At least, my therapist told me that once. Must be true. Yeah, she sugarcoated the terms but at the same time, the unease in her gaze as her features pinched told me everything. She shuddered as I went on, describing what all the gashes up and down my arms and throat were.
The ones at my throat were the real low moments. Where death seemed so viable, happy, almost the forever night’s rest I sought after for so long.
In the five years they’d been gone, money bought me out of a lot of things. Mental imprisonment too.
Sad when you thought too hard, knowing even when my safety was at risk, they’d take a bribe. Unwavering in their choice, whether my mind was sound or not.
Life brought an acrid bitterness to my mouth, reminding me others only looked out for themselves. No one truly mattered, least of all me.
Traveling over my arms, blood met my gaze. The crimson path trekked down my arms; a beautiful poem of art and heartbreak, making love once more.
It was beautiful somehow, the pain and presence of nothing at the same time. Numbness was strange, the way it didn’t feel like anything yet felt like everything without clinging to it.
The droplets of my disdain continued their path down to my wrists, swirling with each other, creating another masterpiece of solemnity. When they made it to my fingers, I couldn’t resist the urge to twist them, watch as they made their own story on my skin. The rouge bubbled, readying to drip and create its masterpiece elsewhere.
“I sometimes wish you were here,” I whispered to the cuts across my flesh, twisting to see how much could change with a color. “Wish you could see how much pain I’m in.” They were no longer here. My parents. The pain didn’t ebb and flow like my blood, it didn’t move forward like a wave against the coast. It continued to jab like the blade in my skin, the needles filled with ink, it was a constant journey of pain and the inability to truly feel correctly.
This day only reminded me that much.
“You know, I wanted to hear how proud you were,” I continued to the emptiness of me. “I wanted you to be here, see how much I’ve accomplished.” The heaviness in my chest and throat had me aching in a way I’d stopped allowing a long time ago.
I grabbed the razor I’ve been using the last few months, knowing its time, too, was coming to an end. All things concluded, leaving me breathless and alone once more.
“Would you hate what Andy and I have become?”
I thought back to her, to the moments we’d stolen in the dark. The kisses we shared as a dare when no one watched. We didn’t have to do that—cross that line—but somewhere, I’d lost sight of what was and wasn’t morally acceptable.
“She worries you’d hate her,” I admitted, thinking of the crestfallen way she struggled at our connection. Every single time, she was the only voice of reason while I pushed her.
I gripped the blade between my thumb and pointer finger, twirling it, hoping it’d catch my skin along the way. Then I brought it to my chest, above my heart, where an empty space stayed. “I’d rip it out if I knew there was something after life. I don’t think the world is kind enough to offer true peace, so I’m stuck in this in-between where the only things that make me feel are the two that bring me closer to you both.”
Tracing over the little balloon I drew one day, thinking of the birthdays I’d never have with them again, I dug in. Would they hate me too?
We all had traditions, and for my birthday, my tradition was battling with drugs, liquor, and my will to live and die.
My phone rang, the tiny beep a reality check for my already scarred self. I set down the razor, knowing once the trance of deep-rooted hatred broke, I’d be unable to go back without the shame eating me alive.
The bed groaned as I’d adjusted in it. The sheets were a mixture of sweat, sex, and blood. I’d have to throw these out. Dispose of them before someone found out my secrets.
We avoid you this day because you told us to, but not tonight, the text read. I expected it to be Andy. Hope, such a bitter bitch in the end.
Not interested.
The group chat they added me in without my consent seemed to go off often. Regularly, ignoring it became easy. Right now, as it lit up and a part of me needed to not be so dim, I couldn’t look away.
Carrig: Happy birthday, asshole.
Memphis: Getting old, you shit.
Stony: We got the good stuff at the shop.
I smiled at their texts, thinking of how they were family even if I tried and tried severing their connections to my veins too.
Carrig: Yeah, we decided to get matching tattoos. We’re just waiting for you.
Reav: As if I have skin to spare.
I didn’t want to reply, give them ammunition, but the part of me that hated being alone couldn’t resist offering them a tether, something to bring me back.
Memphis: Carrig could cover up that shitty Pokémon tattoo you did three years ago.
I laughed, twisting my right arm. A few birthdays ago, I attempted drawing a Bulbasaur on my right forearm while high as fuck. I’d taken too many Xannies and got far too drunk on vodka. I could barely reach the spot when sober, but I tried anyway.
Bulbasaur sat on the bone, looking more like Ditto attempting to be him without quite taking form.
Stony: I’m guessing you’re looking at the deformity. We already called Royce. He should be there anytime.
Humiliation coated me, a sickening feeling looking at the red-covered dry spots on my arms. The ones I’d just romanticized moments ago. Closing my eyes, I allowed the disgust to waft over me.
A knock sounded at the door and I knew it was him. He’d see me a mess, just like every year prior. You’d think he’d have called it quits, given up on me like I had years ago.
Pocketing my phone, I went to the door, unable to clean anything without being too obvious. Not that the dry-ish blood caked on my skin wasn’t obvious enough.
“Happy birthday, kid,” Royce uttered, his kind eyes meeting mine in a familiar dance. For years, before my parents’ deaths, he came to my birthdays when they didn’t.
Even now, he stood with a wrapped present, intent written across his forehead in worried lines. He glanced at my arms and immediately shot back to my gaze.
“One day, you’ll be reminded why living was so important to them.”
An ache formed in my throat, making me unable to swallow or allow much else. The crease between my eyes felt exhausted as I held back all the emotions warring to break free.
“Not today,” I muttered, feeling the choking aridness with the simple response. If he only knew how often I begged for death, only to meet life and hard choices.
“Not today,” he confirmed, a hard press of his lips. I’d seen Royce disappointed many times over the course of my life, but seeing him drained of all light stabbed at the already rotted flesh in my chest.
By the time I arrived at the tattoo shop, my arms were cleaned up and hidden with a long-sleeve Anthem Riot merch tee. I stared at the logo at my wrists. The graphic artist we hired, Ashes & Vellichor, designed the perfect sharp edges to our existence.
I’d have to thank her again for being a saving grace today.
“Want to talk about your self-destruction?” Royce asked, his dark eyebrow rising higher with each breath passed between his lips. I shut my eyes, thinking of how he worried his whole life about me and never found love. Someone to give him life since I’d sucked it from him for years.