“Christ.” You don’t have anything to clean it up with so you pull your sleeve over your hand and make a fist. You collect your things and head to Mr. Owens’s desk.
“Mr. Owens, can I go to the nurse?” you ask.
“What’s the matter?” He doesn’t see the blood.
You give him the answer that will get any girl out of a classroom fast. “My period.”
“Go.”
“Thank you.”
You put your assignment in Mr. Owens’s in-box before you leave.
At the nurse’s office, you tell her that you have bad cramps and ask if she can call your mom to pick you up.
Your mom picks you up from school and when you get home you go to your room and continue to scrape until more blood oozes out.
Then you feel the calm you were waiting for.
34
The next morning you don’t get up for school. You can’t. The monster makes you sleep. Your mom tries to get you up.
“Can’t. Cramps are still bad. And head kills,” you say from under your covers. You make sure your wrists are hidden from her. They are red and raw.
She closes the door and you go back to sleep. You sleep all day.
When you wake up you feel a gnawing in your stomach. You know it’s a deep hunger, you’ve felt this way before. And it’s an odd thing—to feel hunger but not to desire food. You know your body needs fuel but you have no idea what you’d be able to put into your mouth and chew. You don’t know what to feed the monster, what would satiate the emptiness in your stomach, what would fill that hole in you.
You sit up in bed. It’s four p.m.
You haven’t eaten since breakfast yesterday morning.
You pick up your phone to text Jae, knowing she’s got to be pissed at you. At the beginning of the week you’d ditched her by hiding out in the library and you haven’t responded to her texts. You’re sure she’s probably also worried about you.
Hey
Hi
You mad at me?
I’ll get over it. Why weren’t you at school? What’s wrong?
I think Ben and I are over
What? WHY!?
You love Jae so much for this. Because although she may be mad at you, she’s still your best friend and she cares about you.
I screwed everything up. I made him leave my house Saturday night.
Oh
Yeah. I don’t know WTF I’m doing
You OK?
I honestly don’t know
I’m sorry
I’m sorry too. I’m not a very good friend.
I still love you tho
Come over later?
Can’t. Gotta pack for the fam Labor Day trip to the lake. We leave in the morning.
Oh forgot! Text me when you get back
K bye
You turn on some music. It’s thrashing and loud, music you normally wouldn’t choose. It’s angsty music. It’s good to listen to because you feel angsty. You feel unsettled. How could you have turned Ben away like that, told him to leave, when he was becoming more important to you than anyone, more important than the monster. He could have helped you kill the monster. If only you had told him.
You reach for the safety pins on your nightstand. You have two of them—one small one, and one really big one that could pin together a wool winter coat it’s so huge. You take the big one and start scratching at the very center of the inside of your wrist. You scratch and scrape, scrape, scrape. You don’t break the skin right at this spot though, because you know.
You know what’s underneath that flimsy layer.
It’s a blue river vein.
And what’s flowing in that river is too important. Maybe.
You’re not quite ready for that.
You don’t want to give up quite yet.
Sure, you’re unhappy. You’re so unhappy. The monster’s taken everything away from you that you’ve loved. Your family, your joy, your hope. Ben.
Ben.
The skin at your wrist starts to turn pink, and bits of it flake as you scrape it away and your wrist turns angry. You look at the bulges of blue straining underneath the paper-thin skin. You think it would be so easy, just so very easy to put a little poke there. You wonder what would happen if you just stabbed once.
Twice?
Maybe three quick times?
If you just took the pin to the vein? What could happen? Maybe not much.
Your wrist is really red now, slices of pink etched into your skin, but there’s no prickling of blood.
There’s a knock on your door. You pull the pin away from your wrist and turn off your music. You slide the pin back onto your nightstand and tuck yourself under your comforter, hiding your wrists.
“Come in.”
It’s your brother.
Todd never comes to see you.
“What do you want?”
He’s got his earbuds around his neck and he sits on the edge of your bed.
“Mom says you’re sick.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Cramps.”
“That sucks,” he says.
“I’ll be all right. Happens every month.”
“Not this bad. You okay?”
You can’t believe your brother is actually showing concern for you. This is really strange.
“Do you want something?” you ask.
“Just checking on you.”
“I’m fine.”
He glances at your nightstand, and you’re sure he sees the safety pins but he wouldn’t think anything of it. Then he asks, “Where’s that guy you’ve been hanging out with?”
“Not that it’s any of your business but I think we broke up.”
“Good, I didn’t like him.”
“God, Todd! You’re such an asshole!”
“What? He seemed like a douche. You can do much better.”
“You’re the douche! Get out of my room.”
