To Write Love On Her Arms

Chapter 1

            I remember the first day she told me she wanted to kill herself. I want to say that it alarmed and frightened me, but somehow I had known it all along. It had to have been the way she looked at me that eased a sense of horror into my mind. Her eyes had been zipped shut, laced together with the lashes that sat on the edges of their lids. Only when she opened them did I recognize that a glaze of water glossed their surface. It showed like a reflection pool, so still hardly anybody could notice it. Normally, I wouldn’t care to look into her terror-filled eyes. We had no ways of communicating to each other through them. In fact, pure shock caused me to gaze.

            That moment paralyzed me, since I had never seen those hazel diamonds dilated. Her dry, pale pink lips pursed to the point where she practically stifled. The thin ghostly skin that her body tended to slip into started to wear off from her immense shaking. She drew an image upon herself that categorized her among the walking dead.

            Although my friend had become troubled with nervous reactions, I couldn’t help but to wonder what thoughts ran through her head. One thing that she never understood is how delicate life is. She only knew that once you lose it, there is no way of you replacing it.          

                Jasey is my best friend. I don’t care what any person on this planet has to say about that. She is and she always will be. Yes, we didn’t always get along and yes, we both had our share of mistakes. Two completely different people are bound to have arguments every once in a while.  I am fully aware that she didn’t do things the way people originally intended them to be done, but that defined her. In my opinion, she never let somebody tell her how to live her life. Maybe I needed that from her. Most of the time it seemed like I let her act as my conscious; some say the arrangement consisted of the controlling puppeteer and me, the weak, helpless puppet. I always looked at it differently, as if she would fight the battles and I stayed the coward behind her. But if anything at all, Jasey should be remembered as my courageous and caring best friend.

                If that day didn’t change my life, I don’t know what day did. That was definitely the highlighting point of my “transformation” into hysteria. Every detail of that night is still clear in my head. Silence spoke for us, causing me to stare into dark night sky. The Pennsylvanian weather decided to be perfect for such an awful night.  My stomach ached, for I could not come up with any words to respond with.

                “Please say something,” Jasey gasped.  She attempted to hold her breath until she’d elicit a word from me. I drifted my gaze back at her for moments longer and then drew my eyes away. She bit her lip so aggressively I swore she would have torn it off.

                “Why?” I whispered softly, closing my eyes in utter disappointment. I tried to hold back the river that began to flood my eyes though nothing could stop the water works. But If Jasey wasn’t crying I didn’t want to cry either. Thinking about losing one thing that means the most to you in this world is one of the hardest things to accomplish, even if it hasn’t happened yet. No one in their right mind would want to think about losing a loved one.

 After several hesitations of looking up at me and staring shyly back to the pavement, she inhaled heavily with her mouth exhaled lightly through her nose.

                “You have a purpose here, Kiersten. You have friends and talents and a family and I’ll never have any of that,” She spoke exaggeratingly, emphasizing each word. Her lips sealed for a moment as she shook her head in denial. “I will never become something that you will be one day, and you’ll just leave me behind like everyone else has.”

                “Shut up, Jasey, I have no more than you do.” I began as I stared her down with distain. We were both shocked at the emotion I held strongly, but I couldn’t get myself to let go of it for that purpose. It frustrated me that she always thought into the future. “You can’t always get what you want and when you don’t you act like it’s the end of the world.”