Love and the Sea and Everything in Between

prologue

The darkness is a friend, I tell myself as I lay in my bed, staring up at the ceiling. It's 2 o'clock in the morning and I am wide awake, eyes fixed on the darkness. It is the only truly loyal friend.

I recount all the things that went wrong in my first semester at college as the thoughts and the memories resurface. My mind tells me that I've been crying. It's the still and quiet type of crying. I do not feel the tears on my skin, but I know they're there. I hear them drip against my pillow, faint and soft.

I try to distract myself. I make a mental note of my counseling appointment tomorrow after classes. I don't really look forward to these appointments (they're incredibly awkward and I mostly end up just sitting there, pretending to listen). Unfortunately, they're mandatory ever since the dean discovered the scars that mar my skin.

I don't remember telling him, but he found out somehow so I guess I must have told him.

The only other person who knew was...

Breathe, I remind myself as my chest tightens and I feel like I might suffocate under the weight of it all. I forget to breathe sometimes. And I struggle to remind my lungs how to operate, but they don't listen.

And as I lay here in the dark, alone, I forget how to breathe for a minute. And I get scared. Because I am alone and I start to think about dying and I wonder... if I die right now who would find my body? How would they react? Would they cry? I think I would want someone to cry if I died. But I don't think anyone would. After all, I've only been at this school a semester.

And I remember now how people don't care about people they've only known for a semester.

Not really.

Faces and names I've spent months trying to forget match themselves to lies and excuses. My stomach tightens and I feel like I might throw up, but I hold it down.

Suddenly, I remember the sliver of steel floating between the tips of my fingers. I press my thumb against the point until I feel a small prick. Then, the comforting warmth of my own blood as it drips onto my palm and traces the lines in my skin.

I blink once as I bring the blade to my wrist. My skin crawls as the cold steel bites into my flesh.

The edge of the blade has become my painkiller. It's a drug I can't escape and, maybe, I don't want to. I feel its affects surging through my system with every break of my skin, making its way to my heart, to every dark and dusty corner of my mind. It's taking me over, shattering every bad thought until they're nothing but faded photographs drowned in blood.

This is my painkiller. This is my obsession.

This is my reality.

And slowly, as the cold wraps its icy arms around my body, I drift to sleep and dream of the things I fear.

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