Alex launched into her past and the story just kind of came out and I understood it. At the age of five her parents died in a car crash, and she was taken into foster care where she traveled around, got put into a couple of schools that I was in. No one wanted to have her as their foster care child because she wasn’t ‘Nice,’ and had a criminal record for stealing and vandalism. She had been caught and arrested like ten times. She was taken in once and then kicked out for coming home drunk one night. And then people took her in and she met me.
I was crying by the time Alex finished her side. I saw the defeat in her eyes but I wouldn’t say that she was defeat more like triumphant about attempting to defeat her inner demons that tried to harm her. I knew the feeling all too well myself. For hiding my emotions, I knew what the demons possessed and the power that they had over our minds if let. She also wore long sleeves and we both knew the reasons why but she rolled up her own sleeve and showed me her scars.
I dropped her off at her house and we exchanged numbers and then I got home and went straight to work on our project, I looked at the topic. ‘Oh, shit’ I let out in a whisper so no one here me swearing. The topic was self-harm and suicide, I was going to die out there. Freaking out I texted Alex:
Did you know the topic of our project was self-harm and suicide?
No why?
Cause I can’t walk up there in two weeks and talk about something I planned carefully for years. I can’t talk about this.
Hold on I’ll call you.
Alex called and talked me into doing the work and a poster and she would do the speech. I was going to say something but was still unsure on the day of the presentation.
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