I woke up and the cut wasn't swollen anymore. It didn't sting either. It only hurt if you actually touched around it. I ran my thumb over it a few times just to see how it felt. I didn't understand why I did it though. I kind of liked the pain of it.
Seeing as I quickly choose I didn't want anyone to see it, I looked for a long-sleeved t-shirt. It was summer here, though, so I didn't have one. Fortunately, I brought a sweatshirt in case. I sighed in relief and choose the rest of my clothes. From what it sounded like, no one was awake, so I went to the bathroom and took a quick shower (with the soaps that I brought).
After getting dressed and everything, I went down stairs. It was going to be difficult for me to not act weird or depressed. I'm not too much of an actor. I know it sounds weird, but it's so much easier to fake it when the thought of pleasing my fans was in the back of my mind. When it came to keeping a small secret from my friends, I didn't care as much about doing a good job.
By time I got to the door way I heard that everyone was now awake. I must've spent hours contemplating whether to come down or not. The moment I walked into the kitchen/dining room everyone went quiet. That was the second time that happened so far. And it made me feel really uncomfortable. Ironically, I hated being the center of attention. It was just too confusing trying to understand myself.
"So… Good morning," I said. My strange sleeping schedule translated pretty well to the time zone here. It wasn't perfect, but I managed to fall asleep last night and that was good enough.
"Morning," Mat said. Yup, he's still as clueless as ever. I didn't quite know his thoughts on me though.
"Morning," Preston quietly answered.
I grabbed a bowl and grabbed a box of cereal that was sitting on the counter. I made a bowl of cereal and milk and sat at the end of the table, where no one was sitting. Yup, not suspicious at all, I sarcastically thought to myself.
"Um, Lachlan? You didn't come down for dinner last night," Mitch hesitantly spoke up.
"Oh, I forgot. I wasn't hungry at that time anyway," I answered truthfully. But I am starving now. Mistakes were made.
"So, what's everyone's recording schedules for today?" Vikk said, changing the subject.
And we continued talking with me occasionally speaking. I was just as silent as I was in the Skype call. I realized that it wasn't hard acting happy as long as all saddening topics were strayed away from. But while I was eating there was one second where my sleeve rolled down just enough to see the cut and I swear I saw Preston glance at my wrist. I was pretty sure I was just being paranoid.
But then when I was walking into my room, Preston slid into the room as well.
"Lachlan? Can I talk to you for a second?" Preston asked, closing the door behind him.
"Uh, sure," I answered,
"Well, I'm not sure if I was just my eyes were mixing up your hand and your sweatshirt but I swear I saw something red on your wrist," Preston mumbled.
"You saw something on my wrist?" I said innocently.
God, I was screwed. I'm so pathetic. I actually thought I could at least pull of a day without anyone seeing a small cut. Okay, it wasn't that small, but still. I had a sweatshirt on.
"Yeah. I dunno why I'm being so worried, though… Just, can I see your wrist?" he said.
With a moment's hesitation I stuck out my wrist. But my right wrist. The one that he didn't see under the sleeve. He pulled up my sleeve and looked at my wrist. There was nothing to see on the pale skin of my write arm.
"Oh. Sorry for bothering you," Preston apologized. I could hear in his voice that he didn't quite believe himself. He was sure that there was something, he just didn't realize he was looking in the wrong spot.
Preston left and I sat down at the desk. My heart was racing. There was a high chance that he would ask to see my other arm, but luckily he didn't. It's been less than a day since I actually made the darn thing, so hopefully I can keep going around without anyone noticing.
Then I realized that my keyboard would hit my wrist in the position that I play MC. With the amount of time I record in one day, it would hurt a lot. I couldn't fail my fans though. But what if they somehow find out about it? Like I accidentally imply it or something. That would be bad. Especially for the younger viewers. I'm mentally crossing my fingers.
I was recording an X-Run video with Bodil and Mat. It was literally the most frustrating game ever created. And that's saying a lot because I don't get frustrated as fast as the other guys. I'm not saying I don't get frustrated, but seriously? You can steal a fry from one of them and they will go ape shit. I mean crap. Wait, why do I care? These are my thoughts.
"GODDAMN IT!" Bodil screamed. Mat laughed at Bodil's rage. His laugh was so weird.
"Geez, you're turning into Simon! All you need to do now is break your keyboard," Mat said.
"What, like how you broke your headset?" Bodil retorted, referencing Mat's scare troll video.
"Wait, I'm doing it! I can see the second to last checkpoint!" I yelled. Then I fell on the jump right before the checkpoint.
"I can see you! Oh, wait. Guess not," Bodil said, laughing.
I went silent for a second. Then I screamed and started smashing the desk. Suddenly my wrist hurt a lot. And I mean a lot. I slightly pulled down my sleeve and saw that the cut reopened. It was bleeding again.
"Uh, you okay Lachlan?" Mat asked, getting really close to his mic.
"Um," I said, thinking about what was safe to say. "I'm bleeding… I kinda broke something," I answered truthfully. I broke my skin, technically. Both of them started laughing. "I'm gonna go to the bathroom for a sec…"
I ran to the bathroom and quickly searched around for a band-aid. Since it wasn't my house, I had no clue where to look. Eventually I found some bandages in the cabinet underneath the sink. Hopefully it would be enough for the cut. Who was I kidding, the cut wasn't even that bad. It was bleeding quite a bit though, so I didn't want to cover my very expensive keyboard in blood.
"I'm back!" I yelled into my mic.
"You're a bit late dood, the games over," Mat said.
"What?! I took that long? The recording's over?" I asked.
"You're not that late. We still have one more game to record," Bodil answered. I sighed in relief.
Everyone was asleep again and I was sitting in the bathroom. I avoided everyone as much as I could, even though that defeated the purpose of flying out to another country on the opposite side of the equator. But I didn't have the money to buy a new plane ticket and something deep down made me feel like I could actually repair my friendships.
I had a mirror shard clutched tightly in my hand. I was going to add one more cut. I started scratching the mirror right under the first cut. It got about a quarter as deep as the first one when I started looking for something just a bit sharper. I didn't want a full knife or anything, but the mirror was pretty blunt.
I found a small pair of scissors in a dusty area, so I figured that no one would notice it being gone. The scissors looked like they were made to cut your fingernails, but they were blunt too. They were still sharper than the mirror.
I started scratching at my wrist again. It didn't even feel like there was pain. There was something telling me that I should find something even sharper so I could cut deep enough to end it all. And I wanted to do that, but I couldn't. There were around 400 thousand people that wouldn't have an explanation about my disappearance.
It was kind of confusing as to why I was cutting but I was worried about people caring. It's simple at the same time, though. Fans are different from friends and family in all honesty. The fans don't know me well enough in real life to actually care about it. Sure they'll be sad if I'm dead, but all I ever am to any of them is someone who provides entertainment on the internet. I was never a best friend, boyfriend, or brother to any of them. Like I'd ever end up with a girlfriend though. Or a boyfriend for that matter. I didn't care though. Anyway, even if a fan truly does care, they can't do anything about it.
I looked at the cut and stopped. It was deeper than the first one. It was good, more than satisfactory. And although I didn't want to cut deep, I silently wished that I was brave enough to.