/Sakkaku
~//
It makes you a kind of dizzy. You stand, don't look off-balance, but you are—simply because the floor doesn't feel solid, even though it isn't moving; because your head is thrumming, throbbing, but only vaguely, above your ears and below your temples. And when you step foreword, or just walk, you stumble a lot and your friends stop asking if you're okay because they're so used to it.
It's sad when you can fall and bruise your knee because—"Oh, I just wasn't paying attention,"—"Oof, I'm so clumsy,"—"Heh, happens all the time,"—people just get used to it. It almost makes you hate them, then hate yourself for feeling that way because although they should notice, if they cared they'd at least have an idea—it'd still be much, much worse if they knew.
Everyone wears wristbands. Wears long sleeves in winter, t-shirts in summer. I'm not stupid—I don't have any of the telltale signs. I don't like people, but I'm personable. I'm polite, I don't wish bad things on people unless they deserve it. But I do feel bad when Bobby or Trish simply walk by holding hands, wave, and don't even ask why I look so exhausted, why there are bags under my eyes, why today I did wear a long-sleeved shirt today instead of my pink and black wristband. But they wouldn't add in the 'instead' because they don't know it's taking the place of something.
They don't know that I missed my usual mark by at least two inches, and the band can only cover maybe that, at most. Which gave me twice as much to cover.
I'm not the type. My hair's long and red-brown, frizzy sometimes but only if I go to sleep right after I shower. I'm not ugly, but not exceptionally pretty. I have blue-gray eyes, pretty standard—I'm not so tall or so short.
I don't have any piercings or wear black eye makeup.
Some people do it for attention. I don't. But I can see why they would—it's awful lonely.
In gym class, when I pass out—I do sometimes, maybe once every few weeks—they don't do much more than send me to the nurse's office to lie down for awhile. Mrs. Simmons scolds the PE teachers for pushing the students so hard.
It's a secret, one that's meant to be kept. People tell their friends, people show off the white-on-cream marks, red-on-cream if they're fresh, the friends just send them half-reprimanding glances and knowing looks. It's all fun to them, all part of the "I have such a terrible life and I do this because people should feel sorry for it," "I'm only a Freshman/Sophomore/insert-teenage-grade-level, but I like pain because me and my boyfriend are masochists," "My grandmother died and I don't believe in God so I pierce my lip in class and try to cut open my arms," "I'm adopted and my parents don't love me even though they say they do so I cut my wrists with razor blades in the bathroom."
It's all the same. But I don't do it for recognition. Cutting gashes in your wrists so deep that you've had to stitch themselves yourself several times, passing out most nights because of bloodloss, you don't just do that for the attention, especially if nobody knows.
Especially if you do it because you hate who you are, not everyone else or anything that happened. That you're not pretty or thin or curvy. That no one wants you for yourself or for your body.
That, worst of all, someone might come along who does, and you can't accept it…
So you prove just how ugly you can be.
I was sixteen when I met Andy. He was in my creative writing and ancient history classes. He had black hair and brown eyes.
He sat by me everyday.
He said he liked my stories, even though I knew they weren't all that good. He could draw better than anyone I'd ever known, but he liked to write, too. He wouldn't ever show me what he wrote, though. Mom seemed to like him, and Dad, but they rarely gave me more than a passing glance. Sometimes, I think they were surprised that they even had a kid.
Andy came over sometimes, and once or twice I'd joke around and ask if he had any other friends to hang around with. He was actually very, very good-looking if you could see past the acne. It wasn't that bad, really, just about eleven zits. I counted them sometimes.
The third time I asked, he looked at me and left.
I passed out that night and bled all over the sheets. For the first time I was grateful that they were such a dark red. Because even my mother would have noticed the stain.
But that a couple days ago. Andy didn't sit by me today, Tiffany and Ashley were sitting somewhere else at lunch, Jessica was working on another spectacular sonnet.
I usually eat lunch alone anyway. If I eat at all. Sometimes I get caught up in writing. Even though I'm not good, I still like to because it's easier to make up a life than to get to work on my own.
Speaking of. I think I'm going to end this tonight.
*~*][*~*
I hate it when she gets like this. I wish I could tell her. But she seems so introverted and cold that it's really, really hard. She gets annoyed when I don't show her my stories. But when you put your heart into something, all of, it's so obvioius. Even though I don't name my main character "Andy" and the girl he's hopelessly in love with "Sarah", she'd still get it.
And if she knew, I wouldn't be able to be around her anymore, because she pushes everyone away. She could be closer to Jessica and Trish if she wanted because they both have invited her places before. I started walking home with her and I think the only reason she even invited me in was because it was the polite thing to do. She shows me things she writes, and she's good. But her stories have this weirdness to them, this surreality that I love, just like her. Because she doesn't write for anyone but herself and she doesn't care about being judged. I wish I had her courage.
She doesn't want me around anymore. It kind of upsets me, but then my expectations were low to begin with. I'm still going over there tonight.
Because it still hurts, and maybe she'll miss me. Who the hell am I kidding? She wanted me gone.
The lights are off and the road's wet—it's raining. Her parents must be out but I know Sarah's home because she doesn't turn the lights on and she never goes out. Even though streetlights don't seem magical in the least, the way the light filters through each of the drops is very… pretty. My grandmother said once, before she died, that whenever it rains and you think it's beautiful, it means angels are crying. Just like she said whenever it stormed and it seemed angry and terrifying, angles were dancing.
I loved my grandmother, but my parents and cousins thought she was just an old hassle. I think I was the only person who cried with real tears at her funeral, not for appearances. Because everyone else who cried (only the woman) had waterproof mascara on and only a few tears that they daubed at with their tissues. My eyes were red and I sat against the wall hugging my knees. I was sobbing, and it was real.
I think it was about then, when I saw how bored my father looked and how fake my mother seemed, that I started hating them.
I'm nervous outside her door, even though I've been here hundreds of times. Usually she's here with me, but sometimes I don't follow her home like a dog after school and I have to knock. The doorbell doesn't work, and as far as I can tell it never has.
She doesn't answer the first time, or the second.
On the third, there's a muffled thump, and I don't care about 'breaking and entering'. The door was unlocked anyway.
She's in her room. And I wish I hadn't come here.
Her room is painted in reds and blacks, and there are some spatters on the trim because I think she did it herself. She's in shades of red and white, because her skin is deathly pale and though I'm screaming and sobbing, some part of me—this part of me—is calm and numb. Because her eyes are open and for the life of me, I could swear she was looking right at me, and she looked apologetic.
And her fingers were loose around the wooden, red-stained handle of an old kitchen knife. It seemed almost as if she was offering it.
I think that maybe, when her parents find us, they might realize that they didn't care enough. I wonder if their tears will be fake, like when my grandmother died. I wonder if the rain will be beautiful, or if it'll be scary and stormy.
I wonder if they'll pull us apart, because I don't want to let go of her cold body. The numbness is settling, and my wrists are aching with this strange sharpness that's muted somehow. And I'm sure my eyes are red because I'm sure I'm still crying, the silence wipes out everything, and all the lights die down. I've lost feeling in everything except the coldness of her body in my arms, the hot warmth of tears on my cheeks.
But those, too, eventually fade.
//~