Serendipity

Chapter 4

Delilah’s Point of View

He stopped the car beside the lake before it hit me. He’d taken me to the campsite where we’d first met ten years ago. It was at the bench we were sitting at now that we promised to be best friend forever. We argued over whether to do a pinky promise or and ankle promise, but we ended up doing a pinky promise like I wanted because even at six, I had my pout down pat.

It was a shame the camp had shut down last year. I remember hearing about it and feeling sad, but the thought hadn’t crossed my mind to come back up here. It was abandoned now, other than the animals swimming around.

“Wanna skinny dip?” Jason asked from beside me with a devilish, charming grin that looked more suited for Nathaniel to wear. I rolled my eyes at his lam attempt to get me to grin, even though one had already slipped onto my face. “I’m kidding, but let’s just go in our underwear and you in your bra as well?”

I debated in my head and my inner child won out. I tore my clothes off, but before I could run in the water, Jason tugged my arm so my body came to a complete halt.

“What?” I asked.

“You can’t go in the water with these bracelets on. They’re leather and it’ll make them fall apart,” he said as he began to remove them. I retracted my hand quickly.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” I said nonchalantly, trying to brush off the fact that he’d almost taken off my bracelets.

What no one knows is, I wear the bracelets to cover up my cuts and scars. I started cutting around a year ago when the pressure of living up to my mother’s expectations was unbearable. Then I lost all of my friends that I thought were close to me because they were never really my friends. The stress and unhappiness I felt was terrible. The cutting was a distraction. If I cut, the pain was all I thought about instead of how unhappy I was. I’d been trying to stop, but I’m still not quite happy. I keep everything inside and then take it out on myself. I don’t need Jason to know about my secret. I’m so ashamed of myself and the things I’ve done to myself. I can only imagine his reaction, but that’s all I ever want it to be. An imagination. It shouldn’t happen.

“Don’t be so stubborn,” Jason teased. I sucked in a breathe as I realized what he was about to do.

His fingers were all over me and I began to laugh hysterically. He was tickling me and there was nothing I could do but try and stifle my laughs. Then his fingers stopped and I heard a pop, signaling my bracelets to fall. The laughter fell and a thick silence overthrew us. He held under my wrist and inspected the damage I’d inflicted upon it.

“How long-” he started, before he cut himself off. His eyes began to glisten with tears. He was trying to be strong and not let them fall, for my sake.

“About a year,” I answered softly. I felt the pity and sadness that replaced the humor in his gaze. I couldn’t meet it so I stared at the ground. This is why I didn’t tell people. It sucks the fun out of the relationship.

I could feel his eyes boring into me. Studying me. He was probably thinking of the right thing to say or the proper way of asking why I would do this to myself. The last thing he’d want would be to hurt me, but that was exactly what he was unknowingly doing.

“So how about that dip in the lake, huh?” I said. I put a cheeky grin on my face and stood up. I took my wrist gently out of his grasp and by my side, where he couldn’t see it. 

He shook his head. “We need to talk about this Delilah.” His voice was sincerely sweet. 

“No, we don’t need to. You just want to. I really just need to have some fun with my best friend right now,” I begged.