Saving Me from Myself

I collapsed in the recliner in the living room and reached for the remote. Turning on the television, I flipped through the channels before settling on Lifetime. A movie was on, one of those original ones that they play over and over again but that you still don’t mind watching. You know the ones. I set the remote on the coffee table, crossed my legs in the chair, and pulled a hard book onto my lap. A paper plate with two peaches and a knife followed.

Settling down, I proceeded to cut the fruit into manageable slices. I ate as I cut; my eyes on the screen. The movie was getting pretty good. Finishing one peach, I started on the next. I slid the knife into the soft flesh of the fruit and cut it in half. As I maneuvered it to slice it into pieces, it slipped and hit my palm. I flinched, the knife falling into my plate.

A thin sliver of blood was forming where the knife had made contact with my skin. Licking the juice from my fingers, I examined the wound. It wasn’t deep. The knife had barely grazed my hand, so I hadn’t expected it to be too bad. It didn’t even sting. I wiped the little blood that had formed with the napkin I’d brought and was satisfied when no more seeped out of the laceration.

My eyes glanced up at the screen as I went back to slicing my snack. After finishing the last piece, I wiped my hands on the napkin. I set the knife down on my plate and continued to watch the movie until a commercial came on to take its place. Sighing, I moved to stand up when the knife caught my gaze.

Instantly images filled my mind, some things I had experienced while others I had only imagined. Thoughts of my friend, Haley, pushed everything else back. Haley, my best friend. Haley had been hurting herself; she’d been cutting. It was only in the last year that she’d been able to confide this in me. That she’d gotten up the courage. I’d seen the scars, the red marks on her wrists and her legs. It scared me that she could do this to herself. Didn’t it hurt?

I picked up the knife and wiped it off on the napkin. It glinted in the sun streaming through the windows of the living room. I reached over and muted the TV. All at once, the house was silent. There was no one else home but me. My brother and sister were at daycare; my parents were at work. I was off of school; it was the summer. My job didn’t start until next week. Until then, I had the house to myself during the weekdays. I tested the knife with my fingers. It was pretty sharp.

Lately, Haley hadn’t been confiding in me. She’d found someone new for that. A new best friend. It hurt to even consider that possibility, even though I knew in my heart that it was true. I had other friends, but not any like her. I didn’t have any I trusted with all my secrets and my faults. I missed her desperately. I just wished she could see that. We used to spend so much time together, and now we barely saw each other at all. Didn’t she miss me too?

I’d been getting increasingly irritable these last few months. Increasingly irritable and increasingly sad. I felt so alone. The friends I still conversed with noticed, but only because I didn’t feel like hiding everything from them. They made sure I knew that they were there for me. Every now and then I’d lose it and pull one of them aside so I’d have a shoulder to cry on. I hated being so weak and vulnerable, showing them that side of me. I hated that feeling of loneliness. I hated being invisible, like I was stuck on the sidelines out in the middle of nowhere and not anyone could see me. It was maddening.

And I’d been thinking about Haley a lot. I’d been thinking about what she does to herself and how it feels. Maybe physical pain felt better than all the emotional pain. Maybe it was easier to control the physical pain. Sometimes you don’t have anything to do with the emotional pain; it just happens. Maybe that was why Haley cut, to feel something other than the ache inside of her that she couldn’t stop.

I studied the knife in my hand. How easy it would be I thought. It would be so easy to press the blade against my skin, to bare down until blood formed from the cut. I understood what Haley was going through. We were both going through it for different reasons, but it was the same kind of pain. We both wanted to feel in control, to feel something other than the pain in our hearts that was so intense that it was making us numb. If physical pain helped her, why couldn’t it help me too?

It was like it was someone else’s action when I positioned the knife over the skin of my wrist. The blade wasn’t cold like I expected. It was surprisingly warm and sticky from the juice of the fruit I’d consumed. My hand was shaking as I tilted the blade, the sharp edge making contact with my skin. I clenched the handle and steadied my grip. The sharpness was evident against my wrist as I readied myself for the cut.

