Beyond the Evening Twilight

Chapter 6

      On the seemingly slow ride home, I sat quietly.  I saw my mother’s eyes glance into the rear view mirror.
“Honey, you are so pale.  Do you have a cold?”  I looked from my mother, to my reflection in the mirror.  I was almost as white as paper.
“Nah, I’m fine, I just need to go for a walk when we get back.”  I smiled softly, though I knew something was wrong with me.  We pulled into the small lot behind the apartment building and I climbed out of the car.  As I stepped into the grass, a piercing pain in my stomach caught me off guard and I fell back into the cold siding of the car.  My mother whipped around and looked curiously at me.
“Are you alright?”  I nodded while squinting my eyes.  “Have you eaten today?”
“Yeah…” I lied.  We continued to walk up the lopsided staircase and my mother began to make small talk with me as per usual.
“You know, your father and Dameon called for you earlier.”  I set my jaw but held my tongue.
“Yeah?  What did they want with me?”
“To talk I suppose-“ She trailed off and paused for a moment.  “You know, you really gotta get over everything.”  To that note, I walked off and closed myself in my room, leaving my mother standing alone in the kitchen.  I threw myself down on the bed and pushed the play button on the stereo.  I loudly blared death metal music, which wasn’t hard to drown out noise considering the apartment was so small.  I reached up and pulled the curtains closed on the single window that was the only light source for the small empty room.  The room was now dark, and I reached underneath the notebook on the side table next to the bed and felt cold metal.  I held my hand there for a while and contemplated.  Thoughts flooded my mind.  I did not have a good relationship with my father and brother.  In fact, I was sent to live with my mother, while my brother stayed with all of our friends at my father’s.  I was sent away because in a matter of two years, I had hit the downside of life, hard.  I started doing drugs, drinking, being defiant and failing in school.  Every night was spent arguing with my father or brother, or sometimes both, and I took off a lot.  My parents had become fed up with me, so they sent me here.  Granted, I had a better relationship with my mother, I still resented her for that.  Climbing out of my head, I slid my finger on the metal object and pulled it from beneath the book.  I slid my trench coat from my shoulders and let it fall loosely behind me.  I removed the random bracelets, cuffs, and cloth bands from my arms to reveal my wrists.  Staring slowly from my base of my hand, to just before the crook of my forearm, scars and scabbing wounds could be seen.  The same could be seen for the other arm.  I took the razorblade and slid it slowly across my skin, trembling as I did so.  Tears began to stream down my face as I repeated the process, deeper every time.  I remembered everything from my past and forgot nothing.  It hurt too much to think about it all, but the thoughts kept coming.  Aside from everything else that I had been doing, I had gained an addiction to hurting myself.  I placed the razorblade down on the side table and turned over in my bed, trembling.  The tears ceased and I just lie there for an hour or so, with blood trickling down my skin.  Silently, I cursed myself.