33
Alex continues to watch you in school and you continue to ignore him. He’s tried to talk to you a few times but you want nothing to do with him. The rumor mill has been quiet and you know that if there’s any communication between the two of you, you run the risk of rumors resurfacing. And you don’t need that drama. You’re barely getting through your days at school as it is, and since you haven’t talked to Ben, you can hardly concentrate.
You do your best to focus on getting through one class at a time.
Just get through one class at a time, that’s all you think when you’re at school.
On Thursday, in English, Mr. Owens assigns the first of what he says will be many in-class assignments.
“As juniors, you’re going to be doing a lot of writing in here, but to get started, I want to begin with something simple. We’ll work it into an essay later in the semester,” he says, rocking on his heels.
You wish Mr. Owens wouldn’t rock on his heels because it looks like he’s about to fall over at any minute.
You wish Alex wasn’t in this class with you.
You wish you could go back to Saturday night and have a do-over with Ben.
You also wish you didn’t have to bring the monster to school because you think you might have really enjoyed this class. You used to love English.
You used to love a lot of things.
Now you can’t think of a thing you love.
Except for Ben.
You were beginning to love Ben. But you told him to go away. Apparently, he is a very good listener.
You feel the urge take claim so you unhook the safety pin from the inside of your T-shirt where you’ve pinned it.
The internal humming begins. Because you can’t hum out loud here, the monster does it for you.
Your aim is the inside edge of your left wrist, just below the sleeve of the flannel you wore over your T-shirt. Your hands are tucked between your thighs, under your desk, and with the precision of a surgeon you hold the safety pin between your thumb and forefinger and scrape lightly. You’ve been doing this for less than a week but already you have a system figured out, a way to do this in class so no one knows.
You wish you could tell Shayna or Jae how it makes you feel, how it shuts the monster up, but you can’t tell anyone. It is almost like a drug and you can’t explain it because if you told anyone, they’d think you were crazy.
But maybe.
Maybe you are crazy.
Because.
You don’t eat.
There’s a monster living inside you.
The boy you thought you were falling in love with is now gone.
School sucks.
Your ex-boyfriend watches you all the time.
You’re coping by scratching at your skin with a safety pin.
Your name is called and you see Mr. Owens staring at you.
“Did you get all that?” he asks.
“Yep,” you say with surprising fake confidence.
“Great, so, the assignment, due at the end of class.”
Everyone shuffles in their seats and grabs pens and sheets of paper from their binders to begin their work. The girl next to you knows you have no clue what you’re supposed to do. She places a blank sheet of lined paper on your desk and whispers, “Six-word memoir about you. Your life.”
“Thanks, thanks so much,” you whisper back gratefully.
A six-word memoir. So easy, you think, as you jot down the first thing that comes to mind: The monster inside wants me dead.
Then you go back to your scraping while the rest of the class continues to think about their lives in six words.
You’re in a zone, silently scraping away, when the girl who gave you the paper taps you on the shoulder and whispers, “What are you doing?”
You quickly move your right hand away to hide the pin, but you’re sure she saw. And then you see the blood. It’s not anything to be freaked out by, but a little line of red has bubbled up and rivers down the palm of your hand. While it doesn’t seem like a big deal, this would get a whole lot of people talking if it got around.
“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.