Jade finds out that her girlfriend cut herself.
Rated T.
Tumblr Request.
ONE SHOT.
I wasn't with her when it started; maybe that's why I didn't notice. I wasn't with her until winter, it got cold, so of course she started wearing long sleeves. She never said anything, I never noticed anything different, and she seemed the same except for the long sleeves and the damn smile getting dimmer and dimmer.
It was a day when the power was out at my house, it was freezing up in my room, even with the doors and windows closed and the pair of us snuggled under a blanket watching DVD's on my laptop. She was laughing, but it was forced mechanical, and always after I laughed. Like the sound had brought her back to the present.
I left to go to the bathroom, paused the movie and took care of my business. When I walked back in Tori was reaching for her glass on my dresser. That's when I saw the pale, jagged line across her wrist. She froze, retracted her hand, and looked at me like a deer in headlights, "Tor…"
"It's an old scar Jade." She told me, dragging her sleeve back down, "please don't ask about it."
"Babe…"
"Jade. No." so I shut up, for now. We finished the movie, and started a new one. She had her arms around me and her attention on the movie. I was holding her hand with mine; slowly I pushed her sleeve up. I knew she'd been lying, and the variously faded marks all up her arm confirmed it for me. She froze; I could see her in the mirrored closet doors.
I ran my thumb over a few of them, some looked new, some looked old, I almost wouldn't notice them without the new ones, but none of them looked like they'd been made in the past two months. I couldn't understand what could make her do that to her, I liked pain, but I'd never been tempted to do anything like this to myself. She looked ashamed, but didn't try to pull her arm away from me.
Starting with the crook of her arm I kissed up her arm to her wrist and finally I kissed her palm and rested my cheek in her hand, turning to look at her. She looked a multitude of things: confused, frightened, scared, I kissed the one on her wrist one more time, "I love you, Tori."
"You're not going to ask me why?" she whispers.
"If you want me to know, tell me, but if you're not ready I'm not going to force you to tell me." I tell her, and lean back against her, lacing my fingers through hers.
"I don't want to die." She tells me, "I just wanted to feel. Something, anything. I couldn't for the longest time, unless I did this. I'd shut my emotions off, I was just going through life, I was so apathetic. I was scared; scared I'd go numb and never feel again."
I don't say anything, and I don't really think she wants me to, but I do pull out of her arms and switch our position, hugging her against me. She reached forward and hit play, holding my arms tight to her chest.