How do you ignore pain? How do you disregard pain as something insignificant and nonexistent? Is it even possible?

I want to ignore pain.

I want to ignore my pain, not the pain of others.

Because when you ignore the pain of others it makes you an ignorant human being. That's not who I am, not who I want to be. I want to ignore my mental and emotional pain, only because I'm scared that if I let the intense feelings stay...

If I let the intense feelings stay, they might hurt me even more.

I don't want to die. I want to suffer.

If I ignore my pain, then I pay more attention to the pain of others, hurting me...

I want to suffer for and from all the pain I've caused others.

Because I'm a burden. I'm a mistake, I don't even deserve to be here- which is why I'm supposed to die. But I need to suffer first.

Losing an arm wasn't enough, because I became slightly famous for surviving the Kessinger.

I needed to suffer more.

Maybe actually cutting would give me what I needed.

That release.

..

I told myself to do it in the middle of the night, so no one would notice.

I spent the day convincing everyone that I was okay.

I smiled. I laughed. I acted normal, acted like a normal teenage girl.

The way I say it makes me sound like some kind of superhero.

"Normal by day, hero by night."

Normal by day, cutter by night.

I was ready.

I was prepared.

I knew I had to do this.

..

I had only actually cut once before, and accidentally.

But the knife in my hand felt reassuring to me.

Surprisingly my arm didn't shake when I pushed it up against the knife, which I had propped up in between my legs so I could hold it up while I cut.

And with a quick move across the tip of the knife, I had made a cut just above my wrist and started to bleed.

And the bleeding... The blood... The blood that spilled from my arm was blood that didn't hurt. I had cut myself, but it didn't give me the pain I wanted.

So I did it again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Each cut felt better and better, the contrast of the blood with my skin putting me in a hazy awed state.

I had made close to twenty cuts before deciding to stop. Picking up the knife, I shoved it under my bed, next to my rope.

One represented weakness, the other symbolized want. Want for release.

..

I didn't bother covering my wounds in bandages. The only thing I changed was my appearance- I put on a long sleeve shirt to cover the cuts, hoping desperately that no one would notice or think something was wrong.

And it worked.

I went home feeling so happy, and I decided to film my weekly video early, a simple chat about what was going on in life.

..

Apparently I seemed so happy and in such a good mood that Zach asked if we wanted to go out again on another date, and I agreed.

I left my room briefly to brush my hair in my bathroom, and came back to a Zachary Goode sitting on my bed, on his phone.

"You ready?" he asked, looking up with a roguish grin. I nodded and reached up to grab my coat, which was hanging up in my closet.

"Wait..." he whispered, standing up and walking towards me. "What's on your arm?"

"Nothing," I said hurriedly, yanking my coat off the hanger abruptly as my sleeve fell back down. "Let's go."

"No, Cam," he interrupted, stepping even closer so that he had pressed me up against the wall. "I've seen those marks before. I highly doubt they're pen lines."

He knew I penned. How?

"Let me pull your sleeve up."

I shook my head stubbornly, my hair falling in front of my face. "It's nothing. They're nothing. Just lines. Just normal lines. Let's go," I insisted, and Zach pressed his forehead against mine, looking deeper into my eyes.

"Cam. Let. Me. Pull. Up. Your. Sleeve."

I sighed, and let him pull it up.

"What are these?" he asked, but it came out sounding like a statement. He pushed my sleeve up higher and stared at the still healing cuts.

"You cut yourself," he said stubbornly. "You cut yourself. With a knife... Cam, you cut yourself-"

I pulled away abruptly, my sleeve falling back down. Moving away from him, I murmured, "Yeah. I did. So?"

"So?!" He yelled, sounding furious. His voice lowered as he continued. "You cut yourself. With a knife. You're hurting yourself... Why?! Why are you hurting yourself, you have no good reason to-"

"You don't know me," I said softly. "You don't know why I cut. You don't understand. All you can do is sympathize, and there is absolutely no one else out in the world who can empathize with me. Zach I'm no longer alone, I know that now. But I'm lonely. Because when I'm alone, it means I have no one to turn to. And that's not true anymore. But when you're lonely, it means that you no longer have anyone else you can empathize with, and that's what's happening to me!"

