The blade made a shallow yet satisfying initial scratch across my upper thigh, leaving a trail of tiny crimson beads rising to the surface. The next cut, just below the first and exactly the same length, was deeper. I took a ragged breath and gave in to the searing pain before the rush of endorphins took over. My knees were bent and blood trickled down my thigh now, each drop splattering into the empty white bathtub like paint on a blank canvas. I'd long since learned the bathtub was the best place for this. Much better than scrubbing blood off floors or out of linens. Thoughts of the current case started to press in and I silenced them with the blade, dragging it slowly across my flesh for the third time. I ran my finger across each of the lines, blood smearing beneath my touch. I inhaled slowly, deeply, and then exhaled – fear and frustration and anger and sadness all escaping in the warm, sticky blood.
My thoughts drifted to the first time I'd cut myself. It had been six short weeks since Rosalyn had committed suicide and the very thought of cutting should have been repulsive to me. Would you drive on the same road you'd just witnessed a fatal crash? Through a blur of tears I'd fumbled with the blade, the remaining pieces of the disposable razor scattered on the floor by my feet. I was unsure where to begin on my canvas of virgin flesh and this indescribable need I was giving in to hadn't come with an instruction manual. Once those first cuts were made though, a series of neat lines on my inner arm, the relief I'd felt was instantaneous and undeniable. The bite of the razor and the shocking red trails it left were proof I was alive and the sadness that had threatened to swallow me just moments before was now buried beneath a beautiful numbness.
I carried my secret to college and later to the FBI Academy but rarely needed it. Even now it was infrequent but irreplaceable. I could recall each time I'd done it since joining the BAU. Exactly sixteen times in five years. The first was after my second case with the unit. I'd held a press conference at Hotch's request but inadvertently shared information with the press that tipped off the unsub and allowed him to elude us for another 3 days, giving him opportunity to murder another victim. The next was the night Reid had been rescued after the Tobias Henkel case. The guilt I carried for my role in his kidnapping and the torture he'd endured enveloped me like a fog, thick and blinding. It was only when we'd gotten back to our hotel the night of his rescue and I'd pulled the little black case out of my go-bag – the one with the scalpels, gauze, and bandaging tape – and brought the cool metal to my skin that I could feel my heart pound and my thoughts began to slow.
I was meticulous and controlled, even in this act of rebellion against my own physical body, and no one had ever known. Since that first night in my childhood bedroom I'd learned there were better places to cut, places that wouldn't require excuses and explanations, and my upper thighs became my location of choice. Early on, once the high of release began to wear off, I'd feel panicked. Knowing others would see this aberrant behavior as something more than it was – a coping mechanism, a cleansing, if you will – and judge me for it. Shame me. My own parents, still reeling from Rosalyn's suicide and hyperaware of my own moods and actions, would have been the most likely but I'd successfully hid it from them. College brought the threat of losing my athletic scholarship; the Academy carried the threat of being ejected, and thus derailing all future plans, for "mental instability;" and then there was my current position with the BAU. I was particularly proud of the way I'd kept it from those closest to me – this surrogate family of mine who analyzed behavior and expressions and words for a living. In an odd circular way, cutting helped me maintain the façade that would keep my team from ever knowing I self-harmed.
Setting the scalpel on the edge of the bathtub, I turned the shower on and jumped when the frigid water hit my skin. As the water warmed I began to relax again and turned to face the spray, allowing it to run over my thighs. Blood ran down my legs, diluted to a rusty pink before swirling down the drain. I lathered a washcloth with soap and hissed as I lightly pressed it to the wounds, but even that pain was in its own way satisfying. A reminder of what I'd just done.
I toweled off and slipped into a bra and underwear, cursing to myself as a trickle of blood ran down my left leg. I'd gone a bit deeper than I'd intended on that one. I shouldn't need stitches, god, what a fuck up that would be, but this was going to leave a thick scar by the time it healed. Another pale ridge across my thigh, just like the others. Some might see them as a sign of weakness, but saw them as testament to my survival.
I took a few squares of gauze from my kit, doubled them over, and taped them down firmly with bandaging tape. That would have to do for now. I finished dressing and coiled my damp hair into a high, loose bun. I was startled to see Emily reclined on one of the beds when I exited the bathroom and averted my eyes as I dropped my dirty clothes, the little black kit tucked inside, into a pile on the floor next to my go-bag. I hadn't expected to see her back so soon and didn't trust my facial not to give me away.
"Hey. You're jumpy - you alright? How's your headache?" Emily's face was passive but there was an unmistakable hint of concern in her voice. Brave, cool, collected Emily, who revealed so little of herself to the rest of us. She was curled up with the TV playing a reality show about affluent women living in New York. That woman never failed to amuse me.
"It's just this case, you know?" I lied. "We've been two steps behind this guy and I'm just frustrated I guess." While the latter part was true, it was also a pretty routine scenario with this job and not at all what had led me to feign a headache and return to the hotel room before the others today.
"I get it. And we'll get him, JJ. We almost always do," she reassured. It was obvious Emily didn't quite believe me but she was gracious enough to drop it for the time being. The unwritten BAU code of not profiling each other was in play.
Months passed, cases were solved, and life went on as usual. Until one morning when it didn't.