Help Me Feel

Help Me Feel - Pressures

A/N: My story Just One Night hit 10 million reads!! SO EXCITED!!! Anyway... Dedication is because she made the AMAZING cover on the side!!! Thank you!!

 Chapter 3 – Pressures.

I cut the night before. I couldn't help it, it just happened.

Brandon gave me a ride home, and I'd told him my dad's car was in the garage so he wouldn't worry. He believed me, let me go alone.

Though I'd admitted to myself that he was my friend, I needed time alone. Better yet, I needed a hell of a lot of space.

I'd smiled to myself. A full smile for the first time in years.

Then it had hit me. If I was feeling, why wasn't I bleeding? Why wasn't someone bleeding? I needed to see it to believe it. Otherwise the emotion wasn't real, just a figment of my imagination.

And with that, I'd cut along my leg again. Not so deep this time, thank God, but enough to remind me that having a friend didn't mean anything was changing, except the amount I talked. I still had the ability to express my feelings to my reflection.

It did mean, however, that I'd have to be more careful.

I was sat once again in English, drawing circles on the table. It was a simple, boring gesture that was quickly becoming a habit.

My mind flashed to when Brandon told me I was good at art, and I stopped my pencil. Just like that, I could break the habit. I refused to be acknowledged for something. Being recognized would mean teacher's thinking they had the right to hound me about college, and like I'd already said, I wasn't going.

“Hey!” Brandon said, sitting next to me. He waved at Anna, but turned to me.

“Hey,” I replied after only a little hesitation.

“So, we're definitely friends, right?” He asked.

I nodded slowly. It wasn't like I could take the day before back. I wasn't even sure I wanted to.

“So, does that mean we can talk about the fact that it's my birthday in just twelve days?” He sounded so excited, but I couldn't feel it. I hadn't celebrated a birthday since the day I turned six.

“Uh, sure,” I agreed anyway. I didn't know what else we could talk about.

“I'm going to be legal!” He pumped his fist in the air, and just like the day before, I wanted to laugh.

But yet again, I couldn't. So I settled for the smile I'd given myself yesterday.

Brandon's yes widened almost comically as he looked at me. “Holy... are you smiling?”

My first response was to shrug, but I forced myself to nod. I needed to get out of the no-answer habit, too.

“I am a genius,” he declared, pausing between each word.

I shook my head, but the smile didn't leave my face. Deep inside, I knew this was dangerous. For my health, for him in general, but I couldn't bring myself to ignore him,

In the three days he'd been at the school, he'd become my friend. I reasoned with myself that clearly, he had to be worth the energy I spent talking to him.

By lunch, I was proven wrong. I'd never before been so desperate to cut, to be stupid and careless and just go for it. Not until that moment.

I'd had seven nervous people, all girls, ask me how I got Brandon's attention. I'd been so surprised that people were talking to me, and not by accident either, that I resorted to my usual shrug. Not that I knew the answer, but it was all I could do. I felt trapped, terrified.