Cognizant (Adopted By Alex Gaskarth: Book 2)✅

Chapter 6

I sat on the tile of the bathroom, my sweatshirt sleeves rolled up to my elbows. My pale and scarred arms sat in front of me, a shiny silver blade from a disassembled razor in one hand. I gripped the small blade between my fingers tightly before inhaling and bringing it to my wrist again. I pressed down harder than I probably needed to in order to break skin, blood almost instantly coming to the surface of my skin. My wrist burned and stung as I pushed down again and made another deep scarlet line across my wrist. I lost myself in the pain in my arm, 

End it. All of it.  

Cut deeper. You deserve it. 

You know you do. 

Bleed out. 

I brought the blade to my wrist again, ready to press down even harder. 

I can't do that. Remember what happened to Alex? How torn up he was? 

It doesn't matter. He'll be fine. 

No, he won't. He even turned to hurting himself. 

He'll be fine. Just cut deeper. You don't deserve to have his help, anyway. 

No, stop it. 

Do it. 

The blade dropped from my hand onto the floor with a small clink. I curled into a ball with my arms around my knees, blood from my wrist seeping into my grey sweatpants. 

I can't do that to him, or Lisa, or Jack, or Zack, or Rian. Or... 

Yes, you can. They probably won't even notice you're gone. Just like always. 

I shook my head at myself, screwing my eyes shut and putting my head on my knees. I curled myself up tighter, trying to convince myself in one direction or another. Slow tears began slipping down my face, the hot salt water dripping down. I hugged my knees tightly, hoping to find some comfort in it, but found nothing but emptiness. 

There was a knock on the door. "Ad, you okay?" 

Shit. 

I didn't answer Alex, keeping myself in a tightly-knit ball. 

"Ad? Adelpha, I know you're in there, please tell me you're okay," Alex pleaded softly.  He tried opening the door, only to find it was locked. I finally pushed myself to a standing position, not caring how I looked anymore. Blood fell down my wrists slowly as I hesitantly approached the door. I unlocked it and opened the door, standing in the doorway in front of Alex with my head down. I stared at the ground in front of me, where Alex's feet were standing on the transition from carpet to tile floor. 

"Ad, oh my God, what did you do?" Alex's voice was drenched in concern as he picked up my arm, examining the cuts. 

I looked up at him, hesitantly mumbling, "I'm sorry." 

"Come here, we need to get these bandaged up." Alex brought me back into the bathroom, pushing me against the counter and taking bandages from the cabinet. He began cleaning the wounds, his hands shaking and uncoordinated. White bandages were wrapped around the deep cuts once the bleeding had slowed. Alex looked up at me after he finished, tears beginning to prick his eyes. 

I looked down again, knowing my eyes were still red from crying, which still hadn't stopped. "I'm sorry," I whispered. 

"Kid, I know it's hard, I really do. But you've got to talk to me about this. I don't know what you went through this past year, but just let me do what I can to help. Please?" 

I nodded and wiped my eyes, letting Alex reach out to hug me. I pressed my face into his shoulder, apologetically embracing him back. 

Several minutes of embracing passed until Alex slowly pulled away. "What did you use to hurt yourself?"