‘It’s nothing. A rounder’s ball hit me in the head. Don’t worry, I wasn’t playing,’ Bella adds, with a flash of dry humour. ‘I had a free period, and I didn’t feel like studying, so I went to watch. I was just unlucky, that’s all.’
‘Did you get knocked out?’
‘Yeah. You know, it’s true, you actually do see stars. I threw up, too, so the school called an ambulance. And Mum.’ She grimaces. ‘She totally freaked out. She’s been ringing everyone. I’m really sorry you came all the way here for nothing.’
‘She’s your mum. It’s her job to freak out. And I didn’t come for nothing. I came to see you were OK.’ I squeeze her hand. ‘The same thing happened to me when I was at college. Cricket ball. You’re going to have a bit of a headache for a few days, but just take it easy, and you’ll be fine.’
‘If Mum doesn’t drive me crazy first.’
‘Did she get hold of your dad?’ I ask, trying to keep my tone casual.
‘I don’t think so. He’s at work, right? He never picks up when he’s doing interviews and stuff.’
A male nurse joins us and pulls a privacy curtain across the bay, smiling at Bella. ‘Mind if I do a quick check of your blood pressure before you go?’
He wraps a cuff around her upper arm, the sleeve of her shirt riding up as he takes her pulse. Bella quickly tugs it back down; but not quite quickly enough. It takes an effort of will to keep the shock from showing on my face.
‘Yep, all good,’ the nurse says, unfastening the cuff. ‘No more stopping balls with your head, OK?’
Bella nods weakly. As soon as he’s gone, I reach for her arm, but she snatches it away. ‘Bella,’ I say softly. ‘What’s going on?’
‘It’s nothing,’ she mutters.
I hesitate for a long moment. And then I hitch up my skirt, high enough for her to see the top of my thighs. ‘It’s not nothing,’ I say.
She stares at the criss-cross hatching of pale scars on my legs. They’re almost invisible now, but I know they’re there. I always know they’re there.
It’s been years since I cut myself, but the pull is still strong. I can still remember the exquisite way it used to sting right before it bled, and the sudden release of all the pent-up fear and rage and pain from my body, all the emotion I was powerless to express. Looking back now, I can’t think of a single day of my childhood when I didn’t feel sad. I used to lie on the floor of my bedroom, barely able to breathe, so angry and miserable I would cry for hours, hating myself for something I couldn’t control, that wasn’t my fault. I was depressed, but at the time, I thought my brain was broken. The only way I could cope with the pain was to shut down emotionally, to crush all my feelings and become numb.
But I was a young girl, and no matter how dead I felt inside, the yearning for life was like water, forcing its way through barren rock. Despite myself, I desperately wanted to feel again. There was a time when the cutting was the only way I knew I was alive. When I cut, at least I felt something.
When my mother found out about it she hit me and screamed. I started to cut myself around my ribs and on my side to hide the marks. I couldn’t stop. I thought I was meant to be the girl who killed herself, so I didn’t care about the scars. I couldn’t imagine I had a future.
Angie was the only one who knew, apart from my mother. He did this to you, she said bitterly. You’re not going to let him win, are you?
I knew she was right, but it didn’t make any difference. It was only when my mother tried to hang herself that my rage was finally directed at someone other than myself. She had no right to take her own life. She’d known what had been happening behind my closed bedroom door, and she’d done nothing to help. Why should she get the easy way out, when I was the one in pain?
At college, I sought counselling, and it helped. It took time, and often it felt as if I was taking one step forward, only to end up two steps back. I avoided friendships and intimate relationships, I cut my mother out of my life, and eventually, I stopped wanting to harm myself. And then I found Andy, and for the first time, I knew what it felt like to be happy.
Except now I wonder: was it the old self-hatred that led me to fall in love with a man who’s always, always, made me feel second best? Was that all I felt I deserved?
Whatever has driven Bella to do this, I can’t bear her to feel such pain. The anger I thought I’d tamed long ago flares back into life, but this time, it has a new target. ‘I’m not going to ask why,’ I tell her. ‘But you need to talk to someone about this.’
‘No,’ she says, alarmed. ‘You can’t tell anyone!’
‘Bella—’
‘Please, Caz. They’ll send me to a shrink. I’ll stop, I promise. I’m trying.’
I know better than anyone how hard it is to stop what Bella is doing. Even if you manage to control the cutting, that doesn’t mean you stop self-harming. There are so many ways to sabotage yourself. Drink. Drugs.
Toxic relationships.
But I also know that Bella needs someone to listen to her. Right now, neither of her parents are looking in her direction. I’ve been where she is. She needs someone she can trust, not someone else telling her what to do.
‘Next time you feel like cutting, you call me,’ I say, gripping her hands in mine and forcing her to look at me. ‘Day or night. You call me, OK?’
‘OK.’
I hug her, hard. I don’t know what – or who – is driving this beautiful, intelligent, funny child to hurt herself like this, but I’m going to find out. And then I’m going to stop it, whatever it takes.
Chapter 31
Louise
I’m fetching the car from the hospital car park when Min calls me. ‘I can’t talk now,’ I say, crooking the phone between my neck and shoulder as I scrabble through my bag for my car keys. ‘They’re discharging Bella, so I’m just about to drive her home.’
‘What did the doctor say?’
‘All the tests came back clear. There’s no swelling or bleeding on the brain, thank God.’
‘Thank God,’ Min echoes.
We’re both silent for a moment, remembering Nicky. My brother had been fine at first, after his accident; a bit banged up, certainly, several broken ribs and a lot of bruising, and a rather nasty cut on his forehead where he’d hit the windscreen, but the doctor had assured my mother it was nothing time couldn’t heal.
Except Nicky hadn’t had time, of course. The pathologist concluded he’d suffered from something called second-impact syndrome, when the brain swells rapidly, and catastrophically, after a person suffers a second concussion before symptoms of an earlier one have subsided. We had no way of knowing it until the inquest, but three weeks earlier, Nicky had been tackled to the ground during a rugby game. It was such a minor injury, he’d jumped right up and carried on playing; he hadn’t even mentioned it when he’d got home. But that rugby tackle had somehow left his brain vulnerable, and the car crash then unleashed a series of metabolic events in his head that had doomed him even as the nurse had written up his discharge papers.
I don’t care what the doctor says now: I’m not letting Bella out of my sight.