"I hate you. You ruined my life. Leave me the fuck alone."
"No. You don’t hate me. You love me, you said you always will, remember? You’re just saying that to protect yourself. You love me. I’m not going anywhere. I promised Id never leave."
"Fine, but I’m walking away."
"I’ll be waiting."
The near scolding hot water burns as Beth steps into the bathtub, and slides down to lay on her back. She glimpses at the edge of the tub, and sees the shiny silver. Her skin turns red as the water flows from the faucet. Extending her arm, she takes the razor into her hand, and feels the sharp edge softly pressing against her palm. She plays with it, staring at it, mesmerized by the way the light dances on it. Placing it between her thumb, pointer and middle finger, her hand sinks under the water. She pushes the razor firmly into her thigh, and drags it slowly. She lifts it from her skin and repeats- again and again and again, watching the red liquid mix with the clear liquid.
Everytime it starts the same; she only intends on a few scrapes, but then addiction takes over. Soon, she decides it’s not bleeding enough. She looks at her wrist, at the blue lines that bulge under her skin, marking rivers of blood covered by a canopy of skin. She pushes the corner of the razor in to the vein, and slides it down, but not deep enough to bleed. She turns the razor in a different direction on her wrist, making a small ladder up the veins, little dashes marking each step. This time she lets the crimson pain leak out. She plunges her wrist under water, feeling the hot ater burn the wounds.
And just the same, this isn’t enough either. But a year of this has taught her the perfect way to bleed. She sits up a little, so that her hip is out of the water. She quickly slashes the razor repeatedly across her hip, and the blood immediately pours from the open skin. Turning her body, she stares that the scar on her other hip where she branded herself as horrible. She traces over the word lightly, and watches the blood bead on the top of her skin. Then, she slices over the word several times, until the it is barely visible through the swollen, red and torn skin.
She drops the razor, and it sinks quickly to the bottom of the tub. Routinely, She stands from the water, and wraps a towel around her. She heads to her bedroom and gets dressed into her running clothes, boy shorts this time to cover any reminance of the pain she was feeling, not only physcially, but in every other way possible. She checks her phone one last time- no texts, no phone calls. The words spoken to her the night before were becoming more and more believable.
She leaves her weapon of choice under the phone, and the picture of them that mocks her continuously, right next to it.
Beth steps out into the cold, and snow flakes dance around her, bumping into her face as they tango with one another. She walks to the end of the driveway and turns left. Her legs carry her as fast as they can, but she hasn’t eaten in two days, and she hasn’t had water in three. Body shaking, stomach heaving, head pounding, lungs struggling, muscles fighting, she pushes forward, punishing herself with every ounce of. Soon, her fingers are numb, and her legs are red and purple from the harsh winds and her blood -what's left of it- trying to keep her warm. But she can’t stop now, the urge to run from everything is greater than any pain she's feeling.
The highway greets her with speeding cars and raspy mufflers. She stops; catching her breath, thinking twice about thinking twice on her decision. The sun warms her back, and nudges her forward. With one last glance at her seemingly perfect small town behind her, she takes off down the highway.
She runs until her legs give way, finding a place to rest under an overpass. Her body shivers, the sun no longer there to comfort her. She looks at her Ipod-her only way of knowing time, as if it mattered anymore anyway. She had been running for two and a half hours now, and she wasn’t about to give up just yet. Sitting soon became a bad idea, as thoughts flooded her mind. Watching the cars fly past her, she comes up with a new plan.
'The next car that goes by...' she tells herself.
The long strip of highway is silent for a few moments, as if giving her a chance to reconsider, but when she hears the rumbling of a truck getting closer, she stands. In seconds its five feet away, and she steps into its path. The driver swerves, the back bumper just touching her hip, knocking her over onto the asphalt. Breaks squeal as the truck pulls to the side of the road, and the driver gets out, screaming. It’s a man. And he’s yelling her name.
"Beth! Beth, what are you doing?!"
She lies in the road, staring at the bridge over her head, and she realizes she cant feel an ounce of pain. As a matter of fact, she cant feeling anything at all. But before she knows it, the man, who she discovers is a stranger, is picking her up in to his arms. She feels warm moisture dripping down her head, and she reaches up to touch it. Pulling her fingertips away form the liquid, she stares at it, astonished by how much blood is covering her fingers. He pulls her into his truck, and she feels the warm air blasting on her face from the heaters, and she realizes he's tlaking to her.
"What were you doing?"
"I don’t want to live."
"Too bad.”
"But she hates me."
"No, she doesn’t."
"You don’t even know who I’m talking about."
"Beth, Leah does not hate you."
She’s shocked.
"Who are you?"
"You are loved, Beth. You are loved, and you have plenty of people to care for you. And I will always take good care of you. I will always be here, even when it seems impossible that I am."
"Who are you?"
Beth's head begins to spin, and her words begin to drift from her mouth, and she grows silent as she falls asleep.
When she wakes up, she’s in her bed. She looks around her, shocked and confused. She gets up, still dizzy, and stumbles to her mirror. Her head is fine, there’s no blood. She looks closer though, and sees a small scar, just along her hair line. Pulling up her shorts, she finds that her cuts are gone, not even a single scar visible. She sits on her bed, as a million thoughts race and play tag through her head.
She can’t seem to come to any conclusion of what happened, or who the man was, or how she was here. But theres two thing shes sure of; she’s done with this. She will no longer bleed out her pain, no longer take her anger out on herself, and mark up who she was. The pain was hard, and most of the time unbearble, but if she kept this up, the scars would always remind her of that pain. Now, however, she had a chance to start over, a chance to make things right with herself. And she was going to take that chance, no questions asked. And the last thing thats for sure, God loves her, and he saved her.
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