I'm so sorry! I actually kinda forgot about this for a little while. Hope this very eventful chapter makes up for it. SORRY!

Ch. 11

I regretted it. As soon as I did it, I regretted it. I watched as the warm, sticky, crimson liquid squirted out of my leg. As soon as the beads broke the surface of the wound they were washed away by the streams of water running down my body, causing a red river to flow down the drain. I watched the river for a while and waited for it to turn back to its normal transparent color. When I stopped bleeding, I stood up and continued my shower.

It wasn't very deep or very wide, but it was a cut, and I wish I hadn't made it. I don't' know why I did. It made sense at the time, right before I did it, but now it just seemed . . . Stupid. That didn't' make sense to me though. I used to do it everyday. I used to rely on it to make it another day in this world. How could it possibly seem stupid now? I don't know, but it did.

I'd managed to not do it until the end of the school week. Amanda still wasn't talking to me even though she and Fred had made up and were even going to the dance tonight after the weekly Friday night football game that was happening right now at this moment. I could imagine them sitting close together on the bleachers cheering for the teenage boys on the field tackling each other for fun. Me, I was getting ready to go to Lena's. I've already told my mom I'm staying the night, and she gave me her permission to go. I would've went even if she hadn't said I could which she would most definitely do if she knew Lena and I were a couple. But she didn't know, and she actually thought it would be good for me to stay with a friend. If only she knew . . .

I got there a little after 8:00. I hadn't seen Lena in almost a week. I'd only talked to her on the phone, so needless to say I was very happy to see her. I forgot all about my stupidity in the shower and greeted her with a big kiss.

"I'm so excited!" She exclaimed. "I rented all the Saws one through six from the video store." she picked up the collector's edition set of the horror DVDs that lay on the coffee table to show me. "We're having an all night Saw marathon."

"Awesome!" I was excited too. We both had a love of the sick, life-lesson teaching series.

"I'll put the first one in, you go make the popcorn."

I reported to the kitchen for popcorn duty. I found some in one of the cabinets, but she had two different kinds. "Do you want butter-flavored or cheese-flavored?" I shouted to the living room, so she could hear me.

"You pick," she shouted back.

I grabbed the box that read 'extra butter'. I'm not a big fan of the cheese-flavored kind myself. I ripped off the plastic of one of the packages then stuck it in the microwave. I grabbed a large bowl out of another cabinet then sat on the counter for the three minutes listening to the pop pop pop of the cornels and watching the bag slowly inflate and spin around in circles. I pulled the still popping, scorching hot bag out by its corners when the incessant, obnoxious beeping of Lena's microwave went off to alert me that our snack was done. I hated her microwave. It's the loudest one I've ever heard, and it beeps about five more times than necessary. I split the bag open by pulling on the opposite corners careful not to burn myself on the steam coming out of it and emptied the warm, fluffy popcorn into the bowl. I took the food into the living room just in time. Lena was just about to press play.

While I love Saw, watching the movies weren't helping me forget my problems with Amanda. I'd completely forgotten that there was a character named Amanda in the first three. Watching them didn't help my trying to forget about my cutting episode earlier either. In the second and third ones Amanda cuts herself. It revived my feelings of disappointment that Lena had made vanish. But even though I was still disappointed with myself for giving in to the temptation and breaking my record of not cutting, I no longer thought that it was a stupid thing to do. Similar to what I wondered only an hour beforehand, I now wondered how it was possible to think something stupid one hour then have a strong impulse to do it an hour later. Why couldn't I make up my mind over whether or not it was bad to do it?

Lena apparently had the same impulse that I had when Amanda cut her wrists with a razor because she asked me, "Doesn't it just make you want to cut?"

"Yeah," I admitted.

"So, are you still not cutting?"

"Yeah," I said then stopped myself. "Well, kind of. I'm trying not to, but I did earlier."

She took my arm and rolled up the sleeve covering it looking for the cut.

"It's on my leg," I informed her.

She let go of my arm and instead of rolling up my sleeve rolled up my pant leg. When she found the cut she ran her first two fingers over it. The action reminded me of my mother. She had done the same thing almost everyday for a week after The Incident to the cuts I had made on my wrists. When Lena was done examining the fresh wound she rolled down my pants leg.

"What was the point of that?" I asked. It seemed so pointless to just look at it for two seconds and then not even say anything about it. I didn't even understand why she had started to search for it at all.

