but their captions and comments sounded so warm and encouraging. I missed my scream; thank y’all for telling me about this; I haven’t felt this free in a long time. 

It must be worth the pain, Ezra thought, to feel that light again. 

*          *          * 

Willow had warned him earlier in the day: “Don’t go too deep or you’ll really hurt yourself. Don’t cut too near the wrist. And tell me when you’re doing it. I’m going to call you and I’m going to stay on the line. You don’t have to say anything. I just want to be there in case something happens.” 

He promised he would call her, and he told her when he’d be doing it: right after school, when his mom wasn’t home. 

When the afternoon finally came, Ezra raced home, taking the smaller roads where he didn’t think anyone he knew would see him. Lifting a key from under the mat, he sneaked in through the back door, his steps soft, his head down—like a criminal, trespassing in his own house. 

Ezra dumped his stuff at the door and, before heading upstairs, stopped in the kitchen to grab a knife from the cupboard: sharp, short, the grip made from the same material a bowling ball was made from. His parents had gotten it in the set his paternal grandparents had gifted them twenty years before, when they got married. He kept it in his hand as he ran up the stairs, the blade sticking toward—and at one point running against—the wall. 

In his room, he threw the knife on his bed and switched off the lights; this seemed like something best done in the cover of darkness. He laid out a small towel beside his place on the bed, which he’d use to wipe away the blood. His classmates’ Finstas had recommended this method. He kept the towel neatly folded, fastidiously checking the corners until they lined up perfectly. 

He was ready. He would soon recover his scream. Resting the phone on his thigh, he called Willow and put her on speakerphone. 

“Ezra?” Willow answered. 

“Yeah.” 

“Are you ready?” 

He nodded. Then, realizing she couldn’t see him, added, “Yes—and, if you don’t mind, can you be quiet? I want to hear my scream.” 

“Sure. I’ll only check in occasionally.” 

Ezra put the phone down on the towel and grabbed the knife’s handle, worn and faded from years of cleaning in the dishwasher. This was it. He pointed the blade down on the inside of his forearm, near his elbow, and held it there. His head and heartbeat grew faint as he rested the tip on his skin. He imagined himself making a mistake: accidentally cutting too deep or cutting in the wrong place, causing his blood to rapidly spill from the wound, and of his mom finding him here, hours later, passed out. Maybe even dead. 

He shook his head to scatter the thoughts. They were ridiculous. Willow was here with him. He was safe with her. 

So gently, slowly, he pressed the blade into his skin and pulled. His arm started to open up easily, but the pain was more intense, more immediate, than when his nail had cut into his skin—more than anything he’d ever experienced. It was searing. His hand started to tremble. But he wouldn’t be deterred: He clenched his jaw and closed his eyes tight to steady himself. Only when the skin finally separated and a sound escaped did he open them. 

It was a whisper. So quiet that he couldn’t quite recognize it. Was it his voice? Did he sound like that? He pulled the knife further along to find out. A greater pain shot down to his wrists and up to his shoulders, but as the cut grew wider, the voice grew louder, and more distinct, too; it was his, absolutely. It had the same throatiness as his, the same pitch. He pulled even more, quicker, and soon, to Ezra’s amazement, he saw the head of his scream emerge from the cut. 

“Ezra?” Willow asked. Her voice sounded far off, as though she was calling to him from a mountaintop. “Are you there?” 

Ezra wanted to respond, but he was too occupied with his scream. It had poked out of his cut and was now inching down his arm, surfing along the small tracks of blood. Ezra put the knife down and went to touch it, but it dissolved in his fingers and took to the air. It floated before Ezra and, refusing to take shape, darted to a dozen different corners of the room. 

Ezra sat back and waited for his scream to make its move. Repeatedly, it separated and rejoined itself, as if it were putting on a show. But then, in a swift movement, it formed two separate tracks and flew at Ezra’s face. Before it could hit his nose, the tracks diverged, with one part of the scream heading into his left ear and the other into his right. Ezra felt them slip through his ear canals and needle through his brain, flitting from one corner to the next, until the scream found what it was looking for: a memory, which it placed right before Ezra’s mind’s eye. 

