Chapter 5
Pitter patter pitter patter... Red. Such a deep, vibrant red. He felt sick, nauseated. What the hell did I do... Suddenly his vision blurred. The world began to spin. Up was down, and down was up. He felt like passing out. Pitter patter pitter patter...
He snapped himself out of it. He reached to his left and grabbed a wash cloth from the sink and pressed it down on the wound. He lifted it and inspected it. On second glance, it wasn't so terrible. It wasn't bleeding profusely. He hadn't cut any major vein. But it was deep. Very deep. He tried to picture himself wrapping it with gauze, but there was no way. The cut had split open like a pair of lips! He used his fingers to gently push the cut closed. Then released, watching it open back up. There was no denying that it would need stitches. The idea that he would try to go without stitches was simply idiocy. But now he was scared again. What would he tell Dad? The location of the cut, the severity of the cut, there was no way he could explain that it was accidental. So how? The only reasonable explanation was to tell the truth.
“Shit,” he muttered. “Shit. Shit.” He compressed the wound with the rag and stood up. He had been wearing jeans. He certainly wasn't getting those back on, so he walked out in his boxers. It was near midnight. He was going to have to wake his father up in the middle of the night, in his boxers, with blood rolling down his leg, because he decided to be a stupid idiot and cut himself. He cursed angrily.
Ironically, he was not in any pain. It cut so cleanly that he barely felt it, like a pinprick. Irony, when the whole point was to FEEL pain. He limped out of the bathroom, into the family room, where his father slept on the couch. His father HAD a bed, and it was only a few rooms away. For some reason, he was content with the couch.
Mason hesitated. Once he did it, there was no turning back. It didn't hurt, he could at least try--
He acted before he could think himself out of it. “Dad,” he called, nudging him. “Dad, I have a problem...”
His father was facing away from him. He groaned. “What,” he replied, groggily.
“Dad... I cut myself, bad. I need you to look at it...”
“I'm sure you're fine,” he muttered. “Just leave it be.”
“No,” he replied. “You don't understand. This is bad.”
The tone in his voice made his father shift. “Turn on a light,” he said. “Let me see.”
Mason leaned over and turned on a lamp, illuminating the cut that Mason had inflicted on himself. Instantly, his Dad was alert.
“Mason, what the hell did you do?”
Mason bit his lip. Could he make up a story?
No. “It was an accident.” he replied. “I never meant to go so deep. Never...”
“You did it on purpose?” he asked, his face frowning a little. In shock? Disappointment? Both? He eyed the cut in disgust. Self-consciously, I covered it again with the rag.
“I'm sorry...” he said, almost in a whisper. “I didn't mean to go so deep...”
“Why would you ever purposely hurt yourself, Mason?” he asked, sounding hurt. “Surely there's other ways to cope?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but then a small torrent of blood ran down my leg, dripping onto the floor. I cursed and applied more pressure to the wound. I gave him a look as to say, 'Is now the time?'