I was sobbing now, my arm covering my face.

"All I want is to be understood," I whispered.

Zach sighed, looked around the room, then made a decision. "Let's go out and take a walk. We'll talk along the way."

..

Speaking was apparently overrated, because we were walking for ten minutes before he decided to say something.

"Don't cut anymore."

"Why not?"

"Because you're hurting yourself."

"How can I be hurting myself when I don't even really feel the pain?"

"Cammie," he said, exasperated. "Stop cutting. You don't deserve to suffer."

And when he said that, I stopped walking by his side.

And I ran.

Ran to nowhere in particular, just running.

I needed time alone, with absolutely no one hovering in my presence.

All I needed, all I wanted, was to be able to truly think.

I did finally stop after running down a few blocks or so, making a couple turns here and there until I found myself...

On Kaery.

I sat down on the sidewalk, wondering why my feet had taken me here.

But I ignored the pang of fear in my chest and focused on more current events.

Zach was wrong.

I was supposed to suffer.

And I ran because it would hurt him.

Which would hurt me.

Karma hurts.

Karma gives release.

And on Kaery, I made a list that I spoke aloud to voice my thoughts.

"REASONS WHY I SHOULD SUFFER:

One: I've hurt people, emotionally. I've made them worry.

Two: I'm a bad person.

Three: Don't some people think that people who are depressed are like defective humans...?"

I trailed off and looked to my left to see Zach sitting next to me.

"Yeah. You have hurt people emotionally. You have made them worry. And yeah, there are people out there who think that other people who are depressed are defective. But you are not a bad person."

"If I'm not a bad person, why am I so scared of life, why am I so confused? Why am I always questioning everything even though I know I won't get answers, why am I even depressed? Why am I suicidal? If I'm not a bad person, then why am I hurting people?"

"Bad people hurt the people they care about to benefit themselves. You're hurting the people around you to make your life worse so you can die when you're at your lowest."

He stood up, offered his hand to me to help me up.

..

"Oh, and Cam, not all the questions you ask have to be answered. Sometimes you want to make sure your questions are left unanswered by someone else so you can discover the answer all on your own. Because when you realize something, that realization can basically change your whole view of the rest of the world."

..

I think I just realized something.

Maybe I sort of kind of maybe possibly love Zach Goode.

..

OMIGOSH I JUST LOOKED AT THE LAST TIME I UPDATED AND I INSTANTLY FELT THIS HUGE PANG OF GUILT JUST HIT MY CHEST LIKE A FREIGHT TRAIN, I AM SO SORRY I DON'T UPDATE AS OFTEN AS I USED TO! :'( I HONESTLY HAVE A LOT TO DO AND I FEEL REALLY BAD THAT I HAVE YOU GUYS WAIT A MONTH IN BETWEEN UPDATES... I'm really going to try harder to update more often!

Shout outs go to Guest, immaGOODEgurl, Wait What, Liela54352, Sunniva Steiner, nobody's angel love, hannahslye, lovewords, whalesonjupiter, thebestbooks, and smile-is-the-best-disguise! :) I can't thank you guys enough for being so supportive.

Also, I am debating which character to kill off... Kidding. I'm wondering whether or not I should have someone find the rope under Cammie's bed and who should find it. And I'm at a lack of plot ideas for this story... So I'm sorry if chapters start seeming repetitive or not original... And I have the sequel for this story posted called "Unveiling Imperfect"... I might make this a trilogy? Like the Imperfection trilogy... And I got cover art uploaded... And O2L broke up... And I'm posting this on December 31 so I guess it's sort of early?! Or I might post this on January 1... Yeah I'm probably going to post this on January 1st so I can do a 2015 surprise... Nope uploading it at past 1:40 in the morning... WHAT EVEN IS MY LIFE... And it's like one in the morning... And I'm kind of hungry... And if you have anything you want to happen in Imperfect review what it is or PM it to me... Bye!