Crimson Fears

I was sitting on my bed, in my room, sitting on my bed, in my room, singing along with my blaring stereo when she walked in. Pain shot through my heart as I realized the malignant crimson stripes of blood already showing on her shirt. My friend had disappeared. In her stead I saw something wretched and evil. A creature, an animal replaced her, and I hated it. The creature’s face reddened with shame, flickered, then disappeared. I was then left holding my friend as she sobbed, “I’m sorry.”



The girl had seen how much she had hurt me by harming herself, but instead of begging for forgiveness, this time she pleaded for me to turn away and cut my losses. I knew why she asked; I knew I was the only thing that bound her here, if only by a thread. Her tears turned hysterical as she exclaimed how much easier my life would be without her, less painful, and how I would worry less if she were gone.



I couldn’t let her go. I could have never let her go.



I stepped back for a moment, for the first time in a long time, to really, honestly look at my friend. Her face and eyes red, and I could see the birth mark above her eye that showed whenever she had been crying was visible. I noticed her trembling. I closed my eyes and saw what she had been only a few months ago, happy, energetic, and full of life. I then saw her as she had been that day, angry, violent, and dark. I knew she fought an internal war with the monster I saw moments ago. She hated it too.



I then peeled back her crimson soaked sleeves, and shuttered. The blood, there was so much blood. Her wrists were covered in scarlet bracelets. My own hands turned red from her sleeves. I wondered how she could do this to herself. How does this help her deal with her pain? Why? Why?



She broke from my embrace. “I’m ok. I’m ok,” she tried to assure me, as well as herself.



“No you’re not, please, you need help.”



She started screaming at me, “I’m fine. I don’t need help back off!”



I saw it was back again the anger, the danger, the madness. She started screaming profanely, and spiraled into an uncontrollable rage. She started running for the door, so I grabbed her and threw her into the recliner.



“Don’t touch me!”



“Please don’t do this, don’t do this!”



I watched as my best friend flew out into the night, slamming the door as she went. I stood by the door all night long and waited, but she never came back.



I was told the next day that my friend was dead. She was found covered in her own blood clutching a razor for dear life; the official cause of death: an overdose on her lithium prescription. It was ruled a suicide, but she didn’t kill herself; the beast she fought within did. The death was reported on the six o’ clock news as a tragic occurrence and was soon forgotten; after all it was just another messed up kid killing herself, nothing new, not uncommon. No one cared, no one that is, except me.

It wasn’t until the following Monday that they held the funeral processions. I completely broke down when they opened the casket and I realized this would be the last time I could ever see me dearest friend’s face. I reached down and touched her cold and lifeless hand, sending chills up my spine. The face was blank and expressionless, no longer the face of the girl I once knew. Her body was unnaturally pale, and too still. I turned my head trying to hold back the tears, unable to bear the sight of my motionless friend.

The death was six months ago, but the day she ran out my door appears in my head as freshly as if it were yesterday. I still see her bleeding when I close my eyes. Every night I dream of her, as she was that night, or of her dead body, face blank and expressionless; her eyes vacant, dull, and lifeless. I finally picture her wrists, covered in crimson ribbons, still bleeding, gushing. I’m drowning in the blood, screaming, dying. I hear her whispering apologetically, and I see her again, as she was, happy, energetic, and full of life. Then I wake up screaming, her voice still ringing in my ears.



I try to remember her as she once was nice little memories of her when we were younger, on a tire swing soaring as high as the birds and the two of us laughing until tears came to our eyes. I try to remember, but somehow when I do, I usually go back to the first day I noticed my friend hurting herself. I confronted her and she tried to lie, but soon she revealed the truth. As I continue to delve through my soul, one word continues to echo in my mind, why. Why did I let her go? Why didn’t I stop her? Was I not enough for her to want to fight, to stay? These questions run through my head over and over again. Sometimes I think she is still alive, and someday will come bounding through the door laughing, like she used to in the beginning, but the truth is she can’t. In my heart she lives on, but in life she is gone, gone forever.