Suddenly, my cell phone rang beside me on the coffee table. I jumped at the abrupt sound, and the knife flew from my hand to land on the carpet next to my feet. I reached for my phone, John Mayer’s “Waiting on the World to Change” singing out to me. Studying the caller ID, tears suddenly sprang to my eyes. I flipped the phone open.

“Hello?” I said, even though I knew exactly who it was.

“Hey,” the voice on the other end replied. It was Jade. Jade was a new friend of mine. She was two years older than me, a good role model. I’d already found out from experience that she told you how it was, exactly what she thought, instead of what you wanted to hear. She wasn’t one for icing on the cake. “What are you doing?”

“Um…” I trailed off, my face glowing with guilt. “Watching TV.” It wasn’t really a lie; I was watching television. I shrugged it off. “What about you?”

“The same.” We were both quiet for a minute, which was unusual. Usually, I have a lot to tell her because I don’t get to talk to her that often. It was very surprising that she’d called. She almost never called me of her own free will. Ha. “What’s wrong?” she asked. Her voice was suspicious.

“Nothing. I was just thinking about things.” This was new for me. It was weird talking to somebody other than Haley about what goes on in my head. I’d been doing it more frequently though, but only to Jade.

“Thinking about what?” Jade asked.

“Haley,” I answered bluntly. She understood immediately. She knew exactly what had been going on with my best friend, how she’d found another and dropped me just like that.

“Have you talked to her?”

“No, and I don’t plan on it either,” I retorted. I could be strong when I wanted.

“You’re so stubborn, Letty. It must run in your family,” she joked.

“I think it does.” Jade had dated my cousin for about six months. It was how we’d officially met—I’d only seen her around school before then—and gotten close. They’d broken up a couple of months ago but had remained friends, to a certain extent. He was extremely stubborn himself.

We talked about her trip to Panama City that was coming up. She was going with a few of her friends. She said she didn’t know how she was going to survive it without killing somebody. I told her I’d visit her in jail if she did, and that got a laugh out of her. We made plans for her to come and see me the next day. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed her until she was telling me she had to go.

“I’ll call you tomorrow before I come over, okay?” she said.

“Alright.” I sighed, my gaze straying back to the knife that was still on the floor. “Thank you.”

“For what?” she asked. There was amusement in her voice.

“For calling me.” I thought about the blade, about what I had almost done to myself. How could I be so stupid? “And for saving me from myself,” I added. The statement brought moisture to my eyes again. My vision stung with the need for them to fall.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I replied. I’d muttered the words, so she hadn’t heard me. That was probably a good thing. I didn’t know if I was ready for her to know about what was going on in my head. I don’t know if I was ready for what was going on in my head. My thoughts scared me, and I swallowed my need to cry. I hoped she didn’t notice the tears thick in my voice. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Don’t forget.”

“I won’t,” Jade said, either ignoring my need or not noticing it. She was smiling; I could tell. She was always forgetting things. Forgetting to call me was the one she was most famous for. Forgetful Jade. “I love you, little sister.”

I smiled. “I love you too. Bye.”

“Bye.” I hung up, shutting my phone. The tears fell silently, finally released from my hold on them.

Jade truly was my big sister. She looked out for me, more than she even knew. I had no doubt in my mind that something had told her to call me at the exact moment that she did. And I had a feeling that something was God. God had a bigger plan for me, and it had nothing to do with me falling prey to depression. Not that I couldn’t become depressed. I had a feeling that I was well on my way. God was just trying to tell me that cutting was not the answer, that I needed to trust someone with my emotions instead of holding them in and taking them out on myself.

Wiping my tears away, I got to my feet, picked up the knife from off the floor, and carried it and my plate into the kitchen. I threw the plate in the garbage and set the knife in the sink. My eyes moved to my wrist. I ran my fingers over the flesh there, the skin that was almost cut but had been saved by my big sister. I smiled, my thoughts returning to her.

I think God was trying to tell me that I should talk to Jade; that I should confide in her. He was trying to give me a sign. She’d saved me from myself; she’d stopped me from doing something incredibly stupid. She’d kept me from becoming like Haley, with His help. He was telling me that I should trust her, that I could trust her. Tears welled up again as I realized this.

My eyes shining with them, I said, “I really hope He’s right.”