“How would you know?” I grumbled, knowing the jab was more to myself than him. He stayed, I left. He pushed, I shoved. He tried, I ran off scared.
The scoff that escaped him reminded me of an easier time. He stood, stiff like me, leaning from foot to foot. I stared at my best friend, setting eyes on him for the first time—truly and not blindsided by darkness in a club—I saw the differences.
There was an aura about him, one I realized came with acceptance. His hair was colored. Black and green and some pink added in too. It reminded me of the cat-girls from college.
Fitting for my gender-fluid person.
Because Cars would always be my person.
“I never left you,” he said, no vehemence in his tone. He should be angry, hateful too. I broke every promise I ever made him. “You were the one who chose to leave.”
The heat and discomfort hit my eyes once more, feeling like dread, reminding me why a blade to my arms felt better than allowing the saltiness to fall.
“Even now, as you stand there, you’re refusing to feel.”
“Shut the fuck up, Carson,” I growled, not loving the way the words came out. He didn’t deserve my anger. Whoever fucked up with the plane deserved my anger. Whoever didn’t double-check the plane fueled my anger. Whoever made my parents die in a painful death were to blame for my hatred.
“It’s okay to cry,” he consoled, much like he used to. He kept his distance, though, knowing somehow that his touch was no longer acceptable to me.
“Stop.” It was one word, but the weight of it, the feel of it on my tongue, it said everything I couldn’t.
“Tattoo me,” he deflected, knowing he approached uncharted territory with my pain. Our eyes connected. He was saving me from having to mentally deal with how fucked up I’d become. Once again, he chose my ease over his own.
“Why?” It came out so weak, like my throat was rusty nails stuck in a block of wood.
“I need to be close to you and if this is how, I’ll do it,” he explained, his face haunted. Years ago, I promised to save him from his parents. I swore I’d help him leave, be his best self, and take care of him.
I didn’t follow through with any of those things.
It shouldn’t upset me with how much time passed, but the emotions building inside of me were too much. I caved.
“Let me get ready, I’ll be back.” I couldn’t tell him I needed to let out these emotions, pour them out like acid in a vat, bleed them dry to cauterize the wounds.
It was all I knew how to do.
It was the only answer.
I nearly ran to my office, wondering where Grizz and Noah went. Momentarily, I stopped at my door. Inhaling deeply, hoping the pause would change my mind. Would they know? This was as unsanitary as it got, cutting in my fucking office.
They wouldn’t know. No one did.
Blood might be the grossest thing to some, but to me, it reminded me I somehow survived and lived. Locking the door behind me, I pulled out my switchblade. I hadn’t cleaned it in quite a few days. It was unsanitary as fuck and, unfortunately, my newest razor was at home.
Not once had emotions overruled me enough to cut at work.
Not until now.
Cars was a trigger.
Andy was a trigger.
Fucking Windowless Skies conversations were triggers.
They all made me cut, bled me dry, promised pain and feelings and emotions I couldn’t control.
Fuck it all.
Without a second thought, I put the blade to my outer forearm where the mottled tattoo of a plane sat. I dug it in. Deep. Pain registered for all but a second before the blood rose. It started as little pinpricks of red, the droplets soon turned into a stream.
I smiled.
Because shit, it was art in itself.
The pain was fleeting, but no matter how swift, I felt.
I allowed the semblance of pain as emotions spread throughout me. I hadn’t cried after their deaths, not until Memphis spoke to me on that balcony, and even now, I couldn’t. Something about letting the blood speak for my pain was enough to get through the night.
And as I kept the lines parallel to one another, my heart stopped hammering and the ache of seeing Carson’s face settled.
Peace came with distraction.
Razorblade kisses temporarily kept my mind idle, unable to stick to any single thing for long.
After wiping my blade and the blood that surprisingly didn’t drip more than onto my pants that were too dark to notice, I bandaged my arm.
You’d think after cutting for years, the scars would disappear. They didn’t. Especially when I cut the same spot over and over, creating a pattern of chaos on my skin.
Even with the plane there, you could see the marks I gave myself for the last five years, almost like they gave depth to the unbearable ache which riddled me.
Grabbing a water, I chugged, still feeling dry-mouthed over last night’s drug inducement. For the last week, I hadn’t text Andy back, and she’d either self-sabotage like me—or she’d fight back.
While I hoped for one, I couldn’t expect anything but the other.
“Hey, you good?” Carrig asked, looking at my arm. He didn’t know, they didn’t know, not by my words. In his eyes, though, the sadness palpable, he knew.
“Yeah, got an appointment.”
“No, you don’t,” he argued, running a hand through his long hair. “I checked, that’s why practice is earlier today.”
“Too bad, I have one now.”
He looked like he wanted to argue but put his hands in the air, walking toward his own work station. I made it to mine, seeing Carson there. Grizz or Noah must’ve shown him where to go, because there was no way he’d know in advance.
“I cut too,” Cars said as soon as I entered the room. Shock took over with his admission, though. How did he—
“Started before you left, when my father called me a faggot.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” I prompted, feeling hatred leak through my voice. His parents were evil. It was the only way to explain how they didn’t accept the best thing to ever happen to them.
“It was my thighs for years. When you left, I made sure it became visible.” He rolled up the sleeve of his sweater, showing me raised scars. Some recent, some older. Much like mine. “I wanted the world to see my ugly, live it, breathe it, and experience how much pain I truly was in.”
“Cars,” I started, feeling choked up. I expected to feel a lot seeing him, but this soon after cutting? I usually got a lot more time before that happened. “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” he acknowledged with a nod. “I know you’re sorry, Mads. But I don’t forgive you.”
“And why would you?” I mocked, sarcasm dripping with malice. “I fucked us all up.”
“Us all?”
I shook my head, refusing to speak of Andy, of how I couldn’t stop thinking about her since letting her back in my life.
She was my obsession, my daily thought.
She was in my fucking veins, the blood running through them, the oxygen keeping me alive.
“Ready?”
Again, he saved me from the brink of falling apart with distraction. He looked pointedly at my bandaged arm, his eyes staying there for too long. It made me uncomfortable, being picked apart with a gaze. It’d been too long since anyone looked at me like that.