Small chapter, I know. But I'm back in school and the new restaurant I'm with is about to open Friday, so between the two, I may die. This is also a pretty major chapter, though small. Lots of dialogue, but Jack's story is in here in minor detail. I wish I could tell you guys when I can update next, but I have NO idea. Sorry and thanks for keeping with me!

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Inside Kim's Mind

"Go away, Jack!" I scream, my pocket knife still in my hand, pressed against my wrist. He doesn't look like he's going to leave. I open my mouth to shout but,

"Oh Kim, no," Jack says softly, coming into the room and closing the door behind him. "Please give me the knife, Kim. You don't know what you're doing," he tells me.

"I don't know what I'm doing? Jack, there's not a lot that I'm doing that I do know. I'm not even sure what I said right there made sense." My voice is a lot quieter and I feel a little light headed. I'm not drunk light headed, but enough to appreciate. I didn't cut enough to alleviate this kind of pressure, so I don't know what it is. Exhaustion taking over?

"Kim, are you okay?" Jack asks, coming to sit on the bed next to where I'm laid out. He ways so much more than me. How did he not shift the bed?

"I'm fine," I say, coming back to the question instead of focusing on his odd gracefulness. "How are you?" I ask to try to change the subject.

"We'll talk about me when I'm the one cutting." Okay, no subject change. "Why?"

Straight to the point. Let's see how far we both can take this game. "Because it's the best I have. Adults get to drink, smoke, whatever. But I'm seventeen. Cutting is what I can do."

"Kim, cutting is not an okay coping mechanism." He feels really strong about it.

"What's bad about it if I'm not hurting myself?"

"Not hurting yourself? Cutting is self harm, Kim! You're literally drawing a knife across your skin to draw blood."

"Okay, so it hurts. But… I like the hurt…" I admit, and my eyes shoot down to my feet. I can't believe I just said that. He probably thinks I'm some kind of messed up freak now if he didn't already.

Jack pauses and just looks at me. I can feel his eyes burning through my hair. I wish he would get up and leave. I want my bed to just eat me. With that thought there, I pick myself up long enough to grab my blankets and then cover myself like the child I feel like. Maybe if I do stay like this long enough, he'll get the picture and leave.

"Kim, I can still see you."

"No you can't. I'm invisible." Jack pulls the covers off me and drops them on my floor. He's a persistent son of a bitch at times.

"Kim, we're talking about this. At first I wasn't going to push you, but if you're cutting with the pocket knife I gave you, we can't play anymore waiting games." I forgot Jack gave me this knife. I had sprained my leg last year during gymnastics, so I wasn't able to be 100% at karate, so he gave me it "just in case."

"Here," I say, wiping the knife on my pants and giving it to him. "I can't cut myself with a knife you gave me to protect myself. I'm sorry."

"It's not about the knife. I don't want you to cut at all. It… it broke my heart when you said you like the pain. You don't deserve it. You should never feel like that's your way to feeling better, Kim. It's so fucked up that you think that. You…" Jack sighs and runs a hand through his unreal, thick brunette hair. "We need you to find a way to feel better about yourself. You can't live in this slump. It's wearing you down more and more every day."

"I know. I know it is, Jack," I admit, trying not to shake. I can feel tears forming and that pisses me off even more. I want to punch the wall, break some shit, but it's not my fucking wall. I don't have a wall. I don't have anything but my stupid duffel bag!

"Kim, you need to talk. I can see it in your eyes." Jack cautiously raises a hand but lowers it. I think he wants to touch me, just a supportive hand on my cheek and I want that too so damn bad. But I fucked up. I'm with Brett. Cold, uncaring, unattached, perfect life and perfect family Brett who doesn't know what it's like to not have an apple pie family. I hate him for that, you know? That makes me a bitch, but I don't even think I care right now. Jack has all of that too, but he's an orphan, so he's been through, might be going through the shit now. And if he's not, I can't hate him because… because he's everything I need Brett to be. God I hate my own fucking head!

Tears are rolling down my face as I think of all of this, everything that's wrong with me, everything I want and I can't have because of my stupid choices or some other dummbass's. I knock my head against the wall. I don't know if I'm trying to knock something out of or into me. I want the knife back.

"Kim, stop!" Jack shouts when I start hitting my head harder, the tears streaming down my cheeks and down my neck faster, my nose beginning to run. Jack pulls me into his arms to get me away from the wall. I fall into his chest and I'm uncontrollably sobbing now, the hem of his shirt balled up in my fists. "Nobody wants me. I don't even want me," I fight to get out.

Jack squeezes me tight in his arms, his chin on the crown of my head. I don't know what to say, and I don't think he does either. What is he supposed to say? He's a seventeen year old kid, too. I just all but admitted I'm suicidal. Hell, I might be, I don't even know anymore.

"Kim, just breath. Don't take this the wrong way, but just hold me and just breath," Jack coaches, and I begin to wonder why he knows this. "I… I know how you feel," Jack lets out and I bring my head off his chest, locking my eyes with his turbulent brown ones.

