don't speak.

chapter twelve

I needed to take the day off. I needed the day to myself. I told my mom I was sick. The reality was I just needed some time to process. To think about what to do now.

I spread my fingers out on the carpet as I slid down on my stomach. The floor beside my bed was cold and comforting. I found that the solid ground was keeping me from spinning completely out of control.

Answering one question only reminded me that there were still hundreds of others I'd yet to discover. There was still so much more I didn't know.

I lay my head down on my hands, looking over to the partially shut bathroom door. The room where I found out.

There was an unsettling wave of calm that came over me and left just as quickly as it came when I read those words. As though I had been on edge for so long that even a moment of peace rubbed the wrong way. A moment of breath reserved for those words. Not Pregnant.

It was one single relief that opened up the door to a million other struggles.

The more I uncovered the more I realized I didn't know anything. I didn't know whose hands were so cold they sent shards of ice through my veins as they pressed into my wrists. Whose breath was so warm but sent shivers down my spine. Whose body penetrated mine – or even what diseases they may have carried.

I only knew two things with absolute certainty. I knew that I was in that room – laying on the bed exposed and exploited – and that in spite of this I could say I was not pregnant.

My mind continued to betray me, deciding to show me how things went so wrong. How I shouldn't have gone to the party. How I should have stayed close to my friends, or how I could have worn something less risqué. But then again, the email responses of my yahoo question said it all; I was asking for it. I'd been beating around the idea that blame could be cast upon this imaginary man. Someone I didn't know who could be my scape goat. Instead all I'd been doing was drowning in a vat of my own self-pity.

But I wasn't going to do that anymore.

I, Maya Hart, had decided to finally be accountable of my actions that night.

And if I was accepting the fact that I was some out of control slut; I was going to start acting like one too.

I brushed myself off and went into my closet to find any article of clothing that resembled lace or some sort of sheet material. I ripped apart seems and stitched pieces together, I had gone full blown Emma Stone in Easy A (without the gift card of the ability to go out and buy an entirely new wardrobe). With any of my remaining clothes I found myself snipping away at the fabric. I was chopping t-Shirts in half to make them cropped and slicing the bottoms off of shorts to make them – well – shorter. It was slag city in my bedroom and I was embracing it.

After I'd shoved all of the little scraps and pieces beneath my bed I tore off the old hoodie and candy-cane pajama pants I was wearing and slipped into one of my creations. IT was a choppy sheer (and almost completely see-through) turtleneck body suit which I'd layered o top of a lacy bralette and tucked into a pair of shorts that were so short my ass was falling out of them. To compensate for this underneath the shorts I had on a pair of fishnet tights I had thanks to my dance days. After I layered on some silver chain jewelry – acquired from a rubbish Halloween costume I'd had a few years ago – I looked into the mirror to take in my reflection. My heart immediately sunk.

It was absolutely horrible.

M stitching was loose and rushed, and while the outfit screamed whore my face was raw and almost innocent looking. I stepped closer into the mirror to stare at the reflection of my eyes. They were a shimmering bluish grey that shared the likes of sea glass – and I hated them. I hated my eyes and the soft loon on my face. I hated the way it all came together and above all? I hated myself.

I dragged myself into the bathroom where I scraped on as much black eyeshadow and purple lipstick as physically possible, and when I looked back to the mirror I looked like a ghost. Which I suppose was fitting, because I felt like one too. A ghost of the person I once was – or perhaps the ghost of a thought I'd never know.

My head sunk into my hands as I kicked off the heels I'd chucked on to enhance the look. When I finally pulled away I catch myself in the mirror again. Chunks of my eyeshadow had flaked and fallen beneath my eyes and had become streaked by tears I didn't even know had fallen. I couldn't help but thing this girl. This girl is asking for it.

I dashed off into the living room where I tripped on the edge of our rug and ended up straggled across the floor. I stayed there, letting my sobs consume me. Questions were spinning around my head, and I couldn't shake free of them. A tightness grabbed hold in my throat and I found it difficult to breathe. It was as though I was drowning in words and letter and the only way out was to grab hold of the questions I didn't want answered. Jumbled sentences confused me. There must've been someone else to blame – but who? I started to assign blame according to correlated events. My mind was whirring, if Riley hadn't been so busy with Charlie or if Zay had stuck by my side I wouldn't have to be worrying about any of this.

My mind whipped right back to reality. The one where I was lying on the ground in my living room and wallowing around. The one where I knew the truth. I knew the real problem wasn't these tiny little moments – they weren't what caused what went wrong that night. I was the one who ruined it for me. Who ruined me. I had let myself get put into that situation. And the truth is? I was only just starting to realize that I really, truly, deserved it. All of the taunting. The pain. It was all justified. But I couldn't keep myself from thinking, it's not enough.

My eyes lifted from the shaggy rug in the living room to the cupboard where Shawn stores his things when he stays over, and I knew what was inside. I brought myself up from the floor and staggered over to the cupboard, slowly pulling open the tightly closed cabinet. Inside was a shaving set. I watched, viewing as a passenger in my own body, as my hand curled around the razor and released the blade inside. I was about to press the cold metal against my skin when the front door began to unlock. I quickly threw the razor back inside the cupboard and tucked the blade into my pocket – bolting for my bedroom.

A familiar tightness returned to my chest and I tried to coke it down as panic seized hold of my entire body. I curled into a shakey ball on the floor, and relinquished all control to the darkness inside of me.