Yeah, if you looked close enough, the scars were visible. But you really had to look. I didn’t allow people that close and I put Andy in a constant state of euphoria to avoid her seeing what my skin hid.
Ink, my other vice, it kept me from cutting, saved my life time and time again.
If I went at the pace I started at now, dragging the metal over and over, I wouldn’t have any skin left to cut. I was relentless in my mission of marring my skin, but that was the thing about harming oneself, you didn’t feel anything but peace while the blade hit you.
It silenced the thoughts.
It eased the heartache.
It distracted the anger.
It calmed the chaos.
Cutting wasn’t simply a tool that others thought was for attention. It saved my life. It kept me from killing myself. It stopped me from taking too many drugs. It kept me away from Andy long enough to seep the anger free instead of hurting her.
I didn’t want that.
If I hurt her like I did myself, forgiving myself would be the least of my worries.
“Madden?” Andy called out minutes later. I rushed to the door, locking it. “Madden, is that you?” Her voice sounded unsure, like she wanted to think it was me but something stopped her.
No response.
How did I tell her what I was doing without the shame?
I couldn’t.
I stared at the blood now dripping down to my wrist and on to the floor. This could be worse, but she didn’t need to see it in action, experience it with the perversion of my anger.
Unkempt and disheveled, I stepped back toward the toilet, breathing deeply and hoping she walked away. The unfortunate thing about planes is that there weren’t creaks, I couldn’t listen to footsteps or the low groan of stairs. Here, you could watch and be silent.
After five minutes passed and my blood was all starting to dry, I washed my blade, then my arm. Wiping up the floor as soon as my skin was dry, I groaned at the sight of the cuts bleeding more.
They usually bled for some time. Little dots came after the biggest of waves subsided, letting me know they were still there.
Dread and shame hit me in the gut. Not once in the last five years had I felt bad about cutting, but right now as Andy could be waiting for me outside, I felt it.
The need to hide overwhelmed me. Opening the door, I noticed no one was in the room. Rushing to my closet, I found a long sleeve and changed into it, needing to hide what I could.
As I pulled it over my head, I noticed Andy standing there, tapping her foot. She didn’t say a word as she rushed past me, into the bathroom. Her eyes were wild, looking around for something. Like what? What the fuck could she possibly be looking for?
“What the hell are you doing?”
She went into the bathroom, moving the curtain. And it hit me, she was looking for someone not something. I laughed. Chuckled like someone told me the best joke in the fucking world.
I couldn’t help the manic way I felt at the sight of her. How could she be so insecure about something as sure as us? We were fucking written in the music, we were the lyrics. She was the fucking song.
How did she not see that?
“Where is she?”
“Who?” I mocked, wanting to know who she thought I hid. Was it some hostess, the drink lady? Maybe a fucking stripper or sex worker?
“Candy!” she raged, her face red and angry. She threw her hands up. “Where is she?”
“Who fucking knows,” I hissed out, hating how toxic we’d become. How did two best friends turn into what we’re turning into after a few nights of passion?
“She must be here, why the fuck did you not answer me?”
I didn’t look at her, not knowing what the fuck to say. It was a ritual of mine to cut. It eased the anger, but somehow, that anger rose again. I ran a hand through my hair, pulling.
“You make me feel crazy!” she screamed, her hands going to her throat.
“Well, you are making me go crazy!” I raged, angry that she’d think I’d fuck anyone when I didn’t even let her touch me. Why the fuck would I let anyone else?
I tugged on my hair, hating how I could feel my dried cuts ripping back open at the action. If I wasn’t careful, they’d bleed freely, the only thing that stopped them now was caked on dried blood.
She stepped up to me. I’d never seen her this worked up, ever. “Why are you so angry?” I asked, wondering about her thoughts. Was it projection? My mind traveled back to what made me cut.
“Is it you? Is that why you’re so accusatory of me?” I questioned, keeping my distance from her. If she touched me, I’d fall apart, I was too wound tight to allow her to touch me now.
She stepped closer, her tears breaching the lids of her eyes. “I wouldn’t do that to you,” she whispered, her pain evident.
“Then why are you slinging that shit at me?”
“What am I to you?” She ignored my question with her own, and deep down, beneath the mask she put on for the world, I saw her crumbling.
“My little demon,” I tried to assuage, seeing the absolute heartbreak on her face.
“Don’t fill my head with meaningless words, Madden.”
I shook my head, no longer pushing back. How could she think they were meaningless? I meant every word I offered her at every point. Standing stock-still, I waited for her to push forward. That was us. She pushed, I pulled away. She tried for more, I hid. She asked me questions with real meanings behind them, I lied.
“There aren’t words for what I feel,” I replied, honesty seeping through my tone. “You make me crazy and sane at once. You wind me up and unravel my very existence.” I stepped closer, only a foot between us now. “You heal a part of me and rip the other part to pieces. You’re my exact opposite and my equal. There aren’t adequate words, Andy, because I don’t fucking know what feelings are.”
As if that answered everything, her mouth opened and I wanted to close it. The way shock eased the lines on her forehead and kept her jaw unlocked and wide was unsettling.
Did she not see what she did to me?
She made me feel. She had me experiencing emotions. She forced me to exist where I could no longer be a part of the shadows. I was so fucked up over her and all she saw from me was a lack of sentiments.
“I can’t feel like normal people feel, little demon. I can’t experience life, love, or pain the same way. My body aches while you’re not around and it throbs when you’re too close. When you are near touching me, the world crumbles beneath me.”
Her face said so much, an open book, blank sheet music ready for notes to become a song. She didn’t hide and it forced sensations of things I long lost to rise.
I pulled her to me, her hips inches from mine, her face so close I could taste her if I wanted. And fuck, her heart, the way her chest moved, letting me know she felt so much in this moment, I wanted to feel it too.
I wanted to reach inside her prison and rip open its bars, seeing if it felt as much as she displayed with her expressions.
How did it feel to love? To feel pain naturally? How did she breathe through the warring inside her? Did it hurt to experience it all?
My thumb met her open mouth, touching the underside of her jaw. Her eyes didn’t leave me as I bled into her soul as if it could teach mine what life was supposed to be.
I slowly closed it, rubbing my thumb up and down the length of her jaw, remembering every bit of it. Giving her this much affection brought bee-like movements inside me. They battled for power, wanting to win out the other with intensity. She was so fucking close, I wanted so badly to wash away the hurt and worry she carted around.