I won't drag you down with me

9. Cutting

I left the room and ran upstairs as fast as I physically could. I felt bad for leaving my mum alone in the living room, but fear had taken over my body. 

I shut the door behind me and hid in the closet. I wiped the tears off my face and focused on the steps getting louder and therefore closer. 

The bedroom door opened and I placed my right hand over my mouth, wishing I could just stop breathing for a while. Long enough for him not to find me, anyway. 

But he did find me. 

He always did. 

I couldn't breathe. I physically couldn't breathe. I got out of my bed and ran my hand to my mouth to suppress my sobs. 

The bathroom light turned off; the door handle turned. I knew what was coming. And so I ran. I always did. 

I didn't see where I was going; my eyes were full of tears, and I was shaking from head to toe. I just knew I had to get out of that room and hide. 

I ended up in the common room, which was immersed in the dark and completely empty. The hallway was deserted, too; the only sounds that filled the room were my cries. 

I shut the door behind me and sat on the cold, hard floor, bracing my legs and burying my head between them, rocking back and forth. 

Please, I begged, my voice breaking. But no one was listening. No one ever did. Please, please, please, I begged, but it was all in my head. I couldn't say it out loud. I couldn't make any noise. I couldn't move. I could only cry and wait and cry some more. 

The shaking didn't stop; the crying only increased; and the more I waited, the more I feared, and the more I cried, the more I shook. 

And, for the first time in months, I found myself wishing I hadn't failed, that night, on that bridge. That, after floating in the air for what felt like hours, I had landed. That I had never been saved. For the first time in months, I wished I were dead. 

I sat there with my hand over my mouth, tears streaming down my face and my whole body shaking, endlessly. I was freezing; I couldn't feel my hands or feet anymore, and the edge of my sweater was now wet from the tears that had made their way down my neck. But I couldn't move or make any noise, otherwise, he was going to find me.

I don't know for how long I sat there, crying and shaking because, next thing I know, someone has entered the room and has kneeled in front of me, gently grabbing my arms and shaking me, trying to wake me up. 

But I pulled away, terrified. I receded as fast as I could, trying to protect myself. I thought they were going to try to touch me again, but they didn't. And that's when I saw him. 

The moonlight illuminated only one half of his face, leaving the other hidden in the dark. But I knew it was him. 

Aiden didn't come closer. He just stayed where he was, knelt on the floor, his eyes flooded with fear. I knew he was scared; not of me. He was scared because he didn't know how to help me. How I wish I could have told him, he just had no idea. But I didn't even know how to help myself. 

So I just kept crying. I kept shaking. We both sat there for what I thought were hours; I was trying to calm myself down, he was trying to figure out how to calm me down.  

I stared down at the floor until I was able to get my breathing under control. When the shaking and crying subsided, the numbness stepped in.

Stars. 

Stars were all I could see now. Stars, all over the floor. 

There weren't stars on the floor at Red River, of course. But I had trained my mind to envision stars when this happened. And if I could get my mind to really concentrate on the stars, and their brightness, and their odd but comforting shape, everything else could subside, too, for a little while.