Ow. Fuck.
Pressing the tissue to his arm, Tyler closed his eyes with a small sigh escaping his tense lips. Still trying to clot the blood, he opened his eyes and looked around him at his surroundings.
The first thing he saw was his reflection in the mirror. He was in a bathroom of course, so the kind of light that's in there made his face look all ghoulish. It suited him, he thought. His part of the skull that's under his eyebrows cast lovely shadows across his face, his cheekbones doing the exact same wonderful thing.
Sinking his coffee dull eyes to the counter beneath him, he saw the faucet and sink, wincing as he saw little drops of blood contrasting with the pale white porcelain. It looked so pretty, he thought. Calm. Peaceful. A reminder. He thought of these words as he threw the same contrasting colored tissue in the trash. Looking back at the sink, he grabbed the razor that was there. Pretty. Calm. Peaceful. A reminder.
This was, what, maybe only his second time cutting? He just wanted to try it. To see if it took any pain away. Apparently it didn't because the inside of Tyler's chest seemed like whatever was in there was buried and couldn't claw itself out.
Taking care not to cut the tips of his finger as he dragged the razor to the edge and slid it off into his other hand, he was suddenly aware of footsteps outside of the bathroom door.
"Tyler?" He recognized his mother's voice. "What's taking you so long? You've been in there for a while?" She queried.
Why couldn't anybody leave him alone anymore? Pushing his wrist with the (9 beautiful lines) pitiful escape attempts on it close to his side so his mom wouldn't see and pocketing the razor (which he got by unscrewing it from a pencil sharpener) he opened the door.
"Hey mom, what's up?" He asked in a too-high voice.
His mom squinted her eyes and cocked her eyebrows as well as her head.
"Are you okay? Is your stomach hurting or were you getting ready for a shower or-" she broke off, not knowing what else to say. Tyler leaned against the doorway threshold and crossed his arm as he replied, "Yeah mom everything's great. Well," he mused, "more like fine. Just fine. I'm actually really bored. I think I'm going to go and get a nap or write or something." He finished with an emphasized wave of his arms outward.
Moving past his mom and almost into his room, she caught his wrist, her fingers touching each other as they wrapped around it in a grasp, right on those (beautiful) ugly new marks.
"What's on the counter? What is that?" She asked with an accusing voice. Tyler had to think quick. He had to lie. He couldn't tell the truth.
"Oh I-uh-I kind of had a nosebleed. I kind of inferred it already mom, but I'm really tired," he replied, tasting the metallic taste of the lie, "I kind of fell into the wall and got a nosebleed. That's all. Nosebleed. That's all" Tyler repeated himself as if saying it was for his own good, mumbling the last two words.
"I'll clean it up," he offered too quickly as he raced to the linen closet and grabbed an old cleaning rag to escape his mother's confused stare.
••••••••••••••••••••••••
Laying in his bed, Tyler was staring up at the ceiling. Why do I lie? He thought. It felt as though bile was rising up his throat as he thought about it. He's lied so much before, he just doesn't know how to stop. It's like he doesn't want those he lies towards to judge him for the truth, or he doesn't want to say the truth. It hurts too much to face the truth. Closing his eyes and running his finger over the light traces of scabs over his wrist, he told himself that he wouldn't cut again because it was pathetic. He was pathetic. Even causing harm to himself didn't put out the pain. So he went to sleep.