35
Todd leaves your room and you sink back into your bed, thinking about what a jerk he is. You doze off for a bit and then your mom comes to check on you. What is it with all the sudden concern from everyone? She asks if you’ve eaten anything. You promise her you’ll come down and eat some cereal in a while. You tell her that your cramps are getting better and yes, you even smile at her.
She turns to leave your room.
“Close the door please,” you ask as nicely as you can.
She goes.
You lie in the quiet and comfort of your room.
You breathe.
You think. About what, you’re not sure. But really, you are sure. You know what you’re thinking about. It’s what you’re always thinking about.
Either the monster. Or Ben.
So you text him.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
You need him.
You don’t need the monster. You don’t need the safety pin.
But maybe you do?
Because after you send the text, you go to work on your right hand—a fresh canvas. But this time you stay away from the rivery veins of the inside of your delicate wrist and move to your palm. You prick at it until you peel away some flesh. You discover a way to take the pin and slip it through the top layer without breaking it, and then you actually close the pin. So the pin is attached to your palm. It looks pretty weird, but cool too. You wonder, if you take five safety pins, could you pin one to each of your fingertips? Could you tap your fingers on the tabletop, making music?
Tap, tap, tappity-tap-tap.
At least now you’re not wondering what would happen if you let the river of your vein run dry.
You’re thinking about all of this when your phone beeps:
Hi
It’s Ben.
Your stomach churns and this time it’s not from the growling, hungry monster dwelling inside you.
Blood rushes to your head. Before you can think, you text:
Do you hate me?
Of cours
e not
I’m a terrible person
No you’re not
I’m so screwed up
I’ll give you that ☺
You exhale at the sight of the smiley face. Then you text:
Thank you for texting me back
I was just waiting
you were?
Yeah
I’m really messed up
I don’t care
you don’t?
No
No?
Nope
So what now?
I see my gf again? And she’ll be nice to me?
Yes! Yes! Yes!
36
You know there’s no way your parents are going to let you out since you’ve missed school so you tell Ben to come over at nine o’clock and wait outside for you. He asks if you think that’s a good idea and you tell him that it’ll be fine.
You go to the kitchen and pour yourself a bowl of cereal—Frosted Flakes—and make small talk with your mom, staying far enough away so she can’t see your wrists. You tell her you feel much better and that you’re going to go upstairs and try to catch up on some homework.
“That sounds like a good idea. And I’m glad that you’re eating something.”
You nod and spoon scoops of Frosted Flakes into your mouth. You were so hungry and now the monster has settled. You’re not sure if he’s quiet because you’re eating but you’re just glad the monster is not around.
You finish your cereal, put your bowl in the sink, tell your mom you love her, and head toward the stairs. But before you make it up, your dad turns his head from the TV—ESPN is on, of course—and says, “Oh hey, Pea, how you doing?” and then he’s right back to SportsCenter, not even waiting for your answer. His lack of interest further convinces you that you’re leaving the house tonight.
In your room, you text with Jae, tell her you’re trying to fix things with Ben. You get out your sketch pad to draw but you can’t focus so you put your supplies away. You try to figure out the best way to get out of the house without anyone knowing you’re gone. You decide you’ll have to sneak out your bedroom window. You’ve never done anything like this before but you’re desperate to see Ben. At eight-thirty you open your bedroom door and yell down to your parents: “I’m really tired, I’m going to bed for the night!”
Both of your parents say good night to you and you hope your mom won’t check on you when she goes to bed. You know your dad won’t.
At nine o’clock, you climb out your bedroom window and although it must be in the eighties, it feels cool for early September. There’s a slow wind and you wonder if maybe there might be one of those last monsoons of the season coming through. You would hate to get caught in a rainstorm on the night you sneak out. Your bedroom is right over the air-conditioning system so it’s an easy jump down on top of it. You’re worried, though, that when you hit it you’ll make too much noise, but since there’s no backing out now, you go for it. When you’re on the ground, you pause for a moment to see if any outside lights come on. When they don’t, you crouch down and head to the street where Ben is standing outside his car waiting for you.
He’s there, waiting.
Ben.
He’s smiling.
What you want to do, what you really want to do is fall into his arms and smell him, all of him, and put your fingers through his hair and touch his cheeks and, of course, kiss his lips and also his eyelashes.
But you’re tentative and nervous because you were so mean to him the last time he was here.
So instead, you wait and watch. The light from the street lamp hits him just right, so there’s a glow about him, and he’s got this look on his face, like the first day when you floated on the river together.
You wish you were floating again.
You take a step forward because you figure if you don’t do something your knees might give out on you.
He puts both hands out and takes yours in his. His are warm, soft. You’ve missed his touch more than you knew, and he pulls you to him and touches his thumbs to your wrist, your palms. He feels the rough scrapes you’ve created there.
