The blood is warm and comforting as in runs into her palm. It's calming, and she sighs contently and leans her forehead against the cool glass of her window. The sun is rising, and it casts her bedroom in an eerie red light; it's red like the blood, but doesn't feel as good.
"Come on, go faster!" she laughs, throwing her arms up in the air. He's panting, and his arms pumping wildly as he propels them down the empty street, illuminated only by the streetlights.
It is long past his curfew, hovering in that place around midnight where it's not morning yet but soon will be. She's a welcome weight in his lap, giggling merrily as the houses fly past them in a blur.
She's happy. They're happy. It's wonderful.
A tear slides down her cheek. When had they stopped being happy? She misses him, and it's all she can do not to cut deeper than she already has. It's all she can do not to dig into herself with the little silver blade she's holding, spilling more blood; because it makes her feel almost like she's wanted again.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, her voice lost in the creeks of the sleeping house. And she is. She's so sorry that it hurts. So she makes another little cut, watching in a morbid fascination as the blood trickles down her arm and joins the rest of it in her palm. She wishes she'd never lied to him.
She sings with him, a harmonic joining of their voices, and it makes her feel elated. The house is silent because his parents are working, but their music fills it up and makes it feel like a home. She hits a sharp note and he falters, laughing. But she doesn't stop singing or hide herself at all; she knows he's joking. She feels accepted. Welcome. Loved.
"From this day on, we're gonna be together," she sings slowly, and a smile spreads to his lips, "Oh I swear this time, I'm never gonna let you go."
There's a noise and she freezes, the blade paused delicately above her chalky, white skin. She holds her breath and can feel her heart beating in her ears like the loudest sound in the universe, and prays that she hasn't woken up her father. She just can't deal with him right now.
A long minute passes and she relaxes, sure it was just the old house shifting in the night. So she nicks herself again, and sighs against the window. This feels so good, so right.
It seems as though one minute they're laughing and having a great time, and then the next, something's wrong. One minute she's got her lips pressed gently against his, and the next she's saying she's sorry and he's staring at her with sad eyes.
"I am too," he says, and there's a bitterness to it she's never heard from him before. "I'm sorry now you get to be normal. I'm gonna be stuck in this chair the rest of my life, and that's not something I can fake."
She feels bad for him as he rolls away, but even worse for herself. She just confessed something she'd hidden from everyone, and now she feels broken. She feels tossed aside and unwanted. She feels hurt, and hopeless, and most importantly, disgusted. She feels disgusted with herself for feeling hurt.
He's the one who's broken, she tells herself, not me. I shouldn't be feeling sorry for myself.
So she goes home alone, and closes herself in her bedroom. She closes the door and hopes no one comes to check on her, but half-hopes that someone will. That someone will stop her.
She digs the blade in again, deeper, and bites her lip so as not to cry out. Her tears are running down her cheeks in a steady stream, and hear heart is aching like it's been torn open.
She does it again and again, and eventually she is so tired that she misses her arm completely and just swipes at the air with the little weapon. Her sobs are silent, but violent, and they shake her exhausted body to the core. She slides off her desk chair and leans against the wall, the pain in her chest so different than the one in her arm.
She pulls her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around them. She cries into the old torn-up jeans she's wearing. She cries and cries, and eventually she is so tired that she falls asleep like that, curled up in a ball on the floor.
When she wakes up she changes her clothes and pulls a black glove over her battle wounds. She won't let anybody see them. She doesn't need their sympathy, or their pity. She goes to school, and sometimes smiles. She never means it.