Read Between the Lines

Stripes

It's another drag. It's another line. It's another pain filling my lungs and watering my eyes. No, I am not doing drugs.

It's another drag across my skin over years of healed over scars with a blade. It's another line of scars over the old ones. The pain that's filling my lungs is the lack of air I'm breathing from how much I've been crying.

The thing is: I have absolutely nothing to be crying about. My life is practically decent. I'm doing fairly well in school, I have the raddest friends a girl could have, my parents are more in love than ever (and it's quite sickening to the stomach to see them kiss. Like really kiss.) and there isn't anyone in my life who is making it a living hell.

So why the hell am I crying and why am I wasting my time and energy carving into my skin?

I guess it just gets to me. What might that be, you may ask? Life. Life fucking gets to me. My life isn't run down to shit like a lot of people. I'm not suffering in any way possible. It's just I feel like my life is so damned great that I can't feel any kind of sadness or pain or suffering. So I do this. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't make an ounce of sense, but in my head, it makes perfect sense.

I grab a hand towel and run it under cold water. I put the blade back into it's container underneath the sink. I wrap the towel around my wrist and watch the color of it transform from an off white to a bright red. I stare at my bloodshot eyes in the mirror and say, "You're okay." I tiptoe back into my room and sleep it off.

I wake up with a throbbing pain on my arm. I gently run my fingers over the five lines of bright red, scabbing cuts. I grab a longsleeve from my drawer. It has a black and dark gray striped pattern on it in thick lines. I pull it over my black tank top and run my fingers through my pixie-cut hair to mess it up. I fix my bangs and sweep it over to the side.

"Today's going to be a good day," I say to myself.

It's the first day of the last year of my high school career. I'm actually excited for this year.

I pull into my usual parking space across from the dugout of the baseball field. There's a couple furiously making out in the car next to me. I adjust the sunglasses on my face and grab my bag from the passenger seat. With the press of a button, my car beeps once, locking it. I make my way for the planters at  the back of the school, it's where I hung out most of my Sophomore and Junior years. It's the only place where there aren't any actual classes, so when I don't get there first, someone else is there either making out, or smoking. There are classrooms there, but the doors and windows are blocked by the bushes in the planter. So people probably do the deed here too.

As I approach the spot, a few new Freshmen come by and sit there. I stand there, watching them. They pull out Yu-Gi-Oh cards. Are you fucking kidding me? I pull out my schedule and go to my first class. I usually meet up with Marisa before school, but ever since she got a new girlfriend, I haven't seen much of her.

First period is Economics. I take my seat in the back, second row next to a bookshelf blocking an exit path to my left. I chose this seat because it'll be easy to get away with shit. Then again, this is public school, and some teachers let you do whatever you want.

Slowly, the class begins to fill in. I've noticed nobody really wants to sit around me. Which is kind of nice, yet kind of offending. They're probably judging me. They're probably put off by the girl wearing all black. Seriously people? Shove your judgments up your assholes.