Ending of Chapter Two…
"So, you ditching today?" she asks.
"Maybe," I reply.
"When?"
"None of your business."
"Can I come with?"
"No."
"Phoebe!"
"Shut up, Paige."
I'm not in the mood for Paige's peppiness. She thinks I'm so cool ditching and shit, maybe I am I don't really know. But I know that I don't want Paige to be like me. I don't ditch for fun like my friends. I emotionally can't handle school right now. I can't handle the world. I need Grams, but she isn't here so I am on my own.
And I know who I am ditching lunch with.
Just my razors, my blood, scars and me.
Chapter Three
I am sitting out by the tree at the far end of the school yard, just out of the view of prying eyes from the windows of the classrooms. I lean my head against a tree and feel a single tear run down my cheek. How did it come to this? How did the whole damn world become so unfriendly? I remember a time before this, when my sisters and I were a family, when Prue wasn't a 21 year old with a career. When Piper wasn't working at a restaurant fulltime instead of going to college. When Paige and I could hang out in our room and have movie nights, staying up extra late and raiding the cupboard for midnight snacks. When Grams would cook supper, a huge feast for the four of her granddaughters and we would all sit at the table and talk about old memories of Mom and Dad and then we'd play board games until the wee hours of the morning.
Nothing felt better than that, being with the ones I loved. But it Grams held together the seams in our family quilt and without her we were just a bunch of ragged patchwork, not fitting in anywhere. Paige and I are still close, yeah, but not as close as we used to be, when we were each other's best friends. Now she just seems immature and a suck up. I think she sticks to me the most though because we've always been the closest. Same goes for Piper and Prue. They have always been close, maybe even closer than Paige and I. Piper puts up with Prue's temper and Prue loves Piper a lot. But the thing is, I don't think Prue has to worry about Piper the way she has to worry about Paige and I. Piper's an adult and can handle herself. To Prue, Paige and I are just two out of control, off the handle teenagers who need a parent and not a sister.
It's the other way around. I love Prue, always admired her and looked up to her, she seemed to know everything and she was my world. But when she turned into my parent, things fell apart and all that was left of her when she was around me…and still is…is a stone cold face full of disappointment in who I have become. The drugs, and drinking and sneaking out, I don't do them to be 'badass' or to get a reputation like Prue might think. They just…they help me forget, forget about all the bad in this world. It closes the curtain to reality so I am living in my own little bubble and I can forget.
Piper tries to understand, tries to be the peacemaker. Before she was the one I would always go to with advice, but I don't want to burden her with my problems when she has enough of her own. I know she was devastated about dropping out of college and finding a job and moving back into the manor to help Prue look after us and pay the bills. No one told her to, but that's just Piper, she always puts others before her. Though I don't think she should have given up school. Not for us.
So maybe all this bullshit I have running around my head in crazy circles is the reason I cut that one time in the bathroom, the reason Arianna's 'advice' seemed so appealing to me. And now, as I hold the razor to my arm, beaming in the light of the sun, I hesitate. Is it worth it?
Relief now, but later, when I go home and have to face the harsh reality I now call my life?
But that's later, and right now the pain and the worries and the stress and the deep yearning for Grams that is screaming out in my chest…the cutting will silence that. And for a few seconds of peace, the blood and the scars are worth it.
I take a deep breath, raise the razor above my skin and come down on my arm, slicing through the skin like butter. White hot pain flashes in front of my eyes and then I breathe, sighing deep to myself and I close my eyes, forgetting the day. And I fall asleep, leaning against the tree, my arm oozing bits of pain from my body onto the now speckled grass and the razor tucked safely under my leg, like it was never even there in the first place.
