Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 91560 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91560 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
The blade inside gleams in the lights over the mirror. It promises so much—a new, sharp, virgin blade.
Just one more time. I always tell myself just one more time. Whenever it gets to be too much, all the pressure, all the memories crowding in on me. Just one more time. I’ll learn to handle my shit from now on. I won’t do it anymore.
But it always comes to this. Standing in the bathroom, propping my foot on the closed lid of the toilet and sliding my dress over my thigh in search of uncut skin. Just one more time.
I take a hitching breath once the cool metal makes contact. A little more. That’s all it will take. A tiny bit of pressure. Funny how in this moment, the last one before release, I can almost savor the sensation. The anticipation. Holding my breath, knowing what comes next.
And then I press down. Drag it across my skin. The thin line appears like magic, the pain so much better than the nothing I feel otherwise. All the tightness in my chest, all of the pressure and the tension filling me up like poison gas dissipates, vanishes, draining out of me like the blood now trickling from the thin cut.
I’m weak, trembling by the time I set the blade on the marble countertop. I have to lean against the sink, gripping the edge in both hands, before closing my eyes to savor the relief. Thank god. I didn’t think I was going to make it. It’s always like that.
Slowly, my heartbeat returns to normal. The tangled mess that was my brain smooths out. I can even look at myself in the mirror, staring at my reflection. Noting the flush on my cheeks and the hard glittering of my eyes. How many times now? I barely remember the first, when I spent at least an hour considering cutting myself. Hurting the person I hated most. More than Dad, who betrayed me in such a heartless way, before I had to go out and do the only thing I could think of to take some control of my life.
Did he feel? Does he know?
My eyes close, and I have to turn away from the mirror when I remember Tucker’s kiss. Really, it’s a good thing he touched my leg when he did. Otherwise, who knows what could’ve happened? Speaking of people I hate. He’s not quite as far up on the list as my father, but he’s pretty damn close. Somebody without the decency to let it go, to leave me be.
I can’t think about that now. I don’t want to think about anything. I want to forget, dammit. I want to simply exist for a little while with no monsters lurking in my head. Is that too much to ask?
I’m no closer to an answer to that question by the time I turn on the shower and pull my dress over my head. The blood on my thigh is already congealing, and the hot spray will wash it away. Just like always. It’s so convenient, so easy to pretend it never happened.
But there is no forgetting. Not for long, because what starts as a cut ends as a scar.
Once I’m undressed, I step into the large, stone tiled shower stall. It’s easier, safer to tune out and let my body take over for me the way it did during my drive. Going through the motions of something I’ve done so many times. Letting the water run over my skin, hoping it will wash away everything that leaves me with this sense of being dirty. Broken. Guilty. I can pretend while running a soapy mesh sponge over my arms that the effort will mean something this time. That somehow, I’ll feel like a new person by the time the suds pour down the drain. Someone whole, someone fresh and good.
Always, I come to the part where it’s time to wash my legs. To let the mesh trail over the roadmap of my agony. Each scar a symbol of one more time I lost the fight. One more time everything got to be so much, there was no hope of release except to slice my skin and let the blood flow. So many times. An ugly, shameful map that leads nowhere. I’m exactly where I started.
Soon there are tears mingling with the water coming from the showerhead. At least I can cry. I can feel again, if only for now, even if it’s sadness and shame forcing the tears from my eyes.
It was my fault. It was all my fault.
Turning off the shower, I wring out my hair before opening the glass door and reaching for the towel hanging from a hook just outside. Wrapping the thick, fluffy terry cloth around me is comforting, at least a little. Like being hugged. Like Mom’s hugs. I can’t help but remember having a bad day sometimes and the way she would pop a couple of towels in the dryer when she knew I was getting in the shower, so they would be warm and toasty for me.