A THIN RED LINE
You looked so guilty
When I walked in
Your eyes were haunted
Your hands trembling
And I watched a thin red line blossom on your wrist
An evil scarlet flower
Trailing skeins of leaked pain down your arm
So easily wiped away
Covered over
Hidden
By bandages and lies and shirtsleeves
Glossed over by blasé reassurances
That it helped
Somehow
As if gashes gouged in your skin
Could take away the grief
You looked so guilty
When I walked in
Jumping up from giving yourself scars
And I wonder
If my bought silence
Will be your death
And I wonder
If the vault of my soul
Can hold any more secrets
Any more hidden sins
All this wells up on your skin
Bleeds out from
A thin red line
Cut into your wrist
Jason walked in as I closed the notebook. He took one look at me and dropped his bag in the doorway, slid onto the bed next to me, and pulled me against his chest. He didn’t have to ask what was wrong; he knew I’d gone to see Nell.
“It’s bad, Jason.”
“Yeah?”
“She’s cutting herself.”
Jason leaned away from me, eyes wide in disbelief. “She’s what?”
“I surprised her in her room. She was cutting her arm with a razor blade. She said it wasn’t about trying to kill herself, just…like it was something to manage the pain.” I buried my face in his shirt, smelling the dried sweat on him layered over Old Spice deodorant. “She made me swear to not tell anyone. She promised she’d get it under control.”
“God. Poor Nell. I can’t believe she’d do that.”
“Her mom knows she’s drinking, but since she’s never actually caught Nell drinking and hasn’t found anything in her room, she says there’s not much she can do. What do I do, Jason? How do I keep this to myself?”
“I don’t even know.”
“She said she’d never talk to me again if I told anyone. And if I felt like she was suicidal, I’d risk that to help her.”
“But you don’t think she is?”
“No, I really don’t. When I walked in, she acted more like I’d caught her smoking pot or something. It’s so f-fucked up, Jason. What if I’m wrong? What if I don’t know her as well as I think I do, and she does something to hurt herself, or worse? What if she does something by accident?” I shuddered in his arms.
He tightened his hold on me, then scooped me up so I was curled on his lap. “I’m not trying to excuse what she’s doing, but I think I can sort of understand it.” Jason let out a long breath and tucked a stray wisp of hair down, then continued. “When Dad would f**k me up, I would spend all day in pain, you know? I’d be pissing blood or something, but I couldn’t let on. And then I’d have to play ball with bruised ribs or whatever. And after a while, the pain sort of…becomes its own thing. Like, it’s a separate—I don’t know—a whole beast of its own. It’s not about the fact that you got beat up by your father, it’s pain, and you can rely on the pain to be there. It’s there, and it’s not going away. When you hurt for long enough, it becomes familiar. After a while, you get to need the pain because it’s what you know. For me, I can play ball and work out. I can shred my muscles until I’m shaky, and then I’m okay. It’s not about the pain for me so much, though. Not anymore. Now I guess I’m kind of addicted to the rush of working out, the endorphins or whatever. My point is, I can understand how Nell would turn to physical pain to escape the emotional. Doesn’t make it right, though.”
“But what d-d-do I do?”
“There may not be anything you can do, honey. I don’t know. If she doesn’t want help, then we can’t help her. Who do you tell? Her parents are aware she’s not okay, apparently, but unless she does something drastic, they can’t force her into anything. Do you tell the police? She’s not breaking any laws. If you really think she’s suicidal, you have to do something drastic, no matter the consequences to your friendship if it means saving her life. But if you’re convinced she’s not suicidal…I don’t know. Just be there if she needs you.”
* * *
The next day was Saturday, and I left my parents’ house as soon as I’d showered and changed. I was out the door before anyone was awake, and knocking on Ben’s apartment door at seven in the morning. Jason answered in his boxers, hair messy, eyes squinting.
“Jesus, babe, it’s the asscrack of dawn on a Saturday, first day of summer vacation. Can’t you sleep in past six in the f**king morning?” He let me in and shut the front door behind me, then shuffled back to his bedroom, shoving the bedroom door closed behind us.
I laughed as I set my purse down on the floor and crawled into bed with him, snuggling up behind him and pulling the covers over us. “No, I really can’t. I’ve been waking up at six since my freshman year of high school, and now I just wake up at six regardless. I figured if I was up, I might as well come see you.”
“Can I go back to sleep?” he mumbled, already halfway there.
“Sure you can, love. But what if I had something else in mind?” I let my hand roam across his chest and belly, dipping lower suggestively.
He didn’t respond for a long moment, and I thought he’d fallen asleep, but then he rolled in my arms so our faces were millimeters apart, his green eyes hooded with sleep but sparking with desire and amusement. “Ah, now I know the real reason why you’re here so early.”
“You’re not the only one with an addiction, you know.” That was the raw truth; I was totally addicted to Jason’s body, to his love, to the heat of our bodies merging.
There was more to it, though, and I wasn’t about to admit the rest out loud. I needed Jason for the same reason he needed to lift weights and Nell needed to cut. I needed a distraction. I needed something other than the worry for Nell and the weight of the secrets and my parents’ disapproval. When I’d gone home the night before, it had been well before midnight, but my parents had acted like I’d been out past curfew, despite the fact that I was in college. They wanted to know what I was doing and if it would be a habit for me to stay out that late. When I’d told them I wasn’t going to be treated like a child anymore, it had led to a fight. It didn’t matter that I was valedictorian of my high school, or that I’d completed sixty-four credits in three semesters with a 4.0 GPA at one of the top universities in the country.