Laughing sardonically in disbelief, the guy threw his clothes on quickly, hooked his jacket onto his finger and left, slamming the hotel room door harshly behind him. When I said I had shit to do, what I meant was I planned to spend the rest of the day in this room feeling sorry for myself.
I felt like shit. I looked like shit. I’d not wanted to score myself a bag so much in years, although I hadn’t given in.
Yet.
My head was so fucking screwed. I’d not felt so desolate since my late teens and I didn’t have a fucking clue what was wrong with me. All I could think about was him and what he’d taken away from me. He haunted my dreams, my every waking thought. Sometimes I could feel him. My body often itched to the point I would need to scrub my skin until it was raw under the steaming spray of the shower. There was only one thing that had changed in my life. One thing that could’ve sent me back to that dismal place.
Mason.
This was his fault. It had to be. He said this would happen. As he fucked me he mocked me, told me what love meant. Told me how much power it held. How weak it made me. I hated him, and because of him I hated Mason fucking George.
I don’t know what led me to do what I did next. I hadn’t done it in a long time, a couple of years at least. I wasn’t very good at it back then, but the scars were barely visible now. You probably wouldn’t even notice them unless you were actively trying to seek them out. I knew there was a shaving razor in the bathroom because I saw it in the complimentary toiletry pack next to the basin.
After unwrapping it and picking apart the plastic casing I stared at it for a few long moments in my hand. I could almost hear it calling to me. I could feel the itch deep under my skin just waiting to be scratched. Silently, I asked myself why I was doing this. I used to do it because I needed to feel. Something. Anything.
Now? It seemed like the only thing that would numb the pain. The pain in my head. The ache in my heart. The physical pain would distract me, if only briefly. It would take away the hurt, help me forget without completely obliterating what little control of my life I had left. I couldn’t go down that path again. I wouldn’t. Living for my next fix again would destroy me at best, kill me at worst. This was my only option.
Rolling my sleeve up, I positioned the shiny blade against the flesh on the inside of my upper arm. It glistened under the ceiling halogens, enticing me. My eyes locked onto it as it glided smoothly through the soft skin – as effortless as a knife through butter. Seeing the blood pool and then trickle in fine curls down my arm made me sigh in contentment. I could feel the emotional pain, the memories, seeping from my body and soaking into my shirt.
As disturbing as it sounds I admired my work. The cut was deep, intense, like the agony in my heart. Shallow enough to heal without stitches, but gaping enough to leave a scar. A scar which would remind me that what I felt was real. That I wasn’t crazy, I wasn’t imagining it. The torturous memories weren’t all in my head. They were right there on my arm for me to see.
When the blood started thickening I did it again. An inch higher, I made a fresh cut, feeling similar relief as the first time. The rich blood, filled with angst and sorrow, dribbled into the first wound, merging with the slowing redness there and creating a single shallow stream. I was about to do it one last time, already addicted to the satisfied warmth spreading through my veins, when my phone rang in my pocket.
The vibrations stopped me in my tracks and I tossed the blade to the floor, sickened with myself. The guilt only intensified when I reluctantly pulled out my phone and saw Elle’s I.D. flash up on the screen. I threw that on the floor too. I’d let her down. She’d helped me get better once before, she told me that I had a right to be happy and I vowed to her that’s all I would ever be from then on.
Sliding down the wall to the floor, my arm and my shirt covered in blood as it dripped slowly onto the marble floor, I put my head in my hands and I let go. I cried. I fucking wailed until my lungs burned and I couldn’t breathe. I brought my knees up to my chest, hugging them hard as I rocked back and forth. The pain in my chest was agonizing, so severe I couldn’t even feel the cuts on my arm anymore. I was slipping. Losing myself. Each day that passed I forgot myself a little more. Soon I would just be a shell. An empty, worthless husk just like he said I would be. He robbed me of everything I could’ve been, of my dreams and possibilities. I may not have said ‘Yes’, but I allowed it. I let him ruin me then, and I was letting him now.