Smoke Signals

23 ⚠️

⚠️ SELF HARM ⚠️

I sat down on the bathroom floor with a blade in my hands. Should I? Should I not? JJ wasn't home. She didn't have to know. I didn't think I could fight the urge. I put the blade on my skin and pressed down slightly, dragging it across.

If it weren't for the sound of the door opening and me jumping, the cut would be perfectly clean with my level of practice. But somehow in the process of me jumping at the sound of the door, the knife went deeper than it was supposed to and blood was now seeping out of the wound. It wasn't a fatal amount of blood, but it was quick enough to be scary. "Fuck." I cried out.

"Sweetheart?" JJ's voice came from the bedroom.

"Hey...I uh..." I weight my options, should I tell her to come in with the first aid kit and take care of it or should I sit here and put toilet paper over it? I was a bit scared that I would end up bleeding out so I decided to call for her. "I'm in the bathroom, can you get the first aid?"

"What happened?" I heard her rustling around in the kitchen, looking for the first aid. I didn't answer, just waited for her to come.

When she walked in she looked down at me with sympathetic eyes. She looked at my hand covering up the wound, putting pressure on it while blood dripped onto my legs then onto the floor. "Oh baby." She knelt down in front of me. "What happened?" She grabbed my hand gently pulled it off of the wound, grabbing antibacterial and putting it on the wound.

"Ow." I winced.

"I'm sorry my love." She kissed my forehead.

"I didn't mean to go that deep, I promise." I told her, not wanting her to be disappointed in me. "It was supposed to be shallow and then the door opened and it scared me and I jumped, I promise I didn't mean to go that deep." I said desperately.

"Shh angel, it's ok." She said softly, putting pressure on my wound while cleaning off the extra blood. "Can you take your pants off for me baby? Some blood got on them and they need to be washed." She put the bandage on and then I took my pants off in silence, not being able to meet her eyes. She grabbed the pants and walked away, putting them in the laundry room.

She didn't come back for a few minutes and was a bit concerned to see me still on the floor. "Hey, why are you still down there?" She knelt down in front of me and furrowed her brows. I shrugged. "Hey." Her voice softened and she sat down completely, getting comfortable on the ground and sitting cross legged. "Do you need anything?" She reached out to tuck my hair behind my ear but I flinched. She retracted her hand and frowned.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize darling." She held her hand out to me and I put my hand in hers, squeezing it gently. She smiled. "Do you want to talk?" I hesitantly nodded but didn't know how to start. "Start whenever you're ready, I'm right here."

"Can you just listen? I don't really want you to say anything." She nodded.

"Of course."

"Ok...it's just..." I felt nervous but was reassured when I looked into her loving eyes silently giving me reassurance. "Every time I think I can stay clean for a while and then like the next day I relapse. It's really frustrating. It's not even because of my past or anything...it's just I get in my head and I think badly of myself." I sighed and she squeezed my hand, knowing I wanted to talk more and assuring me that it was alright to do so. "I mean...it feels pathetic but I know it isn't. I know that when people...do what I do, it's because they're in pain. That's why I do it, no one who's happy would do that to themselves." I sighed and continued. "I want to be able to not do it, I really do but it's just hard to find something else that works. There, I'm done."

She nodded and opened her arms to me, inviting me to a hug. I was glad she had really just listened and not butted in with anything. She never failed to surprise me at how good of a listener she was. "Thank you for telling me my love." She kissed my temple.

"Yeah, well...I trust you."

"I'm glad." She rubbed my back for a second then just went back to holding me. I buried my face in her neck and took a deep breath, relaxing into her.

"I'm scared that it's not going to end up ok."

"It will my love. I promise." She kissed my temple. "Everything's going to end up ok."

"Thank you." I said, holding onto her words of comfort.

"Of course."