I sat in class just to sit. My eyes affixed to the board, my smile drooping. My façade wasn’t quite properly installed this morning, I thought, as I flipped the pages of my notebook. Normally it was difficult to locate a blank page in my notebooks between notes, doodles, and unfinished school work, but today was impossible. My brain was in a reflective stage, and I knew I had plenty to reflect on, I just couldn’t remember it. God, I hated my self in those days. They tell me I still hate myself. I don’t know what I feel anymore. I imagine my eyes permeating the whiteboard, the teacher, the other students. Brendan walks in, smiles at me. I smile back, forgetting my game. I shuffled my books around as the bell rang. “Hey Vic-, How’s Life?” I was surprised that Brendan still put up with me. I was evil after all. “Fine” I said politely. “What’re you doing after school?” I flipped my raven hair. Back then, I was beautiful. I could get away with anything.
“I was waiting for you to ask.” He winked at me, formulating how to get in my pants. I was appalled. “I have the house to myself tonight and I thought maybe you’d like to escape to Cape Brendan’s Love Shack.” His crooked frown turned upward. Love shack. How original. My silence was making him less sure of his sexual advances. “O-Or maybe...” his stuttering made me giggle inside. “We Could Do Dinner…and maybe crash open my dad’s extra alcohol stash. He can’t complain about it. My mom doesn’t know he has it” I smiled at the prospect. Brendan looked relieved. He couldn’t understand I wasn’t smiling at him- I was smiling at the vodka. “Hey Brendan…?” I put on a coy smile and cocked my head at just the right angle. My head was a loaded gun. “Do you think your father has any menthol cigarettes stashed in any of his drawers for me?” I pouted, and quickly blinked twice. Brendan was so blind. “Yeah, I’m sure we can manage that.” He smiled back at me. For a moment, I felt human. “So, I’ll pick you up at seven?” I looked at him like he was an idiot. “Bren? Don’t I always just take your bus home? Have you lost your mind?” he nodded. “Yes, yes I have.”
The last three classes of the day were nearly unbearable. I just wanted out of here. I could feel the earth pushing down in on me, like a million marbles; coming by the truckload, slowly, but I couldn’t move out of their way. My history teacher droned on about bayonets, my science teacher over-complicated decomposition, and my math teacher was joking about moving unicorns off the road after you hit them. By the time I got on bus seven, I was ready to explode. Brendan greeted me with a place on his hard, plastic bus seat. Next I remember, I was walking into his room. “Come in, sit down, strip if you’d like.” His voice was smooth, like wet rubber, uncomfortable, and uninviting sat on his bed, fully clothed, tears in my eyes. He stood up, and pulled my shirt over my head. I let him. There was a metallic clang as my razorblade hit his bedpost, flung out of my bra. Suddenly, I needed that razor blade. I needed its release of power. Brendan stared. I don’t care. Let ‘im. I drug the blade across my wrist, light at first. Blood started to bubble up on my skin, war and inviting. So unlike Brendan. His eyes got bigger. I put on a show. I raised the blade to my collar bone. Pressed hard, and cut deep. Blood ran down my neck and into the bra. F* the bra. Brendan placed his hand on my head. “Victoria, I think we need to get you help…” he trailed. I was disgusted. “F* HELP. HELP NEVER HELPED ME BEFORE.” I ran the razor over his wrist, above my eyes, lightly, just enough to scare him, enough to make him stop touching me. My skin is sensitive as an autistic when I get like this. “Vic-, what the hell?!” he sounded angry. I smiled. He reached to grab my neck. I sliced his other wrist harder. He had his warning. He jerked away. His blood mingled with mine, ran down my torso. Warm, thick, beautiful. He tripped back, and I stood up- stood over him. I made two cuts on his face- one under each eye socket. I’d always wanted to do it to myself, but never had the guts. He pleaded with me. He looked pitiful. It angered me. I took the blade, and I traced I line from each on of his fingers to his armpit. He went limp halfway through. It’s okay. He’s beautiful now. I carved his navel into a gleaming sun, cut gills into both sides of his neck. I stepped back to admire my work. He was beautiful. So beautiful. I undressed him, and pulled him to his bed. I laid down next to him, holding his blood. Wait ‘till he saw it when he woke up. But he wouldn’t wake up. I killed a man. But I made him beautiful. So beautiful…
“And, how does that make you feel?”
My eyes jutted open. I sat in front of a man. He was pale. He looked ill. We were in a closed room, brown, and gold with horrible shades of yellow. There were three white noise machines. After another minute of silence, the man stood up. He had broken a clod sweat.
“That’s it for our session today. I’m going to request they put you back on suicide watch tonight.”
My raven hair had grown into a musty blonde color. My skin was patchy. For a second, I had forgotten how life was in this place. The guards came to take me back to group. I guess that’s just how it is, now, locked up in a mental institution. “Committed”. They think I’m sick. They’ve taken away my beauty, but I retain the spark in my eye, the color. They’ve taken my free will, but I still have my thoughts, selective memory. They can hide me here, but I’m still alive. They can’t take me away from me.
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