Myocardium

Part 19

I'm on my way to campus not even a few hours later, as hidden as I prefer to be. Some rumours I'm not aware of yet must have been spreading, since people are side-eyeing me and whispering to their friends while doing so. Since this clearly isn't enough to make my mood plummet, I find an envelope attached to my locker, not really wanting to open it. 

Is it a love-letter or death-threat?

Well, the latter of the two is not even too terrible of a guess, yet what I find is so, so much worse. It's a disgustingly detailed suicide note falsely signed under my name. Reading through it hurts, whoever wrote this has definitely managed to exceed all the expectations didn't even know I had to have concerning such a surreal, bizarre thing. 

The letter is well-written, too. 

Damn, I never expected such a lyrical masterpiece from someone in Ben's clique. 

Interesting.

Quietly, I slip the paper into my bag and make my way to the room where my first class of the day is hosted, thinking about too much all at once yet again. 

About my parents. About Crystal. About that letter. 

I know it's superficial and I know it's dumb. 

It's just very bad timing.

What am I supposed to do, tell a professor? 

It's useless. First of all, this is nothing but a piece of paper and second, the letter is written and signed under my name. 

Best case they'd call me crazy. 

Worst case they'll call the police and put me under supervision. 

And I do not want that. 

While I'm sitting in the college library to get some research done a couple of hours later, Ben suddenly enters my eyesight again, promptly walking up to me and dumping a bunch of razorblades onto the table in front of me. 

Oh wow, he wants me to kill myself.

Shocker. 

Seriously, why the hell is this guy following me around like an assassin on a not-so-secret mission?

This is becoming exhausting, it's so stupidly childish. Sometimes, it frightens me to think that someone like Ben is about to finish his degree, and not just some 16-year-old high-school bully. 

Nowadays' world surely is scary. 

And the future surely is doomed.

For a moment, I contemplate all my life choices, while I pick up a blade and tell Ben sarcastically, with a serious look on my face, "Oh, thanks. Mine are all used up anyways."

With what looks to him like no hesitation at all, I run my index finger straight along the blade, trying not to hiss at how revolting the feeling of splitting my skin with the sharp object is. 

The cut I cause starts bleeding immediately upon impact, but I manage to keep my expression neutral as Ben stares at me, dumbfounded by my psychotic actions. I shrug my shoulders and ask him with some obvious disinterest I have no intention of hiding,

"What do you want me to do? Start crying? Tell a professor? I'm way over that whole self-harm shit and you know that."

My upperclassman's expression changes to surprise for a moment, before turning back to pure evil again as he laughs.

"You really should start again."

I don't bother answering him, simply rolling my eyes and leaning back in my seat as I watch the blood drip, staining the surface of the desk. It feels terrifyingly good, how the cut stings and all the pain is centred around it.