Mirrored Cuts

Chapter 58

May

My parents visited me for a few days. My father had make extra effort to take off from work to be there, my mother said, trying to inject love where there couldn't possibly be. I had said nothing, not wanting to rock the boat. Physical proximity was always where I had least control.

"I've made reservations at a place nearby, had to pull a few strings because we reserved late." He said it like it was my fault.

My mother pacified. "It seems like the food will be wonderful." An offering, I thought. Take it.

"One second," I said. "I'll be right back."

I walked into my room. Ruby wasn't there to save me that time. I looked at the window, at the bed, at my computer. I tried to find something that could save me. I caught a glimpse of how crazy I looked, whipping my head around to find something that would help. There were bags under my eyes, purple circles that made my skin contrast like an English essay, for sure that had been the cause. My hair had been combed but the split ends that kept occurring while I slept were fraying. My hair had been falling out, not the point where someone could notice, but pulling it off of my pillow in the morning was getting more and more disheartening. I tugged at the skirt I had chosen because my mother thought it looked "elegant" on me.

I reached out for the mirror, measuring the distance between it and my body. I slammed my fist into the mirror, shattering the glass all over the floor.

My father almost broke down the door trying to get in. "Andi," he said while pounding against the paper-thin door. "Open up the door. What's happening?"

I opened the door with my good hand. There were strange gashes starting to separate to reveal the layers of my body below. My blood was warm and felt calm as it flowed down my hand. I just held it up.

"We need to get her to a hospital," my mother said.

I smiled. Hospitals were where you were never alone.

My father drove down Fifth Avenue like we had all the time in the world. I had a cloth pressed over my knuckles and I was applying pressure, the way I had been taught. My mother kept turning back from the front seat to see if I was okay and then turning away because she couldn't stand the sight of blood. I had bled through the cloth and created a tie-dye masterpiece with my blood. My mother stopped turning around and put her head on the cold window. Not once did my father ask if I was okay.

"So, we were talking about your grades," he said after a few minutes.

I thought about punching through the window and realized I wouldn't be able to. Car windows, I had learned, were made out of different, stronger glass.

"Have they improved?"

I was silent.

"You're not a minor anymore," he said through his teeth. "They can only release it to you."

So he had tried. I knew he had. Why else would he resort to going through me? I played with the threads that were swaying from the bottom of the cloth. I pulled at one and winced. The adrenaline had worn off and I was feeling the pain. I wondered if there was glass still in the wound. That would be awful. The hospital might miss a piece of glass and then my skin would heal over it and get infected and twenty years later it would cause nerve damage and cut through my muscles and then I wouldn't be able to use my hand and no one would hire me because you can't hire people who can't use their hands. Other than professional speakers, and maybe teachers? But they still had to write things down. I would have to learn how to use my left hand for everything and everyone would think that I was slow and had horrible handwriting.