Warning: Blood and reference to Self Harm
Lotus Blood - Age 13
3 a.m.
It took me until midnight to eventually fall asleep, only to wake up hours later. So it was three o'clock in the morning and my blankets were covered in blood.
Thankfully, the blood only coated the edges of my blanket and it could be easily folded over to hide the red substance. I was an idiot for going to bed after the cuts and not wrapping my wounds. As I traced the long horizontal scratches on my palms, I tensed when some blood bubbled up in the freshest one.
Stupid.
My knees throbbed painfully when I fell out of my bed and limped down the hall to the guest bathroom. Once I reached the bathroom, I locked the door with my elbow before dropping to the cold floor. Coiling my fingers, - I hissed and tried to keep the tiled floor devoid of my blood when I attempted to open the cabinets under the sink.
With my head spinning and dizziness clouding my mind, I managed to locate the gauze at the back of the cabinet and unravel a part of the white bandage. I fell backward onto my butt and crossed my legs.
Not too much or they'll notice.
I managed to wrap my palm in the white material, using a safety pin to keep it in place before sliding the bandage wrap back into the container.
I slumped against the cracking wallpaper - trying to muster up the energy to head back to my bedroom to fall back asleep.
You're fine.
Everything is fine.
Fine.
That was a lie. Everything was absolutely awful because when I stepped back into the dark hallway, there, leaning against my door, was Nathan.
"Nice bandages," he smirked and I glanced down at my hands. "What'd you do this time?"
I knew he didn't care if I cut myself. He just cared that he was right.
And he was.
"Shut up."
"What are you gonna do? Cry?" He stood tall and blocked access to my bedroom entirely.
The problem with Nathan was that he was ridiculously tall - a trait he had inherited from our father and the one I despised the most. I was at a mere five foot three like our mother, and I would never measure up to my brother's six-foot frame.
"Shut up Nathan," I warned, stepping back as he followed me back down the hall.
"Guess what, Lotus," a sinister grin painted his lips, "I told grandma you've been cutting."
He didn't.
"Liar." I spat.
"Have fun at your little therapy session," he chuckled and resumed his position against my bedroom door, "I'm sure the shrink will find something wrong with you and send you to a mental hospital." My brother pushed off from the door and began to walk back to his bedroom, "I would recommend you get some rest - you'll have to be up at nine."
"Fuck you." I seethed, turning to face my closed bedroom door. Grimacing in pain, I twisted the doorknob - feeling the raw wounds split open as I contorted my palm.
'I would recommend you get some rest - you'll have to be up at nine.'
I bet he told my grandmother that I liked to be up early, specifically so she would schedule the damn thing at nine in the morning.
Asshole.
Putting my hands straight out in front of me, I gazed at the cream-colored bandages while painfully squeezing my palms - you should've loosened them, Lotus. I mentally cursed myself and itched to remove the bandages just so my hands could breathe - You'll bleed all over your pillows.
So, I laid there in my bed staring up at the peeling ceiling paint as sleep overcame me around five a.m. Even though I had gotten a solid four hours of sleep I knew I would awaken like the dead the next morning.
And I did.
Shit.
The bandages.
They were the only thing I hadn't considered. If I took them off before the session then the therapist would see the cuts on my palms, and if I left the bloody bandages on, it would be even more obvious that I was cutting.
I reluctantly removed the bloody gauze - trying to be as quiet as possible because my brother was still asleep - and threw them in the trash adjacent to the sink. At an agonizingly slow pace, I brushed my teeth and hair and tried to get on some clean clothes to appear presentable.
Maybe, I can trick them into thinking I'm okay.
But you're not.
"Lotus!" My mother's loud voice resonated around the house. Moving downstairs and getting into the car, I decided not to rewrap my hands. So, throughout the car ride, I blew light gusts of air on the slashes almost wishing them to heal before we reached the large industrial building.
"Remember," her cold hands held my cheeks so I would have to stare straight into her eyes, "You tell her I'm the most wonderful mother, okay?" I hesitantly nodded as she patted my cheeks softly and handed me the check I was meant to give my therapist after our session.
"Name?" The receptionist said - a huge smile spread across her face and showcased the tiny dimples near the corners of her mouth.
"Lotus," I mumbled, the receptionist with the nametag 'Amy' looking at me.
"Last name as well?"
"Blood."
With a point of her finger, Amy ushered me down a certain hall and directed me to room one hundred and twenty-one.
The woman sitting in the large plush chair wasn't who I expected to be my therapist, she had her blonde hair tumbling down her shoulders in loose waves. She wore a blue and white polka-dotted flowy shirt and darker blue jeans.
She looks like a kindergarten teacher.
"Hi!" Her outstretched hand was manicured and thin-looking, "I'm Dr. Lily Sanger! And you're Lotus?" I tentatively shook her hand and held my composure when her smooth palms touched my rough ones.
Swallowing, I slowly nodded and she smiled. "That's wonderful! Look at us," Lily winked her blue eyeshadow-coated eye, "with our flower names." That's when her eyes dropped to my hands - I had done a poor job of concealing my palms after we shook hands and I knew she had seen the long cuts.
"Is there anything particular you'd like to talk about?"
YOU ARE READING
Finger Painting
Mystery / Thriller"I WORE THE SMELL OF BLOOD AND DEATH LIKE PERFUME" I may have been angry at my mother and brother - but I was angrier at myself. Angry for the person I knew I was becoming. Drip. "One thousand nine hundred eighty-four." I felt it and I knew I couldn...
