It was so incredibly dark that I couldn't see my own hand in front of my face. The only thing I had guiding me was the soft crunching sounds of my bare feet on the cold grass beneath me.
I walked farther and farther, and my senses became blurred and mingled together.
That's why I nearly passed out when a huge figure appeared out of nowhere in front of me. My eyes had adjusted to the dark, and I could see the person was wearing a white t-shirt. I couldn't stop walking so abruptly, and I put out my hands to soften the collision. I felt a muscular chest under thin cotton, and a pair of calloused but soft hands grasped lightly onto my wrists and pulled me towards him.
I don't know why, but I wasn't scared. There was no feeling of panic in my heart, and I don't know how else to say it other than that-
It seemed so real.
I trusted the stranger completely, and he maneuvered me into some place that was even darker than the night. We walked a little more, and then stopped. I observed the sound of metal on metal tinkling, and then a bare lightbulb switched on suddenly. I let out a little whimper and squinted through the penetrating light. The face I saw was of a black man, with strong handsome features. He was bald, but he had young eyes and big muscles on big limbs. He grinned at me briefly, but that face quickly turned solemn. It was then that he spoke.
"Hello," He said, and then cleared his throat. He had a thick, deep voice that reminded me of a block of mahogany wood.
Now would probably be the best time to say that I don't have a Dad. He disappeared a few years ago, and ever since it's just been my mom and my brother and me. I love my mom, but I was a Daddy's girl at heart. He went on a business trip, and just never came back. We don't even know if he's dead or alive, and that's when I started my art.
It started with just my wrists, but as I grew into a teenager it spread to my thighs, my ankles, anywhere it was secluded from the people who didn't understand.
I'm not a very pretty girl. I have blue eyes, and long dark hair, and a figure a plus-sized model would die for.
The scars are there to remind me of that.
I cried every night, and practiced my art almost every day. It ended when my mom's best friend's son, who was over for dinner, found me passed out in the bathtub with pools of red coagulated around my wrists and thighs. He didn't freak out, nor did he rat me out. He sat down, cleaned the blood off the unconscious me, and laid me in my bed. My mother and his mother chatted downstairs, unaware of what was going on. For all they knew, he was in the bathroom.
I woke up that night with a head ache, and that gorgeous boy was brushing my hair.
That was Scott, and when it was time for him to leave, he kissed my forehead like a butterfly landing and taking off, and then he was gone.
But then he wasn't. He lived in the next town over, and he rode his bike every night to my window, at precisely 1 AM. Those visits were was saved me. Scott saved me. My razor gathered dust, and the night Scott asked me to be his girlfriend, it was hidden away in a drawer somewhere. He came every night, without fail. We would sit up, and talk or laugh or do stupid things. Sometimes if it was warm enough we'd crawl out onto the roof and enjoy the breeze that whipped my hair around. Scott was always there to smooth it out though, and kiss my cheek with a boyish timidity that I admired.
And every night he would leave me with a soft kiss, on the lips.