He’s a boy in the memory, hardly seven years old. Sitting on the brick walkway that leads to his house’s front door, he’s feverishly pulling weeds from the cracks between the bricks, wrenching with all his strength. This is the most fun he’s ever had. He jumps from brick to brick, snatching the weeds up until he has a small pile, which he’ll use for—well, he’ll use it for something, and whatever that something is, it will be amazing. 

Above Ezra’s shoulders, out of sight, are his parents. Their shadows cover him, and he hears them talking. He isn’t paying attention to what they’re saying, but they sound amicable. His mom laughs. So does his dad. He hears the sound of a quick kiss, and although he’s wrapped up in his weed-pulling, he knows things are good, and he feels good, too. 

“How’s it going?” 

With the memory, a warmth covered Ezra’s body. He felt safe and whole and content—but just as these feelings started consuming him, his scream slipped back out of his ears. Bending before him, it looked thinner, airy. Parts of it even snapped in certain places; he watched these fragments fall to the floor and disintegrate. And then, like the end of a tape measure being sucked back into its container, his scream rushed back into his arm. Panicked, Ezra tried to snag it with the other hand, but it evaded him: in a flash, the scream had fully receded back into the cut in his arm. 

“Ezra? What’s it like?” 

Ezra took a deep breath and blinked to refocus himself. The blood flow slowed. The pain dulled. He leaned against his headboard as a wave of grief crashed upon him. The memory was beautiful. It had made him, however shortly, feel light and full and reassured, and now it was gone. But then again—he smiled. His scream, although currently missing, was there, right under his skin. He could get to it whenever he wanted. No matter how buried it might be, it was still a part of him. And it would make him whole again. 

With his eyes closed, he affectionately ran a thumb over the cut, as though petting the head of a beloved pet. 

Later that evening, Willow collapsed onto her bed. The day had been long. Not only had her practice run an extra half-hour, but she’d started half a step behind—her call with Ezra had drained her. She was sure he’d cut himself badly. There was so much silence, so much waiting. She was only moments away from calling 911 when he finally let out a throat-clearing cough, and then a reassuring and strong Thank you. 

Willow took out her phone and checked Instagram. Sliding down her feed, she wasn’t surprised to find a photo of Ezra’s cuts posted on his Finsta. Willow smiled at the photo; it was nice seeing her friend find some solace. The community of scream-finders that he’d become a part of, too, was washing him in support with comments and likes. 

Willow put her phone down and, after turning off the lights, pulled a small knife out from underneath her mattress. It was wrapped in a plastic bag, alongside a small bottle of rubbing alcohol, cotton swabs, and a hand towel. She was a pro now: she took out her materials and arranged them at her side in the order she would need them. 

Steadily, she took the night’s first cut. There was that initial rush that came when the cool blade touched her skin, but also, as had recently become common, a spike of shame, an itch in her stomach. The look of the scars on her leg embarrassed her—she looked down at her legs obsessively during practice, making sure her shorts never rode up high enough to reveal a scar—and, seeing them, she wondered if maybe she’d been wrong to introduce Ezra to this practice. In the past three weeks, her desire to cut made her days longer, and the reprieve she’d gotten from her cuts had already started to lessen: what had calmed her for an evening now only calmed her for an hour. 

But as she continued her cut, whatever shame she felt went away. Her scream was slipping out of her leg, its airy, whispering head rising high. She felt herself relax. She was content again. Wholly at peace. 

BENJAMIN SELESNICK

Benjamin Selesnick lives and writes in New Jersey. His work has appeared in decomp, Lunch Ticket, Santa Fe Writers’ Project Quarterly, The Bitter Oleander, and other publications. He holds an MFA in fiction from Rutgers University–Newark and is currently pursuing an MA in clinical mental health counseling from The College of New Jersey.