wasted.

Chapter Five

Ienna didn't show up to our shared classes the next day, and wasn't in her bed when I woke up that morning.

I wasn't too worried about her. I knew she wouldn't kill herself for real, because she feared "hell" far too much for that.

So, I did my normal, finished all of my classes for the day, then headed back to the room to change, then nap my sad reality away.

Instead, as soon as I came into the room, I saw Ienna sitting crossed-legged on her bed, putting a small little blade to her inner arm and crying. When she looked up at me, her eyes grew as large as two inflated balloons, and she immediately hid the razor under her leg.

"You're back early," she said, wiping her tears quickly. I could tell she was trying to hide what she had been doing, but she was bleeding everywhere, so it was pretty tell-tale.

"Oh," was all I could muster. I wasn't good in situations like this - comforting people, consoling people. So, not knowing what to do, I sat down on her bed for a moment and watched her fidget nervously.

"You don't have to feel bad," she said, wiping the final tears out of her eyes. I didn't feel bad - not as much as I probably should have - but I knew I had to, because a lot of this was probably my fault.

I didn't know what it was that pushed her over the edge: the hookup thing? the iPad? kneeing her? the diary? It was all valid, but to be honest, none of that would have made me sit on my bed and cut myself.

Maybe I was wrong about Ienna being afraid to kill herself, because from the looks of it, she'd do it in a heartbeat. It actually appeared she was fighting with the demons of death every single day, and so much of that was my fault. So now, of course, I had to stay with her, because if I didn't and she decided to kill herself, I would be blamed for it.

"I don't feel bad, but I don't want you doing shit to yourself," I stated plainly, pulling a few tissues from the box beside her bed and throwing them at her.

She took them, then began wiping the blood off of her arms in embarrassment. Meanwhile, I reached over and pulled the blade from under her leg, then opened the window a crack and tossed it out, so it would fall presumably into the bushes below us.

"What kind of blade was that even?" I asked, watching it fall, hitting tree branches along the way down.

"Pencil sharpener," she replied quietly. She looked ashamed of herself.

"Guess I underestimated you then," I said with a slight laugh, closing the window back up. I then grabbed my book and sat on my bed, opening it to the page I had dog-earred.

I could feel her intent gaze upon me as I read, but I chose to ignore it. If I was going to blow off my evening plans to babysit Ienna, I wasn't going to give her the attention she wanted.

But it got really hard to ignore her the more she stared at me, hardly blinking, just staring, at least fr a good thirty or forty minutes. Finally, I spoke.

"Ienna," I sighed, closing my book.

"I think God hates me," she burst. She looked as if she were on the verge of tears.

I blew a frustrated raspberry out of my mouth. I didn't really want to have this talk with her. "God hates everyone, so who cares? Just live your life now."

"Look where that has gotten you," she said dryly.

"I'm doing just fine," I said. Maybe it wasn't entirely honest, but I would be doing just fine if it weren't for the whole Valencia thing, and that wasn't at the fault of not believing in God, but at the fault of my own carelessness.