"I know. Thanks."
I take the stairs two at a time, slip into the guest room, and close the door behind me.
Max is on the bed. He looks up when I enter and meows.
"Not now," I tell him.
I should shower, should wash the club smell off me, the feeling of strange hands on my skin. But I can't move, can't do anything except sit on the edge of the bed and stare at the wall.
His hands on my waist, yanking me back. The supply closet all over again.
I couldn't fight then either. Couldn't scream. Just froze while he?—
No.
I stand up and pace the room. Max watches from the bed, tail twitching.
It’s been just over three months since the rape, and I still can't handle someone touching me without consent. I still freeze like a fucking coward.
My wrists itch.
I know I shouldn't, I know it's not the answer. I know all the things a rational person would know.
But I'm not rational right now. I'm drowning, and the blade is the only thing that makes the water stop rising.
The bathroom is small but clean. White tiles, good lighting. Emma keeps it stocked with the expensive soap she likes.
I open the cabinet under the sink and pull out the small bag I've hidden behind the cleaning supplies.
The blade is wrapped in tissue. I unwrap it carefully, and the metal catches the light.
I know where to cut. I studied it in nursing school. Upper thigh, inner arm. Places that can be hidden. Places that hurt enough to ground me without going too deep.
I sit on the bathroom floor, back against the tub, and pull up my sleeve.
The old scars are there. White lines crisscrossing my brown skin like a map of every time I couldn't cope. Some are months old. Some from just last week.
I press the blade to my forearm. Not hard enough to cut yet. Just feeling the pressure.
The pain will make everything else manageable and will give me something I can control when everything else is falling apart.
I press harder and feel the skin start to give.
Jackson's face flashes through my head.
You don't have to do that with me. The performance. You can just be you.
I lower the blade. Everything's shaking—my hands, my body, all of it trembling against the cold bathroom floor.
I want to do it, want the release, the clean pain that makes sense, want something I can control.
But I don't.
Not tonight.
I wrap the blade back up and put it away, then pull my knees to my chest, wrists burning with the ghost of cuts I didn't make.
Max appears in the doorway and meows at me like I'm an idiot.