"Jack, please tell me. I feel like I'm alone right now," I find myself begging but I don't even care. I need to hear his story. I know this sounds stupid, but I need to hear a survivor's story. I know people have been through worse, been through exactly what I have been, but I need to hear it from Jack.

"You know I'm an orphan. I don't remember my parents. When you don't know what happened to them or why they left you, your mind starts jumping all over the board as to why you're at some damn home." Jack's voice is bottomed out low and gentle. I can tell this is still hard for him, and it's my turn to hug him. In this scenario, I don't think this hug is scandalous at all.

"What was it like at the orphanage?" I ask to keep the ball rolling when Jack clams up.

"It was actually pretty nice there. I had friends. The lady that ran the place was really sweet, like a mom or an aunt. She taught us how to get along, how to take care of ourselves and each other. We were like a unit, you know? All those girls and boys felt like siblings to me after a while. When I first got there, though, I was little and scared. All those new faces that I didn't know. I didn't want to get picked on or bullied or beat up. I stayed quiet and to myself. For months, trying to stay out of the way."

"That doesn't sound like you at all," I comment, wiping my nose unceremoniously on my sleeve. "You're always in such great moods. I remember how beaming and contagious your smile was when I saw you for the first time in the cafeteria." I can feel a smile stretching my lips, but I would have to force myself not to at the memory. I think I'll just let it take it's course.

"I know. You were, too. That's why I can't take seeing you like this," Jack whispers and our eyes lock again. He's like a tractor beam. I want to pull my eyes away, but it feels like a real struggle just to look away. He finally does and I clear my throat. Jack continues.

"It was like I didn't exist for the first three months I was there. I was a ghost that took up a bed and food, a phantom of a child that looked away when looked at and did his chores without a sigh or a peep." I'm not used to Jack talking like a sad poet. I think that makes this story worse.

"What changed? When did you get noticed?" This is better but at the same time worse than a movie, you know? I'm on the edge of my seat, but I hate that this is Jack.

"When I met Shawn and Juliet. Juliet was a volunteer at the orphanage. It was on one of her days that she noticed me, how quiet and reserved I was. She started talking to me and I opened up to her. She started spending most of her time with me. Occasionally she would bring Shawn, and naturally everybody loved him, but he always made sure I was never left out. I fell in love with them and them with me. They adopted me on my tenth birthday."

"That's wonderful!" Finally the story has a nice turn.

"But…" Shit. "I felt a lot like you do now. When I first moved in, I was like you. I wanted to earn everything they gave me. When I moved in, it felt so different. I still felt like I was in the orphanage, you know? But it was just me. I stopped talking to Shawn and Juliet, but they kept trying with me. I felt like a burden, a sponge like I think you do. I don't know when I stopped feeling like an orphan and started calling them mom and dad."

I don't know what to say. Jack knows exactly how I feel, but he didn't have the option to kick off on his own.

"Kim, get out of wherever your head is. I know that's so much easier said than done. The point of this entire story is that we don't all come from perfect lives, but damn it, Kim, we don't have to stay there." My eyes had dried up until he said that. I throw my arms around him again and I'm sobbing anew. Jack didn't belittle me. He didn't say I did this to myself. He didn't say I'm worthless or I deserve how I feel. He's proof that things can be better for everyone if we just pay it forward.

"Jack, I had no idea you had been through that. Do you still struggle with feeling out of place? I need to know if this is a returning feeling."

"No. I help Shawn and Juliet buy food, I do my chores, I don't pay rent but that's because Juliet won't let me nd makes me put the money into my savings for college. I learned how to work, how to take care of myself and how to be a team player. At the end of the day, Shawn gives me a beer if Juliet's not around because for all intents and purposes, I'm a man. You can do that, too, Kim."

"Will you help me?" I ask, wanting so bad to just be me, to be a person that doesn't need to rely on someone and feel like shit on their shoe for it.

"We told you we would, Kim. Shawn and Juliet really like you. That's why they took you in. They recognize just how much me and you are alike in where we came from. We know that people like us make the best people. Juliet always says that angels are people that fought out of hell." Jack sighs and gently punches my shoulder. I can feel the mood lightening. "But we're still kids, too. We're going to mess up, we're going to occasionally get yelled at. Learn from that, don't cut yourself over it. Juliet's going to preach and then leave it there. She wants you to learn, not feel like shit like I'm guessing your dad wanted. Do you want to talk about that?" Jack offers, scratching the back of his neck. He must know we're getting back into rough territory for me.

"Can we talk about it later, maybe? There's only so much I can do in one day, really. I don't know if you get this way too, but opening up makes me feel like I'm picking up a giant door and holding it open."

"No, I totally get that." Jack looks like he's about to say something else, but there's a knock at the door. Juliet pokes her head in, a sheepish smile on her face and her hair in a ponytail. It was actually Juliet who taught me hair care. It sure wasn't my mom.

"Hey you two. Are you ready for dinner?" Juliet asks quietly, probably having guessed we were in the middle of some real talk. My eyes are probably still red.

"Yeah, I think so," Jack smiles and looks at me like the both of us eating is my call. I want to say no, because we were here, meaning I didn't help. But I can do the dishes and help clean up, so I think I'll actually eat a little. Small steps, right?