trigger warning.
Sometimes, she had to sit on her hands just to control the urges. She was so close, so close to being a year clean, so close to reaching her goal. A full twelve months without cutting. A full twelve months without purging. A full twelve months being healthy and happy and resisting the urges. And there she was, sitting on her bathroom floor, her hands securely placed under her butt with the disposable razor she used to use to mark up her wrists and thighs and hips, sitting across from her on the edge of the bath tub, taunting her.
It's just one cut. It's just for some temporary relief. It's just to make you feel better. You won't have to do it again. You know you want to. You know what to feel that calming sense of euphoria wash over you as you watch the blood drip down your tattoos. No one cares about you enough to notice. Come on, pick me up. It's just one cut.
She heard the elevator ding, meaning that someone was coming into her apartment, and she couldn't even guess who it was. She had lost track of how many people she had given keys to, for emergencies like this, when the urge was too strong, and if she were to even reach for her phone, her hand would do a 180 turn and grab the razor instead. Her body had a mind of its own and she knew from past experience during one of her episodes, that she wasn't strong enough to control it.
"Oh," he entered the bathroom, setting his phone down and grabbing the razor off of the edge of the tub, throwing it away. He searched through her drawers to see if she had anything else sharp in there, but upon seeing nothing, knelt down next to her. He knew the drill. This bathroom, her new bathroom, didn't contain the bad memories, but he knew this was going to become one.
"How long have you been sitting like this?" he asked, not wanting to touch her, and not wanting her to freak out on him. He knew what to do during her episodes, but he never knew how severe they were until he really started talking to her. He talked her out of it, distracted her, did anything that he could to get her mind off of whatever thing had taken over her mind that tried to convince her that she needed to do it, even though he knew that she didn't.
"I don't know," she quietly responded. He wasn't used to her quiet voice, her voice that lacked confidence and assurance.
"I'm gonna get you up now, okay? And we're gonna go and eat this take out I brought and watch your favorite movies, okay?" he locked eyes with her and she simply nodded, knowing that she already ruined his first night back. They hadn't seen each other properly in three weeks and this was supposed to be their traditional reunion night. Changing into what she had bought earlier that day, her mind had begun to take over, hence her current situation.
"You're stronger than this. I know in your head you probably don't believe me, but we both know you are. You just have to find it within yourself to overcome this. It'll take time but," he stopped and lightly grasped her chin with his course fingers so that they were forced to make eye contact, "I believe in you."
She just nodded again and willingly went into his arms as he carried her out of the bathroom and into the living room. She stared at the TV and exhaled as he came back in with their food and turned the TV on, throwing his arm over her shoulders and waiting for her to dig in first.
"I really missed you," he breathed out, kissing the top of her head as she snuggled into him, hiding her wrists so that she wouldn't have to look at them.
"I missed you too," she replied before staring at the TV again. That was how it always went. He would pep talk her and then they would never talk about her little episode ever again, because he knew how much she hated to have it brought back up. It made her think of treatment, and how at the end of the week there was a nurse reading all of her little breakdowns and all of her moments of weakness off to her doctor, as if the fact that she had to go through it wasn't enough, as if she just needed to be reminded that she wasn't strong enough, that she wasn't fixed.
Later that night, she couldn't sleep. She wanted to desperately to sleep, to fall asleep in his arms and feel his fingers running through her scalp. He would sing to her in Spanish sometimes and even though she had no clue what he was saying, the words always soothed her into her deepest sleep.
She pushed the covers off of her body and walked back into the bathroom, flicking on the dimmer lights and kneeling down in front of the trashcan. Her razor, the cheap disposable pink one that he had thrown away, was sitting on top of the pile and she easily dug it out, clenching it and unclenching it in her hands while she had a silent debate in her mind about her next actions.
"Do it to me," he was barely awake and she could tell, but that didn't stop him from sitting next to her, glaring at the little object in her hands before looking back at her.
"What do you mean?" she questioned, cocking her head to the side.
"Do it to me. However many times you're gonna cut your wrists, your thighs, your hips...do it to me," he simply stated as she shook her head. She could never imagine herself doing that, abusing his body the way that she abused hers.
"I can't hurt you like that," she responded and he just nodded and folded his arms over his chest, watching the wheels in her brain turn as tears welled up in her eyes.
"You get it? You get why I hate seeing you like this? Every time you wanna do this, just think about if you would do it to me, or your mom or your dad or Maddie or Dallas. If you're not willing to cut them, why do you do it to yourself?" with a brief kiss on the lips, he was gone, and her tears finally flowed.
No one had ever put it into perspective for her like that. No one had ever stopped her from doing it the way that he could. She looked down at the razor in her hands and shook her head. She tossed it into the trash, turned off the lights, and walked back into her bedroom. She felt lightweight. She felt calm. She felt at peace. The war in her mind had halted, and even if it was just for a little while, it was more than she could normally say. She felt like she could finally sleep and breathe. She felt like she didn't need to sit on her hands anymore. She felt like she had actually overcome something.
She turned on her phone. It was 12:01 am. She was officially a year clean. She was so close to throwing a year worth of recovery away, to surrendering to her mind, but she didn't. She didn't have to face anything alone. She had someone there who was willing to help her overcome anything, and she knew finding someone like that in the world that they lived in was rare. He loved her unconditionally, and if he could love her like that...couldn't she love herself like that?
