A part of me thinks I just imagined the scene that plays over and over again long after we get home, have dinner, and I wash up for bed. Sleep doesn’t come. I’m at the nook of my windowsill, my legs in a lotus position, cradling my sketchpad. His image is in shadowed charcoal and crosshatching. But as usual, my sketch pales in comparison to the real thing. Yet my fingers trace down his cheek, and though it’s the rough texture of the page that greets my fingers, I close my eyes and imagine the radiating heat of his flesh beneath my fingertips.
Next time…you should just touch me.
The gravely intonation of his voice is an echo inside the catacombs of my mind, so real that I open my eyes to stupidly look around my room for him. Bringing the pencil to the corner of my mouth, I mindlessly chew on it as I analyze the words and the manner in which they were said. They seemed pretty straightforward and yet I want to know what he meant. Is there even any great meaning to them? Or am I putting too much emphasis on this? He was teasing, obviously. But he and I barely interacted before this for it to be a casual thing. We share a class together, astronomy, which he rarely shows up to. We don’t know each other well enough to tease. I don’t even think he knows my name.
No, but he knows you exist, my mind is quick to supply.
Next time…you should just touch me.
Would I? Could I? The idea of touching him—
The distinct creak just outside my bedroom door puts an immediate halt to my thoughts. I stay very still even while my heart begins a canter that quickly turns to a gallop. Bile surges up, hot and sour, it coats the back of my throat with acid. Revulsion has me pulling the pencil out of my mouth to bring it to my forearm. The one with the thick, ugly scar. I scrap the leaded tip slowly up and down my arm, going just a little deeper each time, like that will get rid of the sensation of tiny little maggots wriggling just beneath my flesh. My eyes crawl to my doorway, the two black shadows of a set of feet interrupting the flow of light beneath my door tells me it’s no one else but Tim. If it were Rachel or Sarah, they would’ve said something by now. Tim—Tim is always quiet. A flesh and blood ghost haunting my doorway. Silent like the rest of the house at this time of night. The scratch of the pencil gets faster when he grips the doorknob and turns it. It’s locked. He tries it again.
Turn. Click. Click.
Turn. Click. Click.
Turn. Click. Click.
I count a hundred seconds while he stands there.
Go away.
Go away.
Go away.
Waiting. Waiting for me to open the door.
Turn. Click. Click.
Turn. Click. Click.
Turn. Click. Click.
Waiting for me to let him in. Waiting…waiting for his sweet little flower.
The bile clogging my throat finds an exit. I only have seconds to fall to my knees before digested lumps of pasta and processed hamburger meat shoot from my mouth and splatter all over the wooden floor. I spew for what feels like an eternity until there’s nothing left but dry heaves. It’s not enough. It doesn’t ever feel like enough, because I still feel dirty inside. I’m swimming in filthy, viscous sludge. I’m drowning in it.
I need to bleed it out. I need to—
Surging to my feet, mindless of the mess I made, I scramble to my bed. Hunched over at the waist, I lift and push my mattress until it’s half off the double box spring beneath. One-track mind. The mind of an addict. The mind of a cutter. I reach for my hidden blade. My tiny, shiny stainless steel succor. Not my wrist. Too obvious. Too noticeable. Rachel checks there. The inside of my thighs where numerous other cuts line my skin like railroad tracks is where I make the first slice. It’s long. I start at the inside of my groin, dragging the blade all the way down the side of my knee.
It’s a catharsis for me.
The sting as my skin splits open is as familiar as the sweet release that follows it. The dazzling red line is a highway route on a road map I follow, needing to know where it will lead me. Vaguely aware that he’s gone now, I allow the trance of cutting to pull me further under. I cut, and cut, and cut, and cut. Manifesting my internal distress, and convert it into something physical. Something I can control. Scars that will remind me what I feel inside is real. The marks of my monsters. I’m under a spell. Cotton is in my ears. Head in the clouds. Heart beating slow. My hand moves, fingers gripping the blade tightly as it slits me open.
The highway eventually leads to a dead end. No more road to cruise on. Reality takes a wrecking ball to my trance, shattering the protective cocoon and leaving me vulnerable to a world that feels too tight against my skin. There’s a blaze of fire beneath the slashing red lines decorating the inside of my thighs. It looks horrific; bloody carnage against my fair skin. Relief is gone, congealed beneath throbbing flesh, leaving behind a numb shell. I’m on autopilot as I rise to clean myself. Running cold water from the faucet and a washcloth, I swipe down my thighs to take away my shame. Self-loathing is palpable in the pink water filling the sink until it’s sucked down the drain. The prominent flavor of disgust coats the inside of my mouth; bitter and vile. Red and white stripped toothpaste replaces it with a sweet mint aftertaste. I turn off the light of the second floor bathroom connected to my room and make my way to the pool of vomit by my windowsill. My sketchpad is strewn across the floor where it’s covered in splashes of regurgitated red sauce. The image of Maddox is covered in my stain. I rip the page out of the sketchpad and tear it in two, tossing it in the wastebasket. I’m not oblivious to the symbolism.
He isn’t for me. I’m not for anyone. I can’t want more than what I have now because I’m too filthy. I don’t want anyone to touch me for fear of them ending up in this cesspool I’m in. With the mess all cleaned, I pick up my sketchpad and place it back on my windowsill. Climbing into bed, I draw the down comforter over my head. It’s in the sweltering heat of my blanket that I restlessly find sleep.
Chapter 7
Aylee
Monday morning creeps in slow like a fog. After getting ready, I head downstairs. Every step I take is a blistering reminder of what I did last night. No regrets. Only the subtlest hint of satisfaction. I did something I wasn’t supposed to do and I’m going to get away with it. It’s a dark, little thrill. Breakfast is waiting for me. Sarah murmurs a greeting but her eyes remain glued on the book next to her plate of pancakes. Rachel is still in her bathrobe. Singing softly, she turns in my direction with a, “Good morning, sweetheart.” The smile on her face is unrivaled. Tim must’ve paid her extra attention. I know this only because it’s routine. When he’s drunk enough to haunt my doorway and is denied access, he transfers his frustrations onto Rachel. Sometimes he’ll beat her. Other times, he’ll actually do the normal thing and show her the sort of affection a husband would a wife. Locking my bedroom door has become a necessity, and he hasn’t been bold enough to tell me to leave it unlocked at night. Not since I tried to carve the stain of his depravity out of my flesh.
He’s absent this morning. More than likely at work but I don’t really care, so long as I don’t have to deal with his presence.
“Do you want a ride to school?”
I shake my head. “I’ll just take my bike.”
She tsks. “I don’t know why you insist on riding around on that thing. You have a license. Your dad and I are willing to get you a car. A used one, but at least it’ll be more reliable than that rickety bike. Just think, you’ll actually have a place to put your bags instead of lugging them on your back and in that basket.”