Disclaimer: I do not own The Hardy Boys or any other character appearing in the books; they belong to Simon and Schuster. This is a non profit story.
The Chambers of the Sea
He did it the first time when he was twelve. They had just come back from a particularlydisasterdly dinner at Aunt Gertrude's, and it seemed like the perfect medicine to her especially biting brand of criticism. Of course his mother was horrified when she saw the next morning at breakfast. Then he got wise. When you cut beneath your pant line nobody notices. No questions asked.
Soon It became a daily ritual for him, and his lower torso was littered with cuts, burn marks; the works. He had some particular favourites that he re-cut and re-burnt over and over of course – those were the ones that made him feel the best, though paradoxically scared him the most. Time would eventually erase all traces of his mutilation, save for these few favourites, so deeply engrained in his flesh they reached his very core.
It wouldn't make sense to the uninitiated – he had so much, seemed so happy, so fulfilled in life – but then do depression's targets really always make much sense? Take the stunning and successful real estate agent living in the Tudor Mansion across the way, or the kid who's going places; why do they decide to stop getting out of bed, feel like they're losing control? Feel utterly hopeless?
For Joe, it was lethargic, when someone at school made a flippant remark about what Joe was going to do when his brother moved away to university, taking all his friends with him, Joe headed to the bathroom to purge his disgust. When Frank came home with the news he graduated first in his year, Joe, with his own grades echoing in his ears, muttered "I have to go work on something for school" and headed straight upstairs, his parents wonderment that he my turn out like Frank after all trailing behind him.
Minutes later, Joe was at the sink, frantically trying to cut out the disease that seemed to inhabit him.
Once, he heard himself being compared to his brother – Frank had brown hair and was slimmer – it made Joe feel dirty for days.
By the time Joe got to university himself, he honestly tried to stop. He removed the razors from the room, and purposely left the Swiss Army Knife his father gave him one Christmas on his night table at home; but every so often he would feel that sting of rejection, or hear that voice in his head tormenting him, egging him on, and he'd consent. And initially, he'd feel relief, but then he'd feel such awful shame that reverberated through his body, and, try as he might, it could only be satiated by one thing.
Joe knew he needed help, but Joe couldn't tell anyone. Joe was Guido da Montefeltro, and this was our secret.