Guardian

chapter eighteen

After all that happened Austin hardly left my side. Every meal we had was spent together and he even brought me along when he and Alan hung out sometimes. He basically tried his hardest to make sure I was always busy so I wouldn't get sucked back into the kind of thoughts that had lead to my suicide attempt. To his credit, it was working- I hadn't made any more attempts and now I wasn't so sure if I wanted to. Knowing that both him and Vic wanted me to stay alive changed my perspective on life. However, I was still incredibly upset the night after my failed attempt. To numb the pain, I started hacking away at my arms when I thought I was home alone.

"What are you doing!?" cried Austin. I looked up shocked and ashamed. I hadn't heard him enter the room; it looked like he had wanted to watch a movie, but now the DVD lay abandoned on the floor. There was no talking my way out of this one. Austin ran over to me, grabbed my razor and headed off into another room. I had no idea what he was doing until he came back with paper towels, peroxide and some bandages. Austin cleaned my cuts and bandaged them in silence. When he was finally done he stood up. "Where are the rest of them?" he asked bluntly.

"Huh?"

"I know you have more so just tell me where they are."

Foolishly, I shook my head. He had already seen so much of one of my weakest moments; I just wanted to be left alone. Austin sighed and started going through the drawers. "What are you doing!?" I exclaimed. He didn't respond, he just continued to search the room. "Stop!"

Austin went over to my bed and out his hand through the pillow case. "Finally," he mumbled under his breath. He grabbed all my razors and put them in his pocket.

"No!" I yelled and got up to protest. I needed those. It sounded stupid but hurting myself was the only way I knew how to deal with all the things I'd been put through. Austin simply pushed me back down on the bed.

"I know what this shit does to you Kellin, and I'm not going to let you do this to yourself." Austin pulled up his sleeve to reveal dozens of white, criss-crossing scars. I had forgotten that Austin use to cut. Seeing all those scars on him made me sad. I had seen other people with marks much like my own on their skin but I never really got over the shock. I sure as hell didn't want Austin to hurt himself, ever. "I know it won't be easy, it never is, but I'm going to help you stop, okay?" The way he said it let me know that I didn't really have a choice. I nodded, trying to hold back the hot tears that were on the verge of falling.

Ten days. It had been ten days since Austin had walked in and took away all my blades. Austin told me he was very proud of me. To be perfectly honest, everyday I wanted to find something sharp, but I really didn't want to disappoint him. I knew that hurting myself was a bad way to deal with how I was feeling; I bounced around from feeling depressed and guilty to too numb to feel anything at all. He was the only person who really believed in me anymore, and if not losing him meant not cutting then I would stay strong.

It had been nice spending time with Austin, but I missed Vic. Our relationship was odd, since you know I couldn't see him, but had I started to care about him. The words 'I love you' were always swirling around in my head. What did he mean by it? I wished that I could still talk to him and feel his arms around me while I cried. No words in the English language could describe how safe I felt knowing that he was following me around and looking out for me. It was a feeling no one else had ever supplied; usually kids felt safe around their parents, but I only ever felt terrified when my father was around.

When the bell finally rang I was relieved. I honestly hated school. Austin met me at my locker cause we were going to walk home together. People tended to give us weird looks when we were together. I don't think anyone quite understood how we became friends. In fact, I wasn't quite sure how we had become friends. The truth was, Austin was just a really nice guy who would be friends with anyone who treated him just as well. We started to cross the road right in front of our school. Austin was talking to Alan about some movie. I liked Alan, but I wasn't sure that he liked me so much. Not that he was ever rude or anything, but I got the feeling that he kind of resented how much time Austin spent with me instead of him. I trudged slowly behind, lost in my thoughts.

As I stared at the ground and the yellow blocks of paint marking where the crosswalk stopped and started on the road I vaguely heard someone scream: "Watch out!"

That was the last thing I heard before the grill of a black truck crushed through my bones and darkness consumed me.