He brings you closer, all the while touching your wrists, your fingers and hands, the places you scratched.
He looks into your eyes, and there’s such sadness in his expression.
He knows.
He knows.
“Oh babe,” he says. “What did you do?”
He pulls you closer and you start to cry.
* * *
He takes you to his house.
He wanted to take you back into your house, to have you tell your parents right away, to show them what you had done, but you begged him, pleaded with him not to. You said your parents wouldn’t understand, that they don’t get you and that you can’t be near them. So he agreed and he took you to his house.
His sisters are asleep and his parents have gone to their bedroom already so the house is dark when you pull up. Inside, his puppy, Earl, lifts his head from his dog bed and whimpers.
“Not much of a guard dog,” Ben jokes.
In the kitchen he turns on the lights.
“Show me,” he says.
You’re embarrassed. But you trust Ben so you place your hands in his and he carefully examines your palms, your fingertips, your cuticles, and your wrists. He moves his finger across the scratches you’ve etched into your skin, featherlike. He looks into your eyes as he lifts your hand up to his lips to kiss your fingers.
“Why?” he finally asks.
You thought you’d feel better being with Ben, but you’re ashamed. Ashamed that the monster made you do this. You have no answer for Ben when he asks you why. You don’t know how to tell him that when you did it you felt relief, and that you only started doing it after he left. You think that would make him feel bad, and you don’t want Ben to feel bad. It’s not his fault you did this.
You shake your head as if to say I don’t know.
It’s enough for him, because he knows you. Already, in your heart, in his heart, you know each other.
“We can talk about it later.”
“Okay,” you say.
“You’re still perfect,” he says.
* * *
He takes your hand and leads you to his room. The walls are painted dark blue, and the feeling when you walk in is intense, warm, comforting. A few posters feature some bands you wish you knew all the music of because if it’s music he listens to, you’re sure you would love it. You imagine him singing to you while you’re curled up in his bed. His sheets are a tangled mass, and his comforter—navy and brown—is crumpled at the edge of his bed as if it was too hot and he had to kick it aside. His desk is neat, a stack of notebooks and papers in the corner, his laptop, some pens in a cup. T-shirts are folded on the chair and the only light comes from a small desk lamp.
You sit on the bed, reach for his pillow, and place it on your lap. After a few moments, you bring the pillow up to your face and inhale. It’s a real feather pillow, it’s cool, and it smells just like Ben. He sits next to you and tells you he missed you.
“I missed you too. I’m sorry.”
“Quit saying that,” he says.
“But I am.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry for everything. I’m not really very good for you.”
“Don’t say that. But you have to be good for yourself first,” he says.
You swallow. You don’t want to cry, because you don’t want to be sad.
“I wanted to call you, text you, but when you asked me to leave, I figured you didn’t want me around,” Ben says.
“I know.” You swallow again, harder.
“I get that it wasn’t you talking that night.”
“No.”
“Are you on medication?” he asks.
“I was.”
“What happened?”
“I stopped taking my antidepressant about three weeks ago.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought I was fe
eling better.” Your voice cracks.
“You think you should still take it?” Ben asks.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Are you afraid of me?” he wants to know.
“No! Why would you ask me something like that?” you whisper.
“It’s just, it seemed like you were pushing me away the other night. I wasn’t sure?”
You tell him about Alex, and the rumors from last year, and the ER and how you started taking medication after all that. You tell him how difficult school is. He needs to understand that there are catalysts that have caused you to behave the way you’ve been acting, and that nothing he’s done has made you do what you’ve done.
“If anything, I’m mostly scared of losing you, that’s all. Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of,” you admit.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He touches your hair, moves it away from your neck, and brings you close to him. You lean along the length of him, put your head on his shoulder. You both sit there for a moment, quietly. You feel a little less sad. You know he cares about you, because he wouldn’t say those things if he didn’t care, he wouldn’t want you here if he didn’t care.
He lifts your chin and meets your lips and then you’re kissing each other, and you remember how much you love kissing him, and how could you have made him leave your house? Why did you make him go?
The kissing is slow and in between the kisses Ben says your name softly, over and over and over again. You love it when he whispers your name because no one in the world says your name the way he does—it sounds like a light snow falling or rain on a spring day, or dandelions blowing in the wind—all the things you know are beautiful.
He takes the pillow you’ve been holding and sets it on the floor. He lowers you onto the bed and moves over you, locking one of his legs over one of yours. All the while you keep kissing. Kissing him is that moment between wake and sleep when you’re still not sure if you’re dreaming.
37
Ben drives you home at eleven-thirty and you sneak in through the garage. There’s a light on in the kitchen and you don’t think anything of it as you head toward the stairs to your room, but you run right smack into your mother, who’s holding a glass of water.
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