She looked at her wrist as she watched the trails of blood slip down them. The paper thin cuts extended from her wrists across her forearms. She was aware of what she was doing, but it helped her. It made her feel again when she thought there was no hope.
"Self harm is an addiction. It releases endorphins in the brain that leave us feeling high for fifteen to twenty minutes. The belief from the self harmer is that if they can hurt themselves then when someone else hurts them it won't hurt as much. Other reasons they may hurt themselves is because they're lonely, want to feel in control, feel the need to punish themselves, to distract themselves, they may be unable to tolerate their feelings, they want to release tension, they feel overwhelmed, or just because they want to feel," she remembered her teacher say.
The worst part was the comments that came next.
"People who cut are just looking for attention. They're freaks."
"Why would you want to do that...?"
And so on.
They didn't understand it. No one ever did. There was such a huge stigma behind it that she couldn't even tell her closest friends in fear they'd abandon her like her mother and father. Charlie was a young girl, sixteen to be exact. She was tall with slim legs and long curly blonde hair. Her best quality was her eyes though. They were a magnificent greyish blue, the color of the sky after it snows. Charlie had a lot of friends, but in this case it was more quantity than quality. There was a lot of drama between them, but her group of friends still ran the school. They were the popular kids.
The next day when Charlie got to school she joined her clique. She was wearing a cute grey and purple sweater to cover her mistake from the night before. She hated hiding fresh cuts because every time she moved she could feel the skin stretch and clothes snag onto them, and then the searing pain would spread throughout her body. Charlie could feel herself being watched. She looked around at her friends to see if they were expecting an answer from her; they weren't. Charlie subconsciously pushed up her sleeves, forgetting about the cuts.
"What happened to your arm Charlie?" her friend, Maddie, asked.
Charlie tugged down her sleeves again.
Dammit. Be more careful you idiot, Charlie thought.
"It was the cat," she lied.
"You don't have a cat...." Maddie trailed off. She averted her eyes.
"What are you looking at, freak?" Jordan yelled at some weird goth looking kid. He was always staring at them. Charlie didn't know why Jordan even bothered with him anymore; he was usually staring at Charlie anyways.
They met eyes and he stood there looking at her for a minute. There was something about him that Charlie couldn't help but feel like he knew her.
"Get lost. No one likes emo kids like you," Jordan spat at him.
He shook his head and turned to leave but not before he caught one last glimpse of Charlie.
"I think he's planning to kill me," Charlie whispered to her friends with a grin.
"Yeah he for sure is an axe murderer."
They all laughed but were interrupted when the bell rang.
"I'll catch you guys later," Charlie waved goodbye.
"Bye!" they said in unison and walked off in the other direction.
Charlie saw the boy they had been making fun of a few minutes previous. He was trying to get food out of the vending machine. There was something strange about him, but she couldn't place what. He looked at her as she passed. He was a very serious young man. He had black hair that covered his eyes and he wore ripped dirty clothes. He was seventeen, tall, and skinny. He had no friends and was targeted by most people for being different. He was struggling to get the vending machine to take his money. He kept pushing in his crinkled dollar bill, but the machine kept spitting it back out at him. He didn't notice the principle walk up behind him.
