I wonder if they’ve ever known.
Sometimes I even wonder if I know myself.
When did my life turn to shit? Was it always like this?
People look at me and what do they see? West Roswell’s Mr Popular? The football team’s quarterback? Liz Parker’s ex-boyfriend? A friend?
The funny thing is that not one of them has ever taken the time or the trouble to really find out who I am. What I want out of life.
I watch as another drop of blood drips slowly into the toilet bowl.
Right now I’m supposed to be out in the other room trying to help them come up with yet another plan to combat yet another alien related crisis. Suddenly I don’t care. It’s not like they’ll miss my input that much anyway; it’s not like any of them ever listens to a damned word I say. Even Isabel. The girl who’s supposed to be my friend. The girl who I’m at least half in love with. The girl who’s already married to another guy.
Fuck.
I already know I don’t really mean anything to her. I’m just an Alex substitute. Someone she can watch crappy films with when her husband’s not around. Someone to listen to her problems. And she doesn’t even know me. Not really. She’s so busy trying to make me into a replacement for Alex that she’s never really tried to get to know me. The real me that is. The person behind the mask I use with the rest of the world.
I’m so tired. So tired of trying to be what everybody else wants me to be.
I wonder who I really am. Somewhere along the way I lost the real me. I forgot how to live. Now I think I’m just a shell. I exist for the sake of existing.
I look down at my arms, seeing the small rivulets of blood making their way slowly down towards my hands to drip off into the toilet bowl.
My English teacher would be surprised that I even know what rivulets means.
I raise my eyes further up my arms. Seeing the faint white scars that cross and re-cross. The reasons that I don’t often wear short sleeves these days.
Sometimes I think that’s what I am. Scar tissue. The last unwanted reminder of my parents failed marriage. The scar tissue that was left behind when the dust finally settled on the train wreck of their relationship. The scar that my Mom certainly didn’t want to be left with.
She couldn’t fucking get out of here quickly enough.
If she saw me now, sitting on the floor of a bathroom slowly dripping blood into the toilet from cuts I’ve caused myself, would she be surprised? Disappointed? Shocked? Or would she just turn away?
I’m gonna have to move soon. I’ve been in here too long. Careless.
The door starts to open behind me. Shit I thought I’d locked that.
Suddenly she is in the room. Her eyes going wide and her mouth forming a soft ‘o’ as she looks at me. Sees what I’ve done. Dammit, dammit, dammit. She’s gonna call her brother or my father any second now and then I’ll be completely fucked.
I know I should try to stop her. Try to explain. Suddenly I’m too tired to care.
She turns and locks the door behind her and comes over and sits down next to me. The razor blade sits on the floor between us glinting under the electric lights and for a minute she sits in silence staring at it. Staring at the little crimson droplets along the edge with absolute revulsion and horror. Personally I think they’re pretty.
She’s looking at me now with tears in her big eyes and asking me what I think I’m doing in a voice that resonates with emotion. And I know it’s just ’cause she’s worried about losing her Alex substitute. Like a junkie worried about not getting their next fix. And I’m telling her that it’s all gonna be ok. That I’ll get help. That cuts heal. And even as I say it I know I’m lying. That I’m not gonna get help. That not all cuts heal. That some wounds run too deep.
I am so fucking screwed.
** End **
