Sunscreen by Erini Sappho Katopodis

I used to date this girl who would put on sunscreen every night before bed. At first I thought it was just lotion, but the smell was unmistakable, that slightly chemical, almost-sand almost-chlorine scent, and the bottle on her nightstand read SPF 50, with little blue waves drawn on the front. We didn’t even live near water, instead in the shadow of a mountain thick with trees. When I questioned or teased her about it, she offhandedly said it was something she picked up from her mother. That it was better for skin than regular lotion. I didn’t push it, assuming she knew better than I did. 

At night, I’d rest my chin on her chest and stare at her sharp nose and her pale mouth. Her hair was dark, so that in bed at night it looked like her hair was everything, like the darkness was blended in at her roots and tied to her. With my eyes open she looked like winter. But at night I’d close my eyes and inhale and smell the sunscreen. I’d pretend her skin was white powdered sand, that her breaths were waves curling, crashing, and dissolving on some distant shore.

One night we drank too much and came home too late and in her exhaustion, she fell on the bed, forgetting to put the sunscreen on. When she woke up the next morning, her whole body—her face, feet, the backs of her hands, her belly—it was all lobster red. Pink, peeling, raw. She awoke and winced and sighed like it had happened a thousand times. I watched her limp in tiny stiff movements to the bathroom, where a bottle of aloe she had already bought was there. She started to apply it and called me in to get the small parts of her back.

I asked her, is this an allergic reaction? Did you eat something funny? Do I call a doctor? And she said no, no, it’s sunburn. It’s just sunburn. 

Ever since I was twelve, she said, I’ve had this dream. Every night the same dream. I’m walking through a desert. There’s so much sand, and only hills, and no water and it is so, so hot. And I walk and walk until I can’t. I’m just tired. I lie down on a tall dune and the sun bakes me raw. And I wake up like this. It’s okay if you don’t believe me. She didn’t seem angry, just annoyed. The answer came rehearsed, and I wondered how many people she’d had to repeat it for. I asked her about therapists, doctors, NyQuil. And she laughed and said been there, done that; then squeezed more aloe into my hands, asked me to get her shoulder blades. 

That night I didn’t sleep, just watched her and wondered if I lifted her eyelids, would sand fall out? If I opened her mouth would rays of light blind me?

Months later, I slept next to her and dreamt of a desert. I saw a girl there wandering and it was her. Walking and walking, looking down, holding her arms as if she were cold, but it was to block out the sun, although she couldn’t. I ran to her and she saw me and her eyes went wide, her sharp nose lifted. She didn’t say anything. I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her under me and made myself shelter and told her, you will not burn, you will not burn. And I stayed that way, hunched, until I woke. We both woke shaken and looked at each other. My back was red and raw and peeling, and she started to laugh, to hover her hand over my back in awe, to touch my sides so gently. Then we fucked harder than we’d ever fucked, despite the pain. I didn’t care. She left white handprints on my back and it didn’t matter. 

While I was with her, the desert came and went for me. I couldn’t control the dreams or stop myself from entering them, and I couldn’t stop her from having the dreams either. But I did the same thing over and over when I felt the hot sand under my feet: shelter. She didn’t need me to, with her sunscreen, but she let me. Sometimes she offered me sunscreen before bed. But I just kissed her forehead and pushed the bottle away. It didn’t come often enough for me to need it. 

I never dreamt of the desert after her. Any desert at all. My dreams could be thick forests, prairies, high rivers, but never deserts. Whenever I visit the beach, though, I’ll get whiffs of it. Sunscreen. And I’ll see her face in my mind. I’ll feel her hands on my back, a twinge of pain in the skin under my skin. 

Erini Sappho Katopodis is a writer and musician from Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in Paper Darts, Rose Metal Press, and The Vestal Review. She has a BFA in Writing from Emerson College, where she received an Outstanding Thesis award for her thesis “Stomach for Luck.”

19 July 2024