"I don't know." Apparently she didn't even know the answers to those questions.

"My mom does the same thing," I told her for an unknown reason. Her actions were just so similar, I couldn't help but say something about them.

"Because we want to know where you cut."

"Who cares?"

"Me," She said simply.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I care about you."

"Now you even sound like my mom," I joked. She didn't get it.

"Would you rather I not give a shit about you?"

"No." Truth was I'd probably try to kill myself again if she ever said that to me. Only I'd make sure my attempt didn't fail. She's more important to me than Svetlana ever was. I'd have to kill myself if Lena left me. I wouldn't be able to find anyone better than her.

"Exactly," She proved her point. "But you won't have to worry about that because I'd never say it."

"Well, I'd never say it to you either."

She took my face in her hands and kissed me. We made out on the couch for a while, and before I knew it we were headed for her bedroom. Her shirt was off before we even got to the bed. Mine soon followed. I gently laid her down on the bed and began kissing her neck. I slowly worked my way down to her chest. I reached behind her and undid her bra clasp. I pulled it off and tossed it on the ground where our shirts lay. She had no need to take off mine because I wasn't wearing one. I hadn't bothered to put one on after my shower. We began to passionately kiss and fondle each other. My hands eventually traveled down her bare stomach until I reached the hem of her pants. I unhooked the button and unzipped the zipper of them. She arched her back, so I could pull them down. She helped kicked them off from around her ankles, and they too ended up on the floor. I pinned her arms and kissed her, then…

"Stop!" She shouted.

"What's wrong?" I asked urgently. I let go of her arms and stopped straddling her.

She got off the bed and started hyperventilating.

"What's wrong?" I repeated. She was scaring me, and I had no idea what I had done. She shook her head and tried to get her breathing under control. I hugged her from behind. "Breathe. Breathe," I coached. I kept hugging her until her breathing was back to normal. "What's wrong?" I asked much more calmly this time.

"Nothing," She said unconvincingly.

"You can tell me. You can tell me anything." I wanted to know why she was freaking out.

"It's nothing," She insisted.

"Come on," I persisted. "I'm sorry. Just tell me. What did I do?"

"It wasn't you."

This time I could tell she was telling the truth. While I was happy her panic attack wasn't caused by something I had done I still wanted to know what was wrong with her. "Then what's the matter?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Her voice was quivering. "Please, don't make me." Tears started streaming down her face.

There was so much pain in her voice. I didn't ask her again. I wiped away her tears with my fingers and brought her back to the bed. We didn't say anything else. I held her in my arms while we laid down. It wasn't long before she fell asleep, but unlike her I couldn't fall asleep right away. I was thinking about too much, but for once it wasn't about Amanda. I was thinking about what had just happened, whatever it was. I didn't know. I had no clue why she freaked out. I wish she would've just told me. Maybe I could've helped. I fell asleep worried and upset.

When I woke up Lena was no longer in my arms, and her head wasn't resting on my bare chest. Slightly panicked, I looked around her room. I didn't' see her, but I did hear water running in the bathroom. I relaxed and picked up my shirt from the night before and put it on. I went to the kitchen to make breakfast, so it would be ready for Lena when she got out of the shower. I didn't want to burden her with having to help make it. I found a carton of eggs in the fridge and fried us up a couple in a skillet I found, and I made toast to go along with it. In the middle of making it Lena emerged from the bathroom. We told each other good morning, and I asked her if she would take over cooking for a second, so I could use the bathroom even though I had been trying to prevent her from doing just that, so she could relax a little. She said she would and she didn't seem to mind doing so. I quickly did my business and brushed my hair. Luckily, I didn't have too serious a case of bed hair. When I returned to the kitchen breakfast was already set out on the table. I sat down and began to dig in. I popped the yellow blob of my egg and the yolk's liquid began to flood the white of my egg. I looked across the table at Lena. Her hair was still wet from her shower, and it had straightened out some because of it. It was still slightly curly, but it was the straightest I had ever seen it. Her hair wasn't the only thing new I noticed about her. There were four skinny, red lines on her left arm. They hadn't been there last night, but that didn't make them the only new ones, just the newest. Last night I had noticed some cuts on her legs and thighs. Not just scars but cuts, actual scabbed over wounds. It occurred to me that our ranking system in group was way off. We hadn't accounted for scars that were in places that we couldn't show.

We ate breakfast mostly in silence. We made small talk, but that was it. Neither of us mentioned last night.