Cutting Edge

Chapter Two: Saige

        It’s been six more hours and I just can’t handle it. I feel like dying. Drew hasn’t awakened from his coma and his condition is declining quickly. The doctors have pretty much told us that there is not much more they can do, but will keep the room for him for up to two weeks until his parents are ready to say their final good-byes.

        I’ve been here at the hospital for 21 hours total and I have to go home to shower and eat something that’s not hospital food.

        I get home to the usual scene, a fancy, high dollar house in the middle of nowhere. The most usual part of this scene is the empty driveway. My father works a high end job as the president of some big law firm (I try to avoid him as much as I can). My mother hasn’t been around since I was two. She left us and later I found out she died in a car accident ten years later, all the more reason to hate Drew’s situation. I blame my father in full for my mother leaving. He didn’t even try and stop her, let alone contact her. She left a note with her address and phone number on it that said, “Call me when you quit being so self centered. Call me when you start to love your family.” I guess he never quit being so self centered and never started loving his family because he sure as hell doesn’t seem to love me, and that note is still propped up in the corner of his bathroom mirror. He never contacted her. I would hope if he had he would have told me. I think somewhere deep down he feels guilty because he’s never tried to hook up with anyone since my mom left. And he should feel guilty for just letting her walk out on us like that.

        As I turn the water on high, I start to enter the already steamy shower, and grab a new, sharp razor, just in case.

        I finish with the usual wash, rinse, repeat, and grab the razor from the hanging shelf inside the shower door. I turn it around in my hands a few times watching the metal blades glisten when the light hits them. I take a deep breath and swipe the blades across my left wrist, making a slight indention. The water stings as it hits the cuts. Did you know you would die if you injected pure water into your blood stream? It has something to do with the fact that your blood cells take in the water surrounding them, which causes them to burst.

        The relief I feel after the pressure is gone, is strong and I love it. I don’t know why I didn’t start cutting sooner.

        Wait, did I really just think that? Since when did I start thinking that cutting was something I would even consider at all?

         Last night when I cut for the first time. I was such a whimp, cutting at a hospital…

        Why does it matter that I started cutting at a hospital? I still started doing something I never would have imagined doing, right? That’s all that matters.

        As I wrap some Kleenex around my still bleeding cuts, my phone buzzes, telling me I have a new text.

       Brian:  Hey babe wats up? ;)

       Great just what I need right now. Brian is my boyfriend, kind of. He and I have been dating for almost two weeks, and he’s already acting as if we’ve been dating for months. I really do like Brian, but I don’t like him well enough yet to really want him to know about Drew and everything. I’m afraid he wouldn’t really care and would just shrug it off as no big deal.  

       Me:  Hey sweetie. Not much. I’m heading out the door right now. I’ll text you in a bit.

       Brian:  Ok :(

        It bothers me that people shorten their texts. It’s good practice for the real world if you actually type the words out.

        Time to head back to the hospital. Maybe tomorrow I will talk to Brian about all of this.