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Trigger Warning: Cutting

I survive through educational haze/hazing of the first half of the day, waiting for the moment I’m released for lunch and rush to the bathroom.

Not the one everyone uses by the cafeteria, but one over behind the music room in the old section. You know, the part of the school shut down because the roof leaks. It’s not fully shut down; a couple classes are over there for the senior class since they are the product of a winter with three blizzards. As soon as they push the bump through, the school is either going to rip the roof off or just tear everything down and try again.

Anyway, that bathroom is always empty during my lunch break. It smells of pot from the people on break just before my lunch time, but for my lunch break, it is empty.

I go into the biggest stall, close the door, and sink the floor, pulling off my hoodie. From a little pocket I sewed inside, I pull out my razor box. It’s small, only holding a single razor at a time so it doesn’t set off the metal detector. I snap open the case and stare at the blade.

I’ve been cutting on myself for a while. It helps me feel. To focus.

Nothing matters, but people want you to interact with them. This gets me there.

I unbutton my long-sleeve shirt. It is a plaid flannel, rust brown and black. Rolling up the sleeves I see the history of scars on my arms, some thin white, some angry red, and some crusty with scabs. The scabs are the most recent. I debate just digging into them a little.

No, I need new pain.

I pick up the blade and cut a line about two inches on my right arm. I’m right-handed, so that arm doesn’t have as many lines. The blade cuts deeper since I can’t control it as well, causing a deep ache. Holding my arm over the toilet, I watch the blood drip into the porcelain altar. Each painful drip reminding me I am alive.

That I am not just going through the motions.

The blood drops bloom in the water, spreading in a fog but taking mine away if only for a moment. I’m real. The world is real. Red is life.

The cut stops dripping after a few minutes. I want to scrape it open to bleed more, but I hadn’t eaten breakfast, so I needed to get some food into me.

I clean the blade and put it away, then roll down the sleeve and button up, finally pulling on the hoodie.

I flush the toilet, watching my life blood go down the drain, like everything else in my life. Meaningless in the end.

The cafeteria ladies pile on the food. My lunch is the last one of the day, and it isn’t as though they can store the food as leftovers. No, they don’t give me the bags of chips and stuff they can sell tomorrow, but I do get three dogs for the price of one.

I take it to a table and shove the food into my mouth robotically. When I was thirteen, I guess about four or five months after Mom died, I fell over and they took me to the hospital. I hadn’t been hungry and forgot to eat, I don’t know, maybe two weeks?

The shrinks diagnosed it as depression with disassociation or detachment or something like that. Whatever.

Anyway, they made me stay a little while and do tests and stuff. Afterwards they put me in an out-patient program. It really put Dad through the ringer thinking his kid was mentally ill. After a while, with therapy, I figured out the answers they wanted and got out of Dodge.

Yeah, I know. I probably should still be in therapy. But it wasn’t helping, and it was a big hassle. The secret now is not to fall over again. Because if they take me to the hospital, they are going to see my scars and all hell will break loose. So I force myself to eat regularly. There is no one talking to me at the table, because by the time I sat down most people had finished eating and gone off for their cliques.

A to Z Short Story List Breakdown

Rainbow Spectrum (A to F)
Marathon Party (G to M)

Trigger: Cutting (N to Q)
4/16/2019 – N is for Nihilism
4/17/2019 – O is for Open
4/18/2019 – P is for Pause
4/19/2019 – Q is for Questions

“Get up lazy bones, I’m leaving in fifteen.” My dad slammed the bedroom door behind him.

I lay there gathering the strength to get up. The struggle is real. Yeah, I slept through the night, if you count nightmares, panic attacks, and cold sweats. Last night wasn’t bad. I laid awake for most of it. But Dad would be back to pull me out of bed, like he has to do at least twice a week and I care enough today that I don’t want to deal with that shit, so I sloth onto the floor, grabbing my red hoodie from where I tossed it last night and pull it over my head. My comb is stuck in the pocket from yesterday.

Yeah, I’m wearing yesterday’s clothes. Whatever. At least I’m dressed.

I pick up yesterday’s backpack with yesterday’s homework. No, I didn’t touch it last night. The teachers never check anyway, and I can just fill something in during homeroom. I glance around the room, making sure I haven’t left anything out, and then stumble to the car for school.

My old man had warmed up the car, and my little sis is already strapped into her kid seat by the time I made it down. She was an unplanned “gift” in my parents lives, back when I had two of them. We all kind-of love her; five-years-old are kind-of hard to screw up unless you are some kind-of monster, and my dad isn’t.

“I was thinking I needed to dump a bucket on you, Kevin.”

“Grumble.” Or something like that is my response as I climb in the passenger side. I pull my hoodie up over my head and hunch down, but only after putting on my seat belt, because, god forbid, I forget to wear my seat belt.

Mom died because of a mistake, but not the seat belt kind. Just stupid shit. Two years ago and it still hurts … somewhere.

I guess it hurts Dad too, but he never shows it. Back at the beginning, he said we needed to be strong for Cheryl. That’s my sis. I try to be, and Dad is a pillar. But, some days it is like we pretend Mom never existed. Whatever. I guess that is always how it is. A person leaves, and people fill the hole somehow.

Kind-of kills the argument against suicide.

Yeah, the people you leave behind will hurt, but they will get over it. Or not. Whatever.

Dad joins the drop off line for the prison. I mean high school. Same difference. Except we get to go home at night, and the prison has a better weight room. I guess that balances. I go to the sophomore homeroom for average students. They say they aren’t grouped by grades … but they are grouped by grades.

In homeroom I pull out my schoolwork from last night and fill things out quickly. Math was a multiple choice answer sheet, as was history. I just write down the numbers and letters, not really caring if they are right. I try to get enough correct that Dad won’t be called in. He doesn’t have time for that shit, what with having to find a sitter for Cheryl. English gave an essay, and I scribble out some BS for the teacher. She is an easy one; at the beginning of the year she decides how you are going to do, and you pretty much are stuck with it. She thinks I got potential, and my grades from her are some of my best.

As long as I pass the standardized tests, it isn’t like anyone is going to fail me. That gets them black marks with the state. So I do enough to skate by; it’s not like college is an option. Dad makes too much money for grants, and with Mom dead, we don’t have enough money for anything else.

I’m practicing saying, “Do you want fries with that?” since I figure I will be asking that question a lot.

A to Z Short Story List Breakdown

Rainbow Spectrum (A to F)
Marathon Party (G to M)

Trigger: Cutting (N to Q)
4/16/2019 – N is for Nihilism
4/17/2019 – O is for Open
4/18/2019 – P is for Pause
4/19/2019 – Q is for Questions