Steve sat alone in his darkened room. The only light came through the crack underneath the door. The black surrounding him was comforting and familiar. In the throes of night, he was wide awake while everyone else slept. He turned to his connecting bathroom. Even in the darkness he could make out the silhouette of the object of his desires- his razor. He walked to the bathroom and silently picked it up, taking a blade off. Sitting on his bed, he lifted the leg of his pajama pants and ran the razor across it. He watched the line change to tiny bubbles of red, and began to run. He did it again, along the back of his thighs, savoring the hot flash of pain that crossed him. Then the final touch- he put soap on every cut and gasped in the pleasure of the sharp sting he felt. He wiped the excess blood from his leg, and looked at his dark reflection in the blade. He felt ashamed that he was still doing this at the age of twenty-three, but he couldn't help it. It was his secret addiction since he was fifteen. His legs were covered in white lines- scars that had come from cutting so deep. He couldn't stop, because it was the only way he knew for sure that he was still alive. He recalled the first time he cut himself with stunning clarity, and reflected on it as he stared into the blade.
"Loser!" The catcall came from Alfred Garfield
"Freak!" Came from another place in the hall.
All of a sudden, Ralph Briggs tripped him and sent him sweeping down the sprawling hallway. As he tried to gather his books, a foot crushed his one hand.
"Where do ya think you're going?" Ralph said. What happened after that was a blur of beatings that Steve barely remembered. He did, however, remember walking the mile home on a limp leg on a cloudy gray day. When he finally got back to the shabby apartment complex, he climbed the stairs to the tiny apartment he shared with his mother.
"Momma?" He called. No response. He looked at the clock- it was 4:30- already time for her to go to work. He headed to his room, shut the door, and slumped down against it, silent tears streaking his face, not out of pain, but out of hurt. Every day he went to a school full of snickerers and laughers whose sole purpose was his ruination. They beat him up, played pranks on him, and insulted him to the point that he thought about suicide. He dragged himself up and went to look at his small mirror. He hated his face. He hated his scrawny body. He hated his bad health. He hated himself- so much. In rage, he punched the mirror and it shattered into fragments that landed at his feet. He looked at his now bleeding knuckles in fascination. The blood was so soothing. He picked up a piece of glass and held out his forearm. They all hated him- they made him do this. They all hated him, and now he hated himself too. He put the glass to his arm and ran it across. Watching the blood bead up, he smiled. Finally there was no more pain.
Steve set the blade back in the razor and went back to bed, knowing that this would be all he could think about tomorrow until his next cut.