When I run my fingers over the space, I find it. It’s slightly raised, still healing. The thought of infection spares it, and I move to the older scar below. Scissors poised, my head on upside down, I pull my skin tight.
My eyes scrunch shut and more tears squeeze out. Luke’s face, when I put my hand on top of his and he started grinning like a kid on his way to Candyland, is burnt into the backs of my eyelids. I can touch him. It won’t kill me. If I could have stolen myself, slowed my head down for just a second, we’d be together right now, watching a movie.
I want to tell him I’m sorry. I want to tell him I’m insecure. I want to tell him that I am hard work, that my head is a mess, that my sickness was making even the smallest thought explode that night. I want to tell him his kiss scared me but I can’t stop wanting a second one. I want to ask him to teach me how to touch.
I want to show him my list.
I want to tell him I’ve been dreaming of doing things.
I want to tell him, more than anything, that I miss him.
I close in on my thigh with the blade, but then something happens that’s never happened before. I meet with resistance, like there’s an invisible barrier between skin and scissors. I can’t make them touch, can’t make myself do it. Wiping snot on the back of my hand, I stroke the sharp edge with my thumb. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, a force field, a puppet string being pulled. Something. But I find nothing. So it must be me stopping myself. I can’t even begin to fathom what that means right now.
Weeping turns to tearless sobs as I curl up in a ball on the bathroom floor, waiting for my heart and head to slow down. I hug my knees so tight they’re almost touching my chin. The scissors stay in my palm. I keep them close to my chest because I’m not sure I don’t need them yet.
It stings when I open my eyes. The bathroom light is luminous, bleaching everything it touches bright white. My body jerks awake. I cash in on the burst of energy, clamber to my feet, and lurch towards the door. I survey the bathroom, wonder how I got here. My bearings have gone AWOL, rolling around the floor like spilt marbles. For the longest second I can’t remember anything. It’s only when I feel something in my palm and unfurl my fingers to reveal scissors that I remember I came up here to cut myself. But I didn’t. Couldn’t. I stopped myself. Something I’ve never been able to do before. Just to make sure, I reach between my legs, swipe my thigh with my fingers. They come away clean.
I drop the scissors in the trash can as I leave without a moment’s thought. I’m too busy thinking about reaching out to Luke.
I trudge across the hall, float towards my bed, and flop down. I pull on my headphones, turn up the volume on the Greatest Love Ballads album I downloaded last week, and open a new message tab on my phone.
Saying sorry is hard.
And the soulful song lyrics being crooned into my ears aren’t inspiring at all.
Finding a balance between explanation and emotional blackmail is causing friction and creating a storm inside my head.
Exhaustion burns my eyes, and typing out a text is getting tough. I’m making more mistakes than sense. I blink, and it takes minutes instead of seconds to recover my sight. I really need to go downstairs, turn on all the lights before it gets too dark.
I don’t make it.
After a second blink, I wake with a start. There’s a brief moment of panic because I can’t hear a thing. Then it registers that I still have my headphones on. I pull them off and sit up. My head feels like it stays behind on the pillow. Ugh. I should not have gotten drunk on love songs. Emotional hangovers are the worst.
Beyond midnight has crept into my bedroom and covered everything in a blanket of pitch-black. At some point during sleep, my cell escaped my clutches. I reach out, pat my duvet down in search of it. When my fingers hit the screen, the thing illuminates, blasts a laser beam of light into my eyes and scorches my corneas.
That’ll definitely help your headache, I chide myself silently.
Green and purple spots dance in my vision as I check the time. 2.00 a.m. Whoa. Exhaustion got me good.
I need orange juice and a cold compress for my head. With the enthusiasm of a corpse, I abandon my phone, roll off my bed, and slump out of the door. I’ve lived in this house for seventeen years but still use the wall to guide me to the light switch.
I drag my fingers down the wall, run them over photographs of me, Mom and my grandma, all dressed up in our Sunday best especially for this shoot, which took place on a Wednesday the summer I turned thirteen.
The last summer I ever really lived.
The last frame my fingers find is the gaudy gold one that displays my ‘Congratulations, You Graduated from Middle School’ certificate. The light switch is just above it, right before Mom’s room.
I’m about to slap it on when I notice the faintest glow of silver moonlight seeping out of a crack in Mom’s door.
That’s weird. The door is open. Why is the door open? Mom’s door is never open. We have a pact. She’s never broken the pact, not once since I got